Death Of a Salesman

“Why am I trying to become something I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!” Biff Loman is an apprehensive and misguided son of Willy Loman, who lost direction in his life after failing to be the successful and well off business man his father once envisioned him to be. After a series of epiphanies, Biff comes to many realizations about himself and Willy, finding each other’s concept of success to directly conflict. Thinking his beliefs and opinions are the best for him and his son, Willy imposes his own value system and formula for success on Biff. Realizing his father’s definition of success is false, Biff is forced to elude his decisive lifestyle, if he wants any hope for succeeding in his own life. Having his oppressive father die in the end of the play, Death of A Salesman, author, Arthur Miller, predicts Biff to be able to escape his father’s own definition of what it means to be successful, and live a better life finding for himself what success means to him.

Willy Loman has a very artificial definition of success and what it means to be successful. In his eyes, a well-liked, well-known, and personally attractive individual will achieve the ultimate success in life. However, Willy’s concept of success conflicts with the reality of life and what it takes to achieve the personal or financial prosperity that he has devoted his life working for. This concept leads Willy to fail his family, lacking the financial support needed to provide for them, fail himself as the person he wants to be, and fail his son Biff, influencing him to make the same mistakes he made throughout life.

Biff’s initial belief of what it means to be successful derives directly from his father Willy, because he had no personal definition of success to follow for himself. Ever since he was a young boy, Biff has looked up to his father as a role model,...