The Story of Lies and Truth: Death of a Salesman - Book Report/Review Example

He knew of his father's infidelity, but would not inform the mother, would not work for his graduation and would not work anywhere, and ends up as a petty criminal. Even in the end, instead of making an honest start, he goes and steals a pen from Bill Cliver, ruining a possible career, and the saving grace comes only then because he sees the truth at last ("I looked up and I saw the sky . and I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been") and realizes that he had been fooling himself.

Hap, on the other hand, craves for father's attention, while the father showers attention on Bluff, who could not care less. Hap is unhappy to hurt family members by telling the truth and tries to gloss it over ("My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women, and still, goddamit, I'm lonely"). Linda, who was realistic enough to realize that Willy was marching towards suicide, hesitates to confront the reality and has a total breakdown after his death. Finally, Cliff comes out as a real person who was ready to discard illusions ("We never told the truth in the house for ten minutes").

The play, divided into three sections is a saga of illusion starting from Willy Loman, a failing salesman, working on commission, could not complete sales trip, tired of life, returned home after 15 years of drifting. He sees a glorifying future for sons, Biff and Hap, though boys think he is becoming senile. Willy embarrasses the boys frequently by falling into another era, on a flashback, conversing with his hero, dead brother, Ben. He lives in world of illusion and a false sense of reality, to cover his failures and creates fantasies of success.

Even though Ben had stumbled into riches, Willy would like to glorify it as a result of Ben's hard work and invents much swagger for Ben ("When I was seventeen, I walked into the jungle. And by twenty-one, I walked out. And by God, I was rich!"). A young woman with whom Willy had an affair intrudes into his illusions. He misguides his sons about life and success saying that looks and being liked are enough in life. "Willy did himself and his family a disservice by putting too much emphasis on appearance and popularity, and not enough on the value of hard work.

He wound up living in a daydream whenever things went wrong, and his sons were unethical" http://www.bellmore-merrick.k12.ny.us/death.htmlEven though he was not particularly liked by anyone, he invents another lie that he was universally liked and when he decides to kill himself, again he had the illusion that the entire community will attend his funeral and once again, he was proved wrong. He was unrealistic enough to refuse Charlie's job and even Bliff tries to wake him up out of the reverie ("Pop, I'm a dime a dozen and so are you").

Hap makes up things exactly like Willy about his sales store and marriage to make his parents happy. He wants Bluff to hide the fact that he could not even meet Bill Cliver from Willy.