34 Years Of Willy's Life example essay topic

Willy Loman is a travelling salesman who has worked for the Wagner firm for 34 years. He is now 61 years old and his job has been taken off salary and put on commission. He has a family and he boasts to them that he is "vital in New England", but in fact he isn't vital anywhere. Willy has many strong beliefs that he strives to achieve.

He wants to own his own business and he wants to be "bigger than Uncle Charley" and especially he wants to be a great success and he tries to emulate Dave Single man. He wishes to die the "Death of a Salesman" and have many buyers and salesmen mourn for him. He also tries to be a good father, and husband. However Willy's aims in life have been useless as he hasn't really achieved anything.

He got fired by Howard, his sons are both failures and they abandoned him in a restaurant toilet. His relationship with his wife is plagued by his guilt for committing adultery. He has to borrow $50 a week from Charley. He can't even keep his mind on one thing for a long time. He can't drive a car. Willy gets so fed up with all of these things that he want's to commit suicide and eventually, he does.

This topic suggests that Willy's deterioration occurs because the principals he believes in. To a large extent this is true. After 34 years of Willy's life, he loses his job. To a normal person under normal circumstances, being retrenched is a time when you feel useless. But for Willy, since everything else is going wrong at the same time, he feels like a useless old man. Willy thought that just because he named his boss, that he would have a secure future with the company but as Charley said "them things don't mean anything?

You named him Howard, but you can't sell that". Even though Willy wasn't even getting paid a salary, Howard didn't want him to even represent the company in case Willy "cracked up" again. Although Willy is mostly destroyed by his own ideals there are other things that destroy him as well, like Howard, Happy and Biff. Willy is emotionally destroyed when Howard fires him. Then, both of his sons disown and abandon him in Frank's Chop House.

Both Happy and Biff left their father talking to himself in the bathroom while they wanted to have a good night out with the girls. That also destroyed Willy because it showed that his sons didn't really care if he lived or died. Willy can't even drive a car though because he can't keep his mind on anything for a long period of time. In the past he has had a few car accidents because his mind keeps wandering "Where are you guys, where are you? The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!" Willy knows though that he is deteriorating and that nobody can help him except for him.

Willy Loman, is indeed a 'low man'. He has a very low self esteem and the only person that really doesn't love him is himself. Willy had great goals (ideals) in practice, but the only thing that he didn't realize is that if he didn't achieve those goals it wouldn't be the end of the world. Willy took it a step to far though, he thought that his life wasn't worth living anymore, therefore Willy Loman was definitely destroyed by his own ideals.