Discussion Topic
Character Roles and Impact in Death of a Salesman
Summary:
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's influence on his family and friends is profound and often detrimental. Willy's unrealistic dreams and failures deeply affect his sons, Biff and Happy, with Biff recognizing his father's shortcomings and Happy continuing the futile pursuit of Willy's dreams. Linda, Willy's wife, remains a steadfast source of support despite his failures. Minor characters like Charley and Bernard highlight Willy's misguided values, while figures such as Ben and Howard Wagner emphasize missed opportunities and societal pressures.
What is Willy's impact on Linda, Biff, Happy, and Charlie in Death of a Salesman?
Willy casts a significant shadow and effect on his wife, children, and friend. Willy's effect on Charley is to represent everything that Charley knows is not right. Charley understands that the path he must take is one that is about as opposite as the one that Willy takes. Willy's effect on Charley is also financial, in that Charley has to loan him money every week as his only sustainable means of income. Charley and Willy argue and their disagreements revolve around one world view being advocated in the face of another. Charley realizes that Willy might not have much in way of respect for him. Yet, Charley understands that Willy is lost in his own dreams. The effect this has on Charley is to endure whatever insults and disrespect that Willy might impose upon him. Charley knows that what he is doing with his life is more creative and substantive...
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than anything Willy is doing. Willy's lack of civility to Charley does not cause him to repudiate his own being in the world. Rather, Charley clearly understands the validation in his own being through Willy's failures in his.
Willy's impact on his children is representation of the absent parent. Biff embodies this fully in terms of his anger. Willy's effect on Biff is the very embodiment of what it means to be a failure. Biff recognizes that there was a point where he had talent and had the makings of "being something." Yet, Willy's effect on him is that he recognizes the convergent experience of failure in his own life and in what he sees in his father's. Willy's effect on Biff is meaningful in terms of his infidelities and the fact that Willy never took an active role in raising his child. Biff realizes that the effect of failure in as many ways as possible is one of the most profound effects that father has on son. Willy's effect on Happy is to cast in him the same pursuit of illusory dreams and unrealistic expectations that help to fill a void in his life. Happy's own emptiness and hollow pursuits give way to living out his father's when Willy dies:
"I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have—to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him."
One can see that Willy's effect on his children is significant. Biff recognizes the failures of his own father and himself as a result, while Happy seems to resurrect the same quest of futility in order to compensate for his own shortcomings.
Interestingly enough, I think that a case can be made that Willy's effect on Linda was to make her an even stronger force of redemption. While Willy does so much to damage so many around him and generate a corrosive effect upon so many, Linda never seems to waver in her commitment to her husband. She recognizes that her husband is absent both physically and emotionally. Yet, she is the continual force of redemption. While Willy brings so much from the real world and from his own tortured subjectivity upon her, almost creating the propensity for a negative effect, Linda does not take the form of this world around her. Linda repels Willy's effects and seeks to make positive that which is negative. While the world is harsh to her husband and thus helps to feed his harshness towards her, Linda does not waver in representing that which is good and honorable. In this regard, Willy's effect on her is where condemnation turns into salvation.
What are the roles of the minor characters in Death of a Salesman?
Linda is Willy Loman's supportive wife, who compares her husband to a "little boat looking for a harbor." She sympathizes with her husband's lack of success and is deeply disturbed when she discovers a rubber hose that Willy plans on using to commit suicide. She also chastises her sons for their selfish actions and lack of concern for Willy.
Bernard is Biff's childhood friend and neighbor. As a child, Bernard was unathletic, but he studied hard and developed positive character traits that led to his success. He also functions as Biff's foil and grows up to be a prominent lawyer.
Charley is Bernard's father, and Willy's only genuine friend. He lends Willy money each month and even offers him a job. Unlike Willy, Charley is a realist and a successful businessman.
Jenny is Charley's secretary, and she is disturbed when Willy arrives to see her boss.
Ben is Willy's fortunate, successful older brother. He is deceased and appears during Willy's hallucinations. Ben speaks to Willy and ends up encouraging him to commit suicide. Willy views his brother as the epitome of success and regrets not traveling with him to Alaska.
The Woman has an affair with Willy when he travels to Boston. Biff ends up accidentally meeting her when he travels to Boston to ask for his father's help. Her memory constantly haunts Willy, who feels guilty about cheating on Linda with her.
Howard Wagner is Willy's young, privileged boss, and he ends up firing Willy when he asks for a meeting to discuss moving to a sedentary position in the city.
Miss Forsythe & Letta are two women that Happy and Biff meet at the restaurant. Willy's sons end up leaving him behind when they go out on the town with Miss Forsythe and Letta. Their characters emphasize Happy's and Biff's superficial, selfish personalities.
Stanley is the waiter at the restaurant where Happy and Biff are supposed to treat their father to a nice meal.
What role do minor characters play in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman?
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, minor characters provide a thread of reality in sharp contrast with Willy's world of fantasy; they also highlight the theme of missed opportunities, and offer deeper insights into major characters.
Willy is a man living in the past, reliving former career success—well past the age of retirement: the days of making good money and being admired are gone...though Willy can't accept this. Willy is also a man who is certain that his son Biff, a former high school football star, should have been (and one day maybe) an enormous success—except that Biff failed math in his senior year, did not graduate, lost his college scholarship, and has never been a success. Willy loses touch with this reality.
Bernard is an extremely important minor character. Charley is Willy's friend, and Bernard is Charley son. Bernard always seemed to know what needed to be done to achieve success. In high school, Bernard worried about Biff and his math grade, which at first seems to have been the cause of his "failure." But as the play goes on, the audience learns that failing math was only a stumbling block.
For Biff, the hardest parts of his life have been trying to find happiness—away from home; supporting and loving his mother, while having lost respect for his father—for since then, Biff has been lost.
Bernard, however, was always on the right track. In a flashback, Bernard shows himself to be a solid young man as he tries to share with Willy and Linda much-needed news concerning Biff.
BERNARD [entering on the run]: Where is he? If he doesn’t study!
WILLY [moving to the forestage, with great agitation]: You’ll give him the answers!
BERNARD: I do, but I can’t on a Regents! That’s a state exam! They’re liable to arrest me!
In Act Two, there is another flashback, showing the relationship between Biff and Bernard.
[Young Bernard rushes in...]
BERNARD: Oh, gee, I was afraid you left already!
WILLY: Why? What time is it?
BERNARD: It's half-past one!
WILLY: Well, come on, everybody! Ebbets Field next stop! Where's the pennants?...
BIFF [who has been lumbering up]: I want to go!
BERNARD: Biff, I'm carrying your helmet, ain't I?...Biff, you promised me...
Biff treats Bernard dismissively. Biff speaks "grandly" in response to Bernard's request. Bernard's presence allows the audience to understand young Biff better—he saw his life full of promise—and he was a little cocky. Yet years have passed, and it is clear that Bernard had much more going for him than the once-promising Biff.
The action returns to the present, and Willy meets Bernard at Charley's office. Bernard is described in the stage direction as...
...a quiet, earnest, but self-assured young man.
Willy asks Bernard to explain why Biff was never able to achieve success like Bernard. The younger man has no explanations, and hesitates to give Willy advice. Bernard becomes pivotally important as he asks Willy if he ever discouraged Biff from attending summer school. Bernard shares that Biff had every intention of making up his math class, until he went to Boston to visit Willy on a business trip: it was at that time that Biff discovered his father was having an affair.
Bernard represents opportunities (and lost opportunities) of youth—which he seized with both hands. Bernard's character drives the plot forward, and provides essential information about Biff and Willy. Miller uses this minor character to further develop two major characters.