Literary Journalists have spent lots of time researching different characters in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and have focused primarily on Willy Loman, since he is the most complex character in the play. There have been many different theories about the relationship between him and the other characters of the play. Certain Journalists have gone beyond that point and have compared him with other characters. These comparisons allow the reader to see Willy from a different perspective, which also allows the reader to understand the position of Willy Loman. D. L. Hoeveler has explained Willy's standpoint to the other characters in Death of a Salesman as Psychomachia. From Milkman to Salesman: Glimpses of the Galut by Dan Vogel compares Willy to Tevye, another fictional character, while John S. Shockley has proved that Willy "shares a number of important traits with the most successful American politician of the late twentieth century, Ronald Reagan" (quote). All of these authors have tried to show and explain Willy Loman in a different perspective by comparing him to other characters.

If one wants to understand a character in any sort of literature it is necessa

To believe the American dream and live by it both men had to deny certain facts. Willy tried very hard to still believe that his sons were not failures and that he was also not failing as a salesman. He just had to deny these facts. Linda constantly gets to hear lies from Willy about how popular he is and how much money he is making. Ronald Reagan who grew up with an alcoholic father who had failed to achieve success. "As Willy loved telling jokes to highlight his personality, Reagan loved entertaining others" (quote). The denial of unpleasant facts continued throughout Reagan's whole life. These denials had a bigger effect on Willy because he was not as successful as Reagan.

ry to look at the other people who he/she has contact with. Hoeveler has analyzed Willy by looking at the other characters and has shown how they are affected by him during the play. According to Hoeveler, Willy "has forced his family to play the parts that he has designed for them. They are all characters in a dream, Willy's dream of reality" (634). All the characters in the play represent a certain trait, just as in the play Everyman, written in the late 15th century. The reader is shown that the individual characters "represent aspects of" Willy's "splintered mind" (632). Linda is

Vogel, Dan. "From Milkman to Salesman: Glimpses of the Galut." Studies in American Jewish Literature 10 (1991): 172-178.

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Approximate Word count = 1625
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)