Discussion Topic
Willy Loman's Relationships and Their Impact in "Death of a Salesman"
Summary:
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's strained relationships with his sons, Biff and Happy, stem from his unrealistic expectations and flawed parenting. Willy's affair shattered Biff's idolization, leading to Biff's failure to achieve success and causing ongoing tension. Happy, while not holding a personal grudge, shares Willy's delusions of success without achieving it. Willy's teachings of superficial values like being "well-liked" and his lack of imparting responsibility and morals contribute to his sons' failures, reflecting Willy's own shortcomings and regrets.
Describe Willy's relationship with his sons in Death of a Salesman.
Willy has a tense and difficult relationship with his elder son Biff. He feels that Biff has let him down by not being any more successful in life than Willy himself has been. Biff has no proper job, is not married, and is unable to settle down to anything. Willy seems to feel that Biff has failed on purpose, just to spite his father: 'You don't want to be anything, is that what's behind it?' he accuses Biff during their confrontation in the restaurant (Act II).
What Willy does not understand is that Biff has become very confused about life. As Biff tells his brother Happy early on in the play:
I tell ya Hap, I don't know what the future is. I don't know - what I'm supposed to want. (Act I)
Biff, therefore, has no direction at all - he doesn't know what he should be aiming for.
Unlock
This Answer NowStart your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
Biff, therefore, has no direction at all - he doesn't know what he should be aiming for.
Willy is a major reason why Biff feels like this. When younger, Biff looked up to his father as a role model - at least this is how Willy remembers it - but his faith in him was severely shaken by accidentally finding out that Willy was having an affair. Ever since this he has scorned Willy's devoted husband and father act, although evidently he has never brought himself to tell anyone else of this affair.
Even more damaging, though, from Biff's perspective, are Willy's ideas of how to get on in life. Willy has taught his sons that being popular is really all that matters, that success will follow if one is 'well-liked', rather than inculcating the virtues of study, and hard and steady work. Biff feels that this led to his failure in high school and thereafter he has been unable to apply himself to anything.
Willy's relationship with his younger son Happy is not as fraught as his relationship with Biff, but it is still unsatisfactory. Although, on the surface, Happy appears more settled than Biff, he has not turned out a success either. He is in a low-paid job, living on rent, and like Biff he has not settled down and got married, but continues to run around with various women. He vies for his father's attention, but Willy is always more focussed on Biff, his one-time favourite son, on whom he seems to have pinned all his hopes. Yet it is Happy that Willy ends up influencing the most; he shares his father's delusions about gaining success and wealth, whereas Biff is able to see through them.
Describe Willy's relationship with his brother Ben in Death of a Salesman.
Willy is four years old when he and his brother, Ben, are abandoned by their father. For this reason, Willy's views Ben as both a mentor, a protector, and in a way, as a father figure.
Ben represents to Willy everything that Willy wished he had become: a risk-taker who goes in the jungle at a young age and strikes it rich in the diamond industry; a man who stops at nothing to create new endeavours.
For this reason, Willy has to use Ben's real achievements, as opposed to Willy's invented ones, to illustrate an example of success for Biff and Happy. Willy goes even further: he literally asks Ben to tell Willy whether he is doing things right as far as everything goes. This is the extent to which Willy's self-esteem and self-assurance is as low as it is, compared to Ben's. In other words, Willy needs Ben to assure himself that he is "somebody".
And, yet, as a mentor, Willy uses Ben as his medium between Willy's conscience and sub-conscious while he is contemplating suicide. During one of his fantasy meetings with Ben (who died a few years before the action of the play starts), Willy basically asks for his ultimate approval.
BEN: It’s called a cowardly thing, William.
WILLY: Why? Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?
BEN [yielding]: That’s a point, William. [He moves, thinking, turns.] And twenty thousand—that is something one can feel with the hand, it is there.
WILLY [now assured, with rising power.]: Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like—like an appointment! This would not be another damned-fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects. Because (BIFF) thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me.
In the end, when Willy does commit suicide, Arthur Miller creates a very Gothic conversation between Ben and Willy. The entire crossover from life to death is interpreted as if Ben has come to take Willy to the adventures on which Willy has, regretfully, never embarked.
Ben, looking at his watch: The boat. We'll be late. He moves slowly off into the darkness.
Willy: [...] Ben! Ben! where do I...? He makes a sudden movement of search. Ben how do I...?
Hence, we see that, from the beginning until the end of his life, Willy has depended on Ben, or on the idea of Ben, to anchor himself as part of the real world. He needs his blessing for most of his adult decisions, and it is Ben who, ultimately, "accompanies" Willy onto eternity.
How do Willy's parenting skills affect his sons in Death of a Salesman?
Willy's failure to be a successful salesman means that he's forced to live out his dreams of success through his sons. Among other things, this puts an intolerable burden of pressure on them which, ironically, actually prevents them from achieving success. As a high school football star, Biff had a genuine shot at the big time. But things turned sour, and the revelation of Willy's extramarital affair with a secretary shocked Biff so much that he dropped out of summer school, seriously damaging his prospects.
As for Happy, he's never really been allowed by Willy to grow up. He's internalized his old man's fixed belief that all you need to succeed in life is to be a well-liked man. So Happy just drifts through life without any sense of direction or purpose, dissipating his energies in the pursuit of hare-brained business ideas as well as pretty young women.
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy has parenting skills that are similar to his life skills. He treats both of his sons with blind optimism that they can do anything they want, ignoring their limitations and desires. He wants them to be successful and well-liked—these are the two qualities he himself strives for. However, one of his sons, Biff, does not wish for this—he would like to live out West. The other son, Happy, is so disillusioned by his father's grandiose ideas that he becomes lazy and insolent. By imposing his own dreams on his sons, Willy has made exactly the opposite of what he has imagined. Both of his sons are failures, they do not really love him, and they aren't especially well-liked.
How is the father-son relationship portrayed in Death of a Salesman?
Willy has a different relationship with each of his sons. With Biff, Willy is hopeful and adoring, yet also defensive, judgemental and combative. With Happy, Willy is dismissive and disinterested.
Biff is the son with potential in Willy's eyes. Biff plays football as a child and excels. Biff praises Willy, looks up to him, and wants to be just like him when he grows up.
Crisis comes when Biff catches Willy with a woman in Boston. Biff cannot forgive Willy for letting him down and betraying his mother. This leads Biff to fail (he fails to graduate college, gets fired from his job for stealing, and generally fails to establish himself as an adult).
Biff is tortured by his disillusionment with Willy, by his failure to live up to his own standards, by his failure to achieve the greatness that Willy dreamed he would...
Willy fears Biff's judgement and expresses this fear by lashing out at Biff, yet Willy cannot fully let go of his hopes for Biff. He longs to see Biff achieve the greatness he failed to achieve himself. This conflicted relationship is maintained throughout a majority of the play until Biff finally determines to forgive and to end the cycle of conflict with his father.
"There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I am, that's all."
Happy and Willy have a less animated relationship. Happy is largely invisible to Willy, though the tries repeatedly to gain his father's attention and to become worthy of his father's adoration. Not getting these things from his father, Happy becomes a "womanizer" and seeks affections elsewhere.
Yet it is Happy who staunchly defends Willy's failures as if they were successes. It is Happy who proclaims that Willy was a great man.
What values does Willy teach Biff and Happy in Death of a Salesman, and does this make him a good father?
The audience of Arthur Miller's modern tragedyDeath of a Salesman learns early in the play that Willy Loman's father deserted his family when Willy was very young.
WILLY. Well, I was just a baby, of course, only three or four years old.
Willy's older brother, Ben, corrects him.
BEN. Three years and eleven months.
Ben reminds Willy that their father played the flute.
WILLY. Sure, the flute, that's right!
BEN. Father was a very great and a very wild-hearted man. We would start in Boston, and he'd toss the whole family into the wagon, and then he'd drive the team right across the country; through Ohio, and Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and all the Western states. And we'd stop in the towns and sell the flutes that he'd made on the way. Great inventor, Father. With one gadget he made more in a week than a man like you could make in a lifetime.
WILLY. That's just the way I'm bringing them up, Ben—rugged, well liked, all-around.
In time, Ben also abandons Willy, so Willy essentially grows up with no father and no father figure. Willy never learned anything from his father, so when Willy talks to Ben in his imagination, Willy is concerned about what he's teaching his own boys.
WILLY. ... Because sometimes I’m afraid that I’m not teaching them the right kind of—Ben, how should I teach them?
Willy teaches Biff and Happy that it's important to be "well liked." He uses the term throughout the play. Happy reminds Biff that he's "well liked" and that because of that, he can accomplish anything he decides to pursue. Willy talks about whether the neighbors are "well liked."
WILLY. ... Charley is not—liked. He's liked, but he's not—well liked. ...
WILLY. Bernard is not well liked, is he?
BIFF. He's liked, but he's not well liked.
Willy tells Biff, "the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want."
Willy reminds Linda, his wife, "I'm very well liked in Hartford" and that all it takes to be a success is to be "impressive, and well liked."
Willy teaches his sons a flexible view of honesty, integrity, and morality.
When Biff steals a football in high school, Willy remarks, "Coach'll probably congratulate you on your initiative!" (Act 1). When Biff and Happy steal lumber from a construction site, Willy is proud of their haul and calls them "a couple of fearless characters."
WILLY. You shoulda seen the lumber they brought home last week. At least a dozen six-by-tens worth all kinds a money.
As far as honesty is concerned, Biff tells Willy, "We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house!"
BIFF: (to Willy) You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail .... I stole myself out of every good job since high school! And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody!
When Biff was in high school, he was struggling with math. He just failed a math exam, and he wasn't going to be able to graduate, so he went to see Willy in Boston to ask Willy to speak to his math teacher, Mr. Birnbaum. Biff discovers Willy with a woman in his hotel room, and this breaks Biff's spirit.
Willy tries to lie his way out of it, but Biff doesn't believe him.
WILLY. What's the matter? [Biff remains motionless, tears falling.] She's a buyer. Buys for J. H. Simmons. She lives down the hall—they're painting. You don't imagine— [He breaks off. After a pause.] Now listen, pal, she's just a buyer. She sees merchandise in her room and they have to keep it looking just so.
By the end of the play, Biff and Happy realize that everything they thought they knew about Willy and everything Willy tried to teach them about life is wrong.
How does Ben influence Willy's relationship with his sons in Death of a Salesman?
Ben Loman represents a story and standard of success that Willy adopts for himself and his sons. In this way, Ben becomes a symbol of success that reflects Willy's failure. He also becomes an ideological tool - an intellectual concept - which serves to distance Willy, Biff and Happy from reality and also to distance them from one another.
Primarily, we can see Ben as a symbol (and a symptom) of Willy's persistent and complex delusions regarding success.
He appears in scenes which take place in Willy's imagination, and appears larger-than-life, all-knowing, powerful, a great adventurer; he is everything Willy dreams of becoming.
As a young man, Ben sets off to seek his fortune. After living in the wilds of Alaska and Africa, Ben succeeds in his adventures and becomes quite wealthy.
Willy states directly that he sees Ben as a great example for his own boys. Willy reminds Biff and Happy about the greatness of their uncle and seems to fully expect them to achieve similar things.
While Biff realizes that this potential simply is not in him and ultimately faces up to the reality of his character, Happy internalizes the dream that Willy repeated so often. This becomes perfectly clear at Willy's funeral, when Happy offers his take on Willy's character.
"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."
Willy's high expectations for himself and for his two sons proves damaging all around. The schism that so plainly exists in Willy's mind regarding who he truly is and who he believes himself to be leads to a moral failing in Willy, demonstrated by the affair that Biff discovers in Boston.
Unable to accept his station in life and unsatisfied with his modest achievements, Willy defends himself through bluster and lies both to Biff and to his neighbor Charlie. Willy's talent for delusion and his preference for fantasy both lead Biff to steal as a child and to attempt to get a loan from his old boss as an adult.
Biff comes to realize that this elevated self-regard is nothing more than fantasy. He attempts to bring his father around to this realization as well, but Willy feels that Biff is simply attacking him again. Willy clings to the notion that he once was "somebody" and that his brother Ben still stands as an example of achievement suited to his own personality, or at least that of his sons.
Biff, it appears, comes to the sad realization that his father "didn't know who he was," and how his father's unrealistic dreams led him away from the satisfaction he could have found if he had pursued a goal that reflected his talents...
How does the father-son relationship progress in Death of a Salesman?
To a great extent, I sense that the relationship that emerges throughout the play is one where the son understands better the shortcomings of the father. I think that Biff understands that his father's guidance and beliefs are ones that impact his own chances of being happy. In critiquing himself, Biff understands that he is following his father's footsteps. While his father cannot necessarily find happiness, Biff seeks to prevent himself from going down the same path. The development of their relationship lies in Biff understanding Willy's failures as a father and as a person. This is part of how Biff comes to understand that he should embrace a different path to his life in the assertion that Willy failed by attaching a dollar or material amount to his dreams' success. It is not that Biff becomes closer to his father or seeks to become like him, but their relationship matures in that he understands his father's shortcomings as the play progresses. What might have been seen as his own failure is something that Biff is able to place in the larger context of their own relationship as the play develops.