Death of a Salesman Analysis Essay

To Lindas considerable chagrin and bewilderment, Willys family, Charley, and Bernard atomic number 18 the exclusively mourners who attend Willys funeral. She wonders where every(prenominal) his supposed business friends atomic number 18 and how he could have killed himself when they were so close to paying off all of their bills. Biff recalls that Willy seemed happier working on the house than he did as a salesman. He states that Willy had all the wrong inspirations and that he didnt know who he was in the way that Biff now knows who he is. Charley replies that a salesman has to dream or he is lost, and he explains the salesmans undaunted optimism in the flavour of sure defeat as a function of his irrepressible dreams of exchange himself. Happy becomes increasingly angry at Biffs observations. He resolves to stay in the city and carry out his fathers dream by becoming a top businessman, convinced he bed still beat this racket. Linda requests some privacy. She reports to Will y that she made the last stipend on the house. She apologizes for her inability to cry, since it seems as if Willy is just on another trip. She begins to sob, repeating, Were free. . . . Biff helps her up and all exit. The flute music is heard and the multistory apartments surrounding the Loman house come into focus.AnalysisCharleys speech roughly the nature of the salesmans dreams is one of the most memorable passages in the play. His linguistic process serve as a kind of respectful eulogy that removes agitate from Willy as an individual by explaining the grueling expectations and absurd demands of his profession. The odd, anachronistic, ghostlike formalness of his remarks (Nobody dast blame this man) echo the religious quality of Willys quest to sell himself. One can argue that, to a certain extent, Willy Loman is the postwar American equivalent of the medieval crusader, battling desperately for the survival of his take in besieged faith.Charley solemnly observes that a sal esmans life is a eternal upward struggle to sell himselfhe supports his dreams on the ephemeral federal agency of his own image, on a smile and a shoeshine. He suggests that the salesmans condition is an aggravated enlargement of a discreet facet of the ecumenic charitable condition. Just as Willy is blind to the totality of the American Dream, concentrating on the aspects related to material success, so is the salesman, in general, lacking, blinded to the total human experience by his conflation of the professional and the personal. Like Charley says, No man only needs a little salaryno man can sustain himself on money and materiality without an emotional or spiritual life to provide meaning.When the salesmans advertising self-image fails to inspire smiles from customers, he is finish psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. According to Charley, a salesman is got to dream. The curious and lyrical slang substitution of is for has indicates a destined necessity for the sa lesmannot only must the salesman follow the overbearing of his dreams during his life, but Miller suggests that he is literally begotten with the sole conclude of dreaming.In many ways, Willy has done everything that the myth of the American Dream outlines as the key path to success. He acquired a home and the range of young appliances. He raised a family and journeyed forth into the business world wax of hope and ambition. Nevertheless, Willy has failed to receive the fruits that the American Dream promises. His primary problem is that he continues to believe in the myth rather than restructuring his conception of his life and his identicalness to meet more realistic standards. The values that the myth espouses are not designed to assuage human insecurities and doubts rather, the myth unrealistically ignores the existence of such(prenominal) weaknesses. Willy bought the sales pitch that America uses to advertise itself, and the price of his faith is death.Lindas initial feelin g that Willy is just on another trip suggests that Willys hope for Biff to succeed with the insurance money willing not be fulfilled. To an extent, Lindas comparison debases Willys death, stripping it of any contingency of the dignity that Willy imagined. It seems inevitable that the trip toward meaningful death that Willy now takes will end just as fruitlessly as the trip from which he has just returned as the play opens. Indeed, the recurrence of the haunting flute music, emblematic of Willys futile pursuit of the American Dream, and the final visual mental picture of the overwhelming apartment buildings reinforce the fact that Willy dies as deluded as he lived.