"DEATH OF A SALESMAN" (ARTHUR MILLER).   Term Paper ID:20791 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Explores relationship between father Willy Loman and son Biff and their contrasting views on Amer. Dream.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Explores relationship between father Willy Loman and son Biff and their contrasting views on Amer. Dream. Paper Introduction: This study will explore the relationship between the father Willy Loman and his son Biff in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Specifically, the study will argue that Willy and Biff stand diametrically opposed to one another with respect to their views of the American Dream. Willy is a broken man who refuses to see that his blind seeking of that Dream has broken him, and Biff is the realist who accepts his own and his father's failure to bring that Dream to fruition. There is friction between Biff and Willy from the beginning of the play to the end. Talking with his younger brother Happy, Biff says, "Why does Dad mock me all the time? . . . Everything I say there's a twist of mockery on his face. I can't get near him." Willy both loves and hates Biff because Biff was Willy's Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens.[5] Again, Biff knows that he rejects his father's way of life and hisfather's expectations for him, but he does not really know who he himselfis. There was respect, and comradeship, andgratitude in it. . [6]Ibid., 81. When hefinally accepts that his father is a fake and that he himself can neverlive up to his father's expectations, Biff resorts to complete deprecationof himself and his desperate father Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? [7]Ibid., 132. . [15]Ibid., 236.----------------------- 1 . The boy's tortured efforts to explain his own true little destiny can only crack open the years-long rift, and the salesman, with all his dream's lost shadows, has no alternative to death for his peace.[1 ] If Hawkins is blaming Biff for Willy's death, he fails to understandWilly's tragedy. . . . He always, always wiped thefloor with you. Talking with his younger brother Happy, Biff says, "Whydoes Dad mock me all the time? [2]Ibid., 121. . [4]Ibid., 138. Biff tries to live up to his father's requirements for success, but hisheart is never really in it. . Everything I say there's a twist ofmockery on his face. Other critics have called the play an anti-capitalist tract, but Gassner says this economic or political aspect is a subordinate part of the story, the main feature of which is the struggle between Willy and his son Biff, so that the pathos of failure is pitched higher than the sociological level. I'm just what I am, that's all. . . . . He kills himself not because he has failed his son but becauseBiff has taken from him his last illusion about himself. Biff responds: "Don't touch me, you---liar!" Willy tellshim to apologize and Biff says "You fake! . John Gassner recognizes the depth of the relationship between Biffand Willy and sees that it goes beyond the simply social or psychologicalanalysis Beyer tries to provide. . He is not dedicated to the American Dream as Willyis. When he'd come home from a trip; or on Sundays, making the stoop; finishing the cellar; putting on the new porch; when he built the extra bathroom; and put up the garage. . Willy does not seek success for his son which would behis son's success; instead he seeks his own success vicariously through hisson, and he does not know or care that he has almost destroyed Biff in theprocess. The love he seeks from hisson is false because Willy does not know himself or his son deeply enoughto love or be loved. . To reduce thisrelationship's agony to "neurosis" and "social maladjustment" is to try tocategorize with the mind what the heart can barely stand to witness. . The man didn't know whohe was."[4] Biff might believe he knows who he is more than his father knows whohe is, but all Biff really knows is that he is not his father. . With indulgent adoration he unbalances the boy, demanding a mutual idolatry which he himself inevitably fails. Youfake!"[2] Willy and Biff play at being father and son for much of the play, butwhen Biff can take the pretense no longer the relationship is exposed forthe sham which it is. Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. You know something, Charley, there's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made.[12] William Beyer in his review of the play in the Viking edition writesthat "obviously a neurotic love between father and son is the basis ofBiff's social maladjustment, for, since he worships and seeks to emulatehis father, he, too, never matures and so gambles of false illusions."[13]This is a superficial reading of the play, for it fails to appreciate thestruggle Biff had to go through in order to reach the beginning of hisawakening to freedom from his father's nightmare. . He never knew who he was. I can't get near him."[1] Willy both loves and hates Biff because Biff was Willy's hope for avicarious success in life, but Biff has let him down. . [1 ]Ibid., 2 3. [14]Ibid., 235-236. There's no spite in it any more. consuming passion.[14] Gassner overdoes his praise for Willy as a "father-hero" and "amonolithic figure of some tragic dimension."[15] Willy does not have theawareness to qualify as such a tragic figure. [5]Ibid., 132-133. . I saw the things that I love in this world.The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke."[11] Biff evenrecognizes in retrospect that his father was capable of such a simpleappreciation of life, even if he was not aware of that capacity. . . Pop! I'm nothing, Pop. [12]Ibid., 138. Willy, who is otherwise so unimpressive, is translated into a father for whom the love and success of his favorite son Biff is a . [11]Ibid., 132. When Biff sees that he is about to lose Willy, hedoes run after his, calling "Pop!"[3], but it is reaching out which shouldnot be seen as a sign of a breakthrough in the relationship in anysignificant way. . . Today, it's all cut and dried."[6] Willy took on hisfather's life, but Willy's son Biff rejects Willy's values, and Willysimply cannot fathom what is happening to his life. . . Biff is Willy's sonin that Willy has taught him the values of the salesman in the kingdom ofcapitalism, but Biff is a traitor to Willy's values because he does notreally believe in them. If there is any doubt of this, it is removed in the Requiem, whenBiff makes clear that, at best, he pities Willy: "He had the wrong dreams.All, all wrong. . . Willymeasured happiness in terms of a material success which would always bejust out of reach. I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're not going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! . This study will explore the relationship between the father WillyLoman and his son Biff in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.Specifically, the study will argue that Willy and Biff stand diametricallyopposed to one another with respect to their views of the American Dream.Willy is a broken man who refuses to see that his blind seeking of thatDream has broken him, and Biff is the realist who accepts his own and hisfather's failure to bring that Dream to fruition. New York:Penguin, 1977.----------------------- [1]Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (New York: Penguin, 1977), 21. Biff recognizes thisand tries to tell his utterly lost father: "I stopped in the middle of thatbuilding and I saw---the sky. in the end, after repeated failure, Biff sees the truth, too late to really penetrate his father's mind. . . BibliographyMiller, Arthur. Miller had the wisdom to justify our concern with his blatant hero by making the wheel of the drama revolve around the one attribute that makes Willy extraordinary without being flagrantly atypical. [8]Ibid., 55. [3]Ibid., 136. . . I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you! He might find out some day, but all he knows in the play is that hisfather has wasted his life and that he will certainly no longer try tofollow that same disastrous path. . There is friction between Biff and Willy from the beginning of theplay to the end. He would never have been happy living the life he led,for he was not doing what he wanted to do, bit instead was doing what hisfather wanted him to do. . I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. He also hates Willy because of the abuse that hehas heaped on those he supposedly loved, such as Linda, Willy's wife. Never had an ounce of respect for you."[8] Miller himself sees the relationship between father and son as markedby a disaster on one hand and an awakening on the other hand: "I am sorrythe self-realization of the older son, Biff, is not a weightiercounterbalance to Willy's disaster in the audience mind."[9] As William Hawkins writes in his essay "Death of a Salesman: PowerfulTragedy" in the ~Criticism" section of the Viking edition of the play, Through most of [Willy's] career runs the insistent legacy of "amounting to something" on his adopted terms, which he forces on his favorite son [Biff]. Biff has thrown off such a yoke, and has begun tosee that life is worth living not by being a big man, a successfulcapitalist, but by enjoying the little things in life. You phony little fake! Biff has just begun to understand life, as Willy never did. pop, I'm nothing! Willy has tried to live up to the fantasy of his father,and tried to get Biff to live up to his fantasy, has failed on both counts,and is entirely responsible for his own life and death, just as Biff isresponsible, finally, for his own life and death. . Biff and Willy's relationship was also torn by Biff's discovery ofWilly's infidelity. Willy's father was a salesman and Willy tried all his life to live upto the expectations which his father left him as a legacy and a burden.Willy bemoans the fact that "In those days [i.e., the days of his father]there was personality in it. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! When Biff finally comesclean with respect to how much contempt he has for Willy, Willy barks, "Youvengeful, spiteful mut!"[7] It is not simply that Biff hates his father because he followed anempty dream to disaster. Biff rages at Willy for giving the woman "Mama'sstockings." Willy responds by telling Biff that he gave him an order---toget Willy's suits. Biff saysof his father: There were a lot of nice days. Biffsays to Linda: "Stop making excuses for him! Biff finally sees that he pities his father,even hates him in a sense, because Willy's life is so thoroughly false.Willy, on the other hand, hates Biff because he sees in his son areflection of his own failure. [9]Ibid., 149. [13]Ibid., 228-229. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.