death of a salesman

A detailed Summary of death of a salesman

The deep probing of Willy Loman's dreams and memories in Death of A Salesman where quite important in illustrating Miller's point. Willy is a man stuck in the past. His favorite pastime is reminiscing about times when things where good. Who even knows if those times really were as good as he imagines them to be? Like his inflated dreams of the future, the past may well be embellished by Willy's wild imagination. It seems that, to Willy, everything that has to do with his life in the present is all wrong and that there was a time when things were right.

As Willy is getting older, he is having a harder time accepting that all his dreams will not come true. Every little detail that does not go his way is another tragedy to add to his list. Willy dreams up the way wants things to be and it is the end of his world when it does not work out for him. He spends his present either daydreaming about how the future should be, or how great the past was. A good example of his reminiscing is the football game that Biff played in high school. To Willy, that was Biff in his prime. He is proud of Biff for that one moment in a football game, but ashamed of everything else about him. It seems that he only supported Biff when he was a p

opular football captain in high school, but not in his hard times when he really needed support. Willy likes to think that Biff is not allowing them to have a close relationship. What Willy fails to see is that he is being phony by supporting Biff based on his popularity and not on his love for his son. This explains Biff giving up his future with football and college. Once he realized that Willy was supporting him for all the wrong reasons, he had no reason to go on trying to please him. Willy takes a selfish approach to his son's behavior. He feels that his son is just trying to ruin his dreams of having a son who is a star football player at a good college just to spite him. He is so wrapped up in what he has dreamt up for his son's future that he fails to be sensitive to what Biff wants in any way.

Willy's inability to let go of his dreams caused him and his family a lot of hardship. His high expectations were never met and in turn he was always upset about the way things turned out. His relationship with Biff deteriorated when Biff decided to live his own life instead of Willy's dream. Willy's ignorance of other people's ideas and dreams made him a difficult man to deal with. Willy Loman is an insensitive, stubborn man that was so wrapped up in his dreams that he was oblivious to what was happening outside of his head.

The future never works out for Willy because his dreams are unrealistic and not everything goes the way he wants it to. Not to mention that he ha

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1008
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English