Madness and conflict in The Death of a Salesman
Thesis Statement: Madness and conflict in The Death of a Salesman, this essay will
explore an in-depth analysis of the two themes in the play showing the causes of the insanity and
conflict in the society. This study also links the American Dream to the thesis as used by the
author.
In the Death of Salesman, the story Willy Loman unfolds throughout the play. It later
becomes progressively clear that the salesman loses his mind. The play started Willy's early life
when Will used to live happily, and he was insulting Charley and Bill, his son. It, however, turns
out to be haunting scenes for Willy, where he is set off on a rampage very fast by the sound of a
woman laughing. Willy's words cannot be trusted in the play because he lives in denial and tries
his version of the American dream. Willy denies reality to achieve success. Willy is a mediocre
salesman, and he does not accept this fact because he believes in progress and notoriety. He
instead, he retreats into his past events and memories, and through these events and memories, he
perceives himself as a successful person who is not the case in his present state. His son Biff
Loman is shown as the root cause of Willy's mental instability and illness. Biff's words can,
however, be trusted because he acknowledges his life's failures. Billy, in the play, stands out as
the character who is the strong and the most intriguing. Willy is not and cannot be a successful
man; he lives in a harsh society with hard economic conditions in 1960 America. Biff, on the
other hand, knows well that he can be nothing and he tries to make his father Willy to understand
this, he tells him, "I am a dime a dozen, Pop and so you are." Billy begs his father to accept him
the way he is and to communicate with him. Billy's words forced Willy to see some of his life
failures, but he does not come out to acknowledge them as he does not admit the fact that
together with his son, they are failures. Willy is envious of Bernard, although he does not accept
this, he his jealous as he shows aversions towards him. He tells Biff," Bernard can get the best
marks in school, but when he gets out in the business world, you are going to be five times ahead
of him. Willy shows that he is insane when he does not accept the fact that he has failed and
wants his son to believe that they are successful. He gives false hope to Biff that he is going to
beat Bernard in the business world without any evidence that Biff was going to do well in
business now that he had failed in class. Willy is a crazy old man, he lives in an imaginative
world where he believes to be very successful, and he denies the fact that he has failed.
The death of salesman play shows the various struggles that every character encounters
as he tries to chase the American Dream. Through mere Charisma, the salesman, Willy's thought
of the American Dream, is the ability to become prosperous in life. Instead of believing in hard
work and innovation, Willy believes in charming personality as the major key to success in one's
life. The salesman wants to ensure that his boys are popular and well-liked. In the play, Biff
confesses to his father that he had made fun of his math teacher's lisp, Willy, instead of reacting
to the morality of what his son did in school, he is more concerned with how his classmates
reacted to the event. Willy asks Biff while laughing," You did? The kids like it?" He never
cautioned the son of the implications of his activities, but as long his son's activities were making
him popular, then he did not have to worry, and he was successful, according to him. The
salesman is concerned about paying his mortgage and being somebody in his life, and he wants
the son to follow him in believing this. To him, these are not bad goals, and he does not teach his
son more than this; he sees him be successful even though the son confesses to being a failure in
school and the fact that he misbehaves in front of his teachers. When Biff tells his father that he
failed in school and Bernard passed, the father does not tell his son to work harder so that he can
beat Bernard or come somewhere close Bernard's score, instead he tells assures him despite
Bernard beating him in school, he cannot beat him in real life of business, Willy tells Biff that his
business will be five times more successful than that of Bernard. According to Willy, his
perspective of the American dream was that despite Bernard outshining his son in class, the
outside world was an equalizer where his son had an opportunity to beat his competitors such as
Bernard even though they had beaten him in school.
Contrary to the American dream however that says that the dream can only be achieved
through risk-taking, sacrifice, and hard work and not by chance as Hochschild (1996) states,
Willy's believes his son can make it by chance without having to perform well in school or work
harder in life. This is, however, not the reality of the American dream. Willy's perspective is
negative and unrealistic as they cannot help one to succeed, his ideas cannot be applied in
modern society, which is very competitive, and if one does not work hard to achieve his goals,
then he becomes a failure.
The motif of stealing is shown throughout the play through Biff, whom Miller portrayed
as a kleptomaniac who started stealing different items when he was a young child, and he was
never warned nor punished because of these actions. Willy steals a football in the locker room in
his school, as shown evidently in one of his memory scenes. His father, Willy, says that the
couch will probably be happy and will congratulate Biff because of his 'initiative' instead of
punishing him for the immoral behavior. This shows how Willy does not believe in morality, and
also the fact he is very irrational in his thinking shows Willy is an insane father who does not see
anything bad in his son stealing.
The Miller work is an example of modernism in many ways; modern conveniences are at
the center of the American Dream that Willy wishes to achieve, and modernism, in the end, leads
to the ruining of Willy's life. When Willy was young, he was too excited about the promises of
modernity. In one of his flashbacks, he says to Linda, "Chevrolet, Linda, is the greatest car ever
built." It, however, turns out to be a tragedy to him because even though strived to make ends
meet as a salesman, he had a lot of expenses that include maintaining his family's modern suburb
life and running his car ate away his profits and thus his ability to grow and survive. Linda tells
him that his refrigerator has broken its fan belt, and he owes his financial problems to this
Chevrolet. He curses, "That goddam Chevrolet, they ought to prohibit the manufacture of that
car!" His quest for modern life and the American Dream had led him in trouble, he had a lot of
things sort out with his little money, and modernism turned his life into a nightmare. Willy is
excited about the goal of having a car, which is the symbol of one living a modern life, the
expenses that that the car had makes him a depressed man about his ability to meet his daily
expenses. Linda is concerned with the level of pollution is caused by cars, she complains, "The
street is lined with cars. There is not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass doesn't
grow anymore; you can't raise a carrot in the back yard." This statement by Linda shows the
consequences that modernism has had on the daily lives of people in the modern situation.
Modernism has come with its own evils (Cooper and Burrell, 2015). Miller shows modernism as
the cause of Willy's sufferings, as he tried to become a modern man, the expenses of becoming
one was too much for him and those he becomes a much-stressed man who ends up living an
imaginary world flashbacking his good past life.
Biff's father wants him to become one of the biggest businessmen in the city; Biff,
however, does not like living in the city, and this causes a conflict between him and Willy. Billy
knows that he is nothing, and He cannot make it become anything and tells his father this, but
Willy objects it is saying that Biff can become a very successful businessman. Biff, in the
climax, comes out and tells his father to his face that neither he nor his father was. He tells him,
"I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything, but a hardworking drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour,
Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm
not bringing home any prizes anymore, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them
home!" This is the climax of their conflict as Biff tells Willy the whole truth about their life.
This play shows the various examples of themes of madness and conflict among the main
characters Willy and his son Biff. Willy turns insane because he cannot run his daily expenses
with his profits due to the cost of modernism. His son comes out and tells him the reality, but he
does not admit to any of it because he lives in the dream of the past. Modernism ruined Willy's
life. Modernism through cars, tape recorders, and many more innovations have diverted people's
attention towards the American Dream because they have become slaves to these new necessities
for modern life.
Works Cited
Hochschild, Jennifer L. Facing up to the American dream: Race, class, and the soul of the
nation. Vol. 51. Princeton University Press, 1996.
Noll, Richard. "Whole-body madness." Psychiatric Times 29.12 (2012): 13-14.
Cooper, Robert, and Gibson Burrell. "Modernism, postmodernism, and organizational analysis:
An introduction." For Robert Cooper. Routledge, 2015. 149-175.
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