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I read this play last week, and, while I found it did a good job portraying the lives of what I call "schnooks" I just couldn't sympathize with Willy Loman. In my English class we're discussing whether or not the play is a tragedy. In my opinion, it isn't because the guy has absolutely nothing good about him: He's a rotten, egotistic guy who cheats on his wife and threatens to beat his son when he's caught.
A tragedy doesn't have to be about a good upstanding pillar of the comunity.
I am reading that play in English right now. i hate Willy. He is a real basterd. All he dose is use and abuse, and because his life is so pathetic he feels he must show off at home so he doesn't feel so pathetic. His death was not a loss.
Maybe the tragedy was the way that he lived his life rather than his death. Personally I havn't read it, so if I'm on the wrong track here someone feel free to shoot me down, but isn't the play about the American Dream and about how every kid thinks that they're going to have a super wonderful life and be an astronaut or a president or somthing, and instead Willy ends up being like a crotchety old bastard? Again I havn't read it, but from what I've heard, the tragedy would be his life rather than his death.
Well said, it is also tragic that he had to bring kids into the world. Happy is about as ****ed up as willy. They are both horrible people.
Has anyone read Death of a Salesman? I have to Analyze the character "Linda Loman"...can anyone help me with this?
Hello! I've read Death of a Salesman and I have to confess that I didn't like it. But I did have to do a Book Report about it.
Here's my analysis of Linda Loman:
Linda Loman is Willy's wife and Biff and Happy's mother. She's described as a "jovial person". Although Linda is not physically described as deeply as other characters, her internal description is what makes her an important character. She's the support of the family and the only one that can handle and understand Willy: "...she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy's behavior". She loves her sons and even more Willy: "...she more than loves him, she admires him...", "He's the dearest man in the world to me, and I won't have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue". Linda is a very loving, humble and she's there where help pr aid is needed; she can be considered "the perfect mother". Despite all her great characteristics, Willy had an affair which Linda never knew. As we can see, she's the typical woman from the 50's.
Well, that's what I wrote about her. I recommend that you first read the book and also understand Willy first in order to understand Linda.
After reading all the negative feedback about Willy, i feel like i should throw in my bit, and stick up for the poor guy. While he is a weak and insavory character, he does not mean to be. And Biff failure could be that he does not wish to work for the American Dream. He wants to work with his hands (Willy was good with his hands too) and that does not work in capitolist society.
Willy tried his best with his sons. He thought that the best way to succeed was to be liked, and to aim high. And up to the Boston trip, Biff was all set for success. And even though he ignored Happy, Happy still wants to make his dad proud, and even vows to avenge his death as it were in the job market. It strikes me that Willy loved his sons completly, and did not intentionally make their lives difficult.
And sa for Willys mental health, and work ability, it is more if the American Dream and the capitolist system that scwres his up. The dream say if you work hard you reap rewards. But Willy can not even afford all the payments on his salery, and was working for less money when he was fired then when he started out. He is explioted.
I could go on and on, but since i dout anyone will this i wont. But Willy is not a great man, but neither is he a bad man, and if he had a different job, or lived somewhere else, the whole waste of his death could be avoided, and the whole family could have been happy.
Well said Akutenshi, thanks for sticking up for him. Life has beat him up. He wants his kid, Biff, to be a college football star. He is unkind to Bernard. And, as I recall, a neighbor offers him a job; but he is too proud to accept it (another foible). He regrets that he's a modest salesman, if even that. No pension back in those days, no social security. He works 6-7 days a week, and as I recall the last payment on the mortgage just went in and they now own the house. Linda does care about him even while probably suspecting or knowing his shenanigans, but forgives him. Boston is a blot, so he probably carries around a lot of guilt, esp. when dealing face-to-face with Biff. His dreams and expectations and ideals from youth have not come to fruition and he is morose. But this piling-on of tribulation is upon a good souled person. He's not villanous or even very mean. He bounced around by life and feels he has no control in society, or over his fate if he mumbles about it. Late in the play, he goes over in memory the "good ole' days". He's a person to be pitied.
Also compare another guy who we all like: Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners. True, he has no Boston, plus we see his devotion to Alice, but we also see a dreamer and a person stuck in an economic bind; a person who wants more out of life but everything goes amuck. Luckily, he has a sense of humor about life's ups and downs. We don't see much humor in Willie.
Willie never knew his father while his brother is a cut throat businessman (just look at the way he almost pokes out Biff's eye with his umbrella in a pretend fight and then tells him not to be sentimental about anything) who probably made his fortune by exploiting others. Willie didn't go down the path of the heartless crook of a businessman like Rockefeller, he raised a family with a woman he sincerely loved once upon a time and still does in a way, while he does the best being a father to his sons despite never having had any advice or experience to show him the way to do it. He stays with his family too. He cheats on his wife but he stays with her, he doesn't leave her with the boys to fend for themselves which he very easily could have done, but he stays and he makes sure they have what they need. He gets a house, a car, he sees his sons through school and does his best- what more could anyone ask of their father? Maybe he wasn't the best but few men are and at least Willie Loman could say that he tried. He stuck around and he tried.
He got his ideals all wrong perhaps but I think Miller was saying that this is what American society does, it fosters a competitiveness in honest people that isn't natural and turns them into vicious, cynical, lonely people, like Willie.
This has been pointed out by previous posters and by one I think called IWilKikU who hasn't even read the play so I don't know how he found it out but yes this is about the tragedy of the American Dream seen in an ordinary man who was deep down a wonderful man; it was the false ideals and money-driven work that made him the confused, sad, crazy, bitter old man he became.
The tragedy of the play is in the fact Willy's world revolves around how he has to be successful. His world revolves around his success, which culminates in his downfall - therein supposedly lies the tragedy.
Mother Theresa said, "We are not here to be successful. We are here to be faithful." But then, that's Mother Theresa for you.
Mother Theresa was a great Woman.
And she has a good point, Earthly pursuits are not what life is about, but the faith and servitude we offer to God
Hi,
I have to write about if Willy Loman fits the definition of a tragic hero. What is Willy Loman's tragic flaw? How has the Great Chain of Being been restored in the play?
Any help would be appreciated.
first he finds his neighbors trampeline,tries it out,breaks his leg,then gets bitten by
a rapid dog,some cruel gang members run up on him dowsing him with gas
then sets him on fire,if thats not enough,when he tries
to call for help,his celphone gets a rash..oh i'm sorry thats another movie.