Character of Willy Loman - “Death of Salesman-Arthur Miller”

"Death of Salesman” by Arthur Miller is an interesting study of American society. It is a great tragedy of modern man and show the social reality of common man. It deals with theme of the individual versus society. Esther Jackson rightly remarks  

 “Death of Salesman represents

‘perhaps most nearly nature

myth about human suffering

in an industrial age.”

          The characters in this play are mostly types rather than individuals. They are subtle and psychosocial characters. The main characters in this play are Willy Loman, Linda, Biff and Happy. Willy Loman is the protagonist of the play. He is a traveling salesman in Wagnor Firm for past 34 year. He thinks himself to be a very successful salesman but it is his self-deception as in reality he is nothing. Now we discuss some traits of his personality.

          Willy is a representative of Everyman American. He represents the whole mass of American civilization, ‘a slogan out of the 1930s’, ‘a banner of liberate people’, ‘a criticism of society.’ He is indictment of American modern civilization to which thousands of Lemans are becoming victim’s everyday.  He is an indictment against the machine-civilization of America which has deprived man of his real content and peace of mind. According to Robert Garland,   

“Willy Loman is, I think a

person who embodies in him

self some of the most terrible

conflicts running through the

streets of America today.”

          Willy is a victim of materialism who is surrounded by the illusion of “Maya” which he regards as a key to success and happiness in his life. His values are essentially the values of American everyman of today.  He believes in the myth of success and “Carishma” of personality. In a fact, he is a man who has been left far behind in the race of life. Willy suffers the sense of economic and social insecurity. With all his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, he is a failure in life. He has failed not only as a salesman inviting the displeasure of his boss to dismiss him but also has failed as a father.

          Willy is a modern man who represents the failure of the American dream. He has accepted whole-heartily the twentieth century version of ‘The American Dream.’ American Dream is the belief that a man can rise in life through personal attractive and a certain degree a personal initiative. Willy has been working and thrifty he admired the business’s virtues. He has tried to be ‘Well liked’. He is living in a dream of all through his life.

“Someday I’ll have my own

business, and I’ll never have

to leave home any more.”

          He never comes out of the world of dreams. He boasts to his sons and wife and tells them that people all round the place he visits known him. But when he dies, there comes hardly any mourner to shed tears.  

          There are three reasons for his failure. One reason of his failure is his misplaced faith in the power of personal attractiveness. Second reason is his extra-ordinary concern for the well being of his sons. He does not allow his children freedom to find out their own values. On the contrary, he wants to bring them up in his own image of illusions and false beliefs. He never lets them reality. Thirdly, he is a victim of his society. It is the world competition that has caused his doom.

          Willy Loman is a man full of contradictions. There are many examples where we can see the state of Willy’s mind. On one hand, he says about Biff that he is a great football player and would go very high in future and on other movement, he regards him as a good-for-nothing. At times, Wily does not appear to be likable man because he leads a double life. He gives high sermons to his sons, but his own life is full of moral lapses. While preaching to his son’s clean living friendliness, sportsmanship and honesty, his life denies these qualities.

          There are many reasons for this condition but main reason is the loneliness and not accepting the reality.

          Willy Loman suffers from a sense of alienation, insecurity and loneliness. The sense of alienation that he suffers from is born out of his realization that he is without rot and moorings,

“I’ve got to get some seeds,

right away. Nothing is planted.

I don’t have a thing in the ground.”

          This remarks show that Willy Loman is in search of seeds so that he too may plant himself somewhere in this wild world. He fails to identify himself; he fails to establish a harmonious and balanced and rationalistic relationship with the society.

          Willy’s life is dominated and governed by his dead brother Ben. Ben Loman had the left home for business of the age of 17 and went to the jungle (business world) to earn and at the age of 21 he became a rich man. But now Ben is a dead man and Willy considered him as his idol and used to talk and discuss his views in important decision taking. Originally it was an illusion of Willy. Willy used to plan out things and his confusion with Ben-the Dead brother. Willy had very ideal thought for Ben,

“Ben! That man was a genius.

 That man was success incarnate.”

          There are many evidences of Willy’s dilemma like his continuing self-delusion and his occasional self-awareness, out of which he can not come out. His whole personality is sentimental. He is fit neither for himself nor his sons. He is torn between fact and fictions. He is a groundless man and we can see that he also fails to offer anything to his sons to give them a start, but by paying the price of his life, he could at least leave twenty thousand dollars insurance to settle his children. Here we compared Willy with a Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ as like a Caesar, dead Willy is more powerful than living Willy.  

          A tragic hero is supposed to arouse pathetic feelings of admiration. Willy Loman is not hero of that caliber. But Inspite of that, he is able to arouse our pity. The flood of facts and lies, of reality and fantasy, of the actual and the potential that made him and killed him is a great tragedy.  Willy is who first sells commodities and then sells himself as a commodity. Gerald Weales,

“Willy is a corpse who happily

 refuses to stay dead, has come

back to elicit sympathy evoke

pity, provoke anger, stir up

controversy, ask for judicial

appraisal.”

          To conclude, it appears that Willy would become in future as immortal a tragic character as Orestes, Hamlet, or Macbeth. He is not merely an individual, but an identification of the common man. As a tragic hero, he represents the common man.

     Willy himself creates awkward conditions and these conditions were responsible for his death. Here we compare Willy with a candle sticks. And his character expressed the reality and critical condition of ordinary man in modern era.  Finally to conclude in the words of A Haward Fuler,

“Truly Willy does represent

any man whose illusions have

made him incapable of dealing

realistically with the problems

of everyday life. He has sold

himself by taking an artificial

personality that is wholly

unrealistic.”