Death of a Salesman - Book Report/Review Example

Death of a Salesman affiliation Act Question Willy appears to be a delusional man whose mentality seems to be very different from the reality at hand. He is a salesman who just came home from a work trip. His wife asks him to ask his employer for a job that does not require that he travels. Instead of his boss giving him the job, he gets angry and fires him instead. He does not attain this level of success and hence is somewhat angry with himself. He passes on the anger to his son Biff. Willy often contradicts himself in what he says. For instance, he first accuses his son of being lazy and not meeting the expectations that he had set for him. Then the next minute he says that Biff is not lazy, and this may be taken to mean that he still has hopes that his son would become rich and be successful (Hurrel, 1961). "I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?" (Act 1, Part 1, pg. 5). Throughout his life, he had fantasies to cover the fact that he did not live up to his expectations. He constantly talks to himself about his son and the disappointment that he feels. Another moment of confusion is when he calls the family car that he just finished paying for a piece of junk then later defines it as the best car that has ever been built. Clearly, he does not have a clear view of reality and what he wishes is very different from what is on the ground. He represents everyman in the sense that he wants success as other people have done before him. His view of success is distorted and has very high expectations for his sons. His sons have failed to meet his expectation making him a disillusioned man. Question 2 Biff and Happy have very different characters and opinions of their father. Biff is disappointed in his fathers action. He appeared to be angry with him and disappointed in him. He once found out that his father was cheating on his mother and wanted to confront him. He feels that his father has very unrealistic expectations of him leading him to tell him that he is just an ordinary man living an ordinary life (Hurrel, 1961). He is very angry at his father for constantly talking about his disappointment in him while at the same time tries to please him. He feels that he has failed in getting the success that his father had instilled in him when he was young. ‘I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.’ Biff, act II. He had hoped that he would pass his education and head off to college. However, this did not come to pass as he failed and ended up dong manual farm work that his father is very ashamed about. Happy has a stable job unlike Biff and his attitude towards his father and the entire family is to try to maintain happiness in all of them even if it means lying to them. He first tries to convince Biff to lie that he had gotten a business deal to their father. He treats his father better in that he tries to make him happy even if it is far from reality. He wants to be successful and tries to follow in his fathers footsteps. They both agree that their father has changed immensely since they were little and is quickly going through some form of mental retardation. Happy does not want to tell his father he truth to make him feel better about his sons and to redeem his hopes that his sons are not failures. Act 2 Question 1 Evidence that Willy confuses being loved and being liked is when he dismisses the people that he loves on the basis of financial success. For instance, he often mistreats his wife yet his wife loves and caters to him. He does not appreciate his sons yet they try so hard to please him. In the case of his son, Biff, he pushes him so hard that he is no longer able to even like him. He is not satisfied with what his son has achieved or is even trying to achieve hence remains constantly frustrated. Even the people he looks up to as symbols of success are not well loved or even liked. For instance, his older brother went to Africa and became a diamond tycoon, he was not particularly liked or even loved but he was rich. "when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich." Act 1, Part 7, pg. 33. He fails to recognize that there are other things that make people happy such as having a family and working hard to provide for them a decent living (Hurrel, 1961). He constantly complained about their way of life like when he complained that he worked his entire life to pay for a house. When he finally finishes paying for the house, there is no one to live in it. Society has preached that happy people are rich, have a great personality and are well-liked. "personality always wins the day." Act 1, Part 8, pg. 48. However, nothing could be further from the truth in that if he had been satisfied with what he already has, he would have been happy. Question 2 Some of the false values that the play reveals are that people who are rich are successful. Willy looks at the people who are rich for the fact that they have money and does not look at their character. For instance, he admires his boss even when it is clear that the employer has no respect for him he fires him in spite of the fact that he had worked for a very long time. The play does not put any value on family relationships as the base for happiness hence may miss out on happiness in a bid to chasing riches. Instead of Willy encouraging his sons to better than him, he constantly laments on how his elder son is a failure. He fails to address the real issues in his family such as his affair with another woman and hence the tension in his family. His son does not see him as he did when he was younger due to his actions. His expectations of the sons have made him very disillusioned and a bitter man. The play, on the other hand, upholds the value of hard work. People strive so hard to ensure that their families are living decent lives, and even though they may no attain their goals, they at least depend on themselves (Hurrel, 1961). The play teaches the importance of hard work, and this is shown when Biff struggles to work hard to prove himself and to ensure that he makes something of himself. Biff teaches that one should be satisfied with all they have and be grateful. Happy eulogized him as a man who had a great dream in spite of his failures. ‘Im gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. Its the only dream you can have - to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where Im gonna win it for him.’ References Hurrel, J. (1961). Two Modern American Tragedies: Reviews and Criticism of Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. 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