Willy And Biff example essay topic

The definition given (that the audience needs to have mixed feelings about the destruction of a human being for a play to be a tragedy) means that to establish 'Death of A Salesman' as a tragedy, we must be able to give evidence that not only is the audience made to feel sadness at Willy Loman's demise, but also that they are made to feel that some measure of justice has been exacted on him for his behaviour both past and present. As this is the case I will first examine the reasons why the audience feels sadness at the misfortunes which befall Willy, and then go on to see why it is that the audience is also left to feel that Willy deserves all of the punishment which fate hands him throughout, and especially towards the end, of the play. It is obvious right the way through 'Death of A Salesman' that Willy Loman's life is bad, and that it is getting worse, despite Willy's dreams and aspirations. His first major problem is with his job. From the very first scene we see that all is not well. Willy has returned from a work trip the same day as setting out for it, and it is made obvious that this is not the first occurrence of an incident of this type.

Thus the audience is aware that Willy has problems with his job, and it is not long before they find out that Willy having trouble getting to work is the least of his problems. The real problem lies at work itself. It appears that despite all of Willy's bragging, he is not actually a very successful salesman (the lack of people at his funeral perhaps indicates not only that he isn't one, but also that he never was a particularly good one in the first place). He has in fact been 'borrowing' money from Charley to make Linda think that he is still successful.

Willy lies so often about his work (as well as other things), that he has almost made himself believe his own lies, and one of the only indications to the contrary is when he admits, 'I'm not noticed', when talking to Linda about his work. Due to his lack of success, he is first taken off of steady pay and put on commission, this occurs before the start of the play, and then later when he goes to complain about this, he is told by his boss Howard that his services are no longer needed. Willy's problems at work, however, are not his only problems, and they are not even the most serious ones he has. Another of the major problems which Willy has is his relationship with his sons, and in particular Biff.

Neither of Willy's children seem to measure up to his expectations. Willy expected his children to 'make it big' in the city, and whilst Happy works in the city and is doing more to gain his father's approval than Biff, even he is not very successful, working as an assistant to the assistant of a 'buyer'. Biff is even more of a disappointment to his father than his brother, holding a variety of temporary jobs on the great plains as a manual labourer, and also getting into trouble with the police for stealing a suit (the audience is lead to believe that Biff's stealing is not an isolated incident). Willy believes that Biff could have made more of himself, a fact which he doesn't hide from Biff himself, and this seems to be the main cause of the tension between the two of them (though, as I will discuss later, the real reason actually lies in the past). Despite the seriousness of the two aforementioned problems, Willy's most serious problem is in my opinion the problem he has with being stuck in the past. He obviously regrets a great deal of his actions in the past, and frequently has waking dreams, in which he re-enacts the moments in question.

For the most part, these dreams involve Willy's brother Ben, and show how much Willy regrets not having moved to Alaska with Ben, but they also involve Biff, and it is not until the end that they become clear, and the audience sees what it is that has gone on between Willy and Biff. The problem of being stuck on past events is not only Willy's most serious problem, but it is also the one which probably inspires the most pity from the audience, as regret is a feeling which everyone has at some time or other in their lives. These three problems are Willy's main ones, and although he has other troubles in his life (his relationship with Linda is not very healthy), his problems with work, his sons, and the past, are highlighted the most, and therefore they are what causes the audience to feel sympathy for Willy. Although Willy has all of these problems, the reader never truly feels only sympathy for him, and this is without doubt due to the fact that in one way or another he has brought most of his problems on himself. The first of his big problems, becoming unemployed, is not really his fault (except in as much as he perhaps should have chosen a career more suited to his abilities, such as manual labour), but the financial worries which are associated to it are.

Charley is willing to employ Willy in an honest job at a more than reasonable wage, but Willy, out of sense of pride and stubbornness, refuses Charley's offer of a job, therefore creating even more problems for himself. His decision to refuse Charley's offer not only puts him in a bad financial situation, but it also puts pressure on his sons to provide for their father, and this means that the audience tends to feel less sadness towards Willy's plight than they might do otherwise. The trouble which Willy is having in his relationships with his sons, is also very much his own doing. He claims during the play that he always taught them the correct thing to do, but although he may have told them what to do, he never follows this up by enforcing his words with actions. In this way he is much too soft on his children (Biff especially), and at one point he even condones Biff stealing a football to 'practice with'. Willy's seeming acceptance that it is okay for Biff to steal lead Biff to think the same, which is part of the reason why he never 'made it big' in the city with Oliver's company.

There is also the incident involving Biff travelling up to New England to see Willy after hearing about his maths mark. In this case Willy's hypocrisy is doubly responsible for the events which follow. Obviously him cheating on Linda causes his relationship with Biff to sour to the point where Biff refuses to go to summer school (thus denying himself a chance at a football scholarship) just in order to spite Willy. But it is interesting to note that if it wasn't for another aspect of Willy's hypocrisy then his infidelity towards Linda would never have been discovered by Biff.

When Biff appears at Willy's room and describes why it is that his maths teacher dislikes him (an incident in which Biff did an impression of his teacher), Willy, instead of telling him off, and asking Biff to wait in the lobby for him, laughs and gets Biff to repeat the interpretation, causing the woman hiding in the bathroom to laugh and give herself away. As well as setting a bad example to the boys by allowing them to get away with everything, he also teaches them, by example, that lying is acceptable, so long as you aren't caught. Willy's lying is another thing which leads to his demise, it is because of his lies that he is forced into borrowing from Charley. As well as teaching them bad habits, and being soft on them, Willy also commits the error of pushing his sons too hard, too fast. Due to this, the boys aren't willing to work hard and consistently towards a goal which may be some way off in the future. They only seem interested in obtaining instant success, and so when a project doesn't work immediately, they simply give up instead of trying harder.

An example of this is when the boys attempt to start their own business. They start off with great dreams, but as soon as Biff fails to obtain the money from Oliver, they seem to abandon the idea completely, not even thinking about trying to borrow the money from anyone else. If any of Willy's faults are held against him by the audience, then it is the way which he has brought up his sons. Both of their lives are almost irrevocably affected by the way in which he brings them, although Biff seems to have broken free of Willy's ideals by the end of the play. Biff's chances of making something big of himself are destroyed by Willy, and Happy seems to be unable to choose anything other than the path which Willy took, despite the fact that he obviously wants to. Due to the way in which Willy almost ruins his sons' lives, the way which he destroys his home life with his constant lying and infidelity, and the problems he causes by being too stubborn to take up Charley's offer of a job, it is nearly impossible for the audience to feel only sadness at his demise.

However it would be a very cruel hearted person who could feel no sense of remorse at the way in which Willy's mental state breaks down during the play. Indeed only the very harsh would begrudge Willy a happy ending, after the sheer joy which the audience sees in him when he realises at the end of the play that Biff actually cares for him (this is all he has wanted since the fateful moment in New England), and a happy ending is exactly what Willy gets. Whether he could have had a happier one or not if he had avoided committing suicide is debatable, but in my opinion, although it was not meant as such, the gesture seems almost selfish. Biff, Happy and Linda may (although this is not made clear by the end of the play) have collected Willy's insurance money, but of those three only Biff seems to have had an end anywhere near as happy as Willy's (Happy still doesn't see the futility of following in Willy's footsteps, and Linda has lost the thing which she appeared to cherish most in life, Willy).

So in this way the audience doesn't have to take Willy's suicide as a redeeming feature, meaning that they still, for the most part, have conflicting emotions about him by the end of the play. This discussion shows that, using the definition given, 'Death of A Salesman' can be described as a tragedy. However I think that it could be said to be more centralised on creating conflicting emotions in general rather than just creating conflicting emotions about a human's destruction. Almost every character in the play inspires several different feelings within me, from Linda who despite being loyal is too subservient for her own good, all the way to Biff, who despite the fact that he is honest and has good intentions, is too direct to help matters very much.