Death of a Salesman is a classic play about the collapse of the American dream and the collapse of family values. The work of the famous American author Arthur Miller has always focused not on feelings but on the rationality of thinking. This play, written in two acts, tells the story of a traveling salesman Willy Lomen who cannot successfully arrange his life and the lives of his family members. He and his sons do not manage to live a whole life, they cannot earn, and all the time, they have to be tormented by poverty and not the ability to make. Although Willy Loman cannot ensure the happiness of his family and himself, he is still the protagonist because he is ready to take even the most desperate step for his children’s happiness, which makes the work tragic.
Willy has his dreams, values, and hopes, which are associated with success but are still not accurate in detail. He is the protagonist because he strives to ensure his children are happy, but some circumstances prevent this. For one of his sons, Biff, Willie was an absolute ideal of honesty and decency, but one day the boy discovers another woman in his father’s room at the hotel. The author emphasizes that Biff found the truth about his father with the phrase: “He thinks I’ve been spitting him all these years and it’s eating him up pointedly economic – We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years” (Miller 55). After that, the boy’s inner ideal is destroyed, and he runs away and rushes into wandering.
Willy Loman is portrayed by the author as the protagonist because his world is dreams and illusions that are not destined to come true. The author demonstrates to readers a tragic hero who commits suicide in the name of the happiness of his children. Willy cannot be called a positive or negative hero, he wants his children to live in prosperity and not feel the need, but for this, he does practically nothing or does not try to change what is happening to him. Willie is the protagonist because, in him, readers can see the most typical characteristics inherent in ordinary people. He never wanted his life to be wasted, but in the end, that’s precisely what happened (Miller, 89). Willy appears to readers as a man with his dreams and hopes but who cannot fix what he has.
This work is a tragedy for several reasons traced throughout the play. Willy has a dream, and at the end of the reading, the reader will understand that this dream was impossible from the very beginning, but the main character could not understand it. Probably, Willie could have done something to change the state of his affairs so that his plans and dreams come true, but everything remained as it was. The problem is that Willie does not see the accurate right way to raise children, and his passionate desire to fulfill his American dream only prevents his son Biff from becoming a good person. In the episode with Biff stealing the ball, Willie supports his son’s desire for independent training, not realizing that this can lead to the acquisition of a bad habit that will not benefit his son in the future.
Willie becomes a recluse in his quest for spiritual redemption, although he does not succeed in the end. He wants to achieve goals, but he does not follow them because these goals are incompatible with his desire to be spiritually healed. As a result, neither Biff nor Willie succeeds in fulfilling their plans and dreams, and Willie decides to take a tragic step. He decides to commit suicide for his family to receive insurance payments and be able to live on this money. The tragedy, in this case, is that the protagonist’s life ends and that he could keep his own but find another way to make money.
In conclusion, Willy Loman is the protagonist of a work by Arthur Miller called The Death of a Salesman. This play describes the life of the main character, who has his American dream but cannot achieve it and decides to commit suicide. He hopes that the family will be able to get insurance, and thus, his dream can all come true. The life of the main character is quite tricky, but he has his own goals and hopes, but in the end, these goals are so vague that no matter what Willy does, nothing can be transformed for the better. His son Biff makes mistakes, but his father only encourages them, which leads to negative consequences. The play is tragic because it clearly depicts a person who cannot fulfill his dream and help his children and, from his weakness, commit suicide. The work is instructive and indicates that if a person dreams and hopes for something, they should strive for it and look for ways to solve the tasks set.
Work Cited
Miller, A. Death of a Salesman. Penguin Books, 1999.