Death of a Salesman 769Willy’s chief desire is to be well liked. This alone
is his American dream. If he is well liked, then he
considers himself worthy. But this is not his reality,
and from early in the play it is mentioned that he
has reached a point where he has become suicidal.
When he is at his highest, he feels he is loved and
can accomplish anything. During his low points,
however, he is aware that he is not as well liked as
he hoped he would be; he travels around the New
England area selling his wares, and yet still not
making enough money to survive without his salary.
Forced to borrow money from a friend, he pretends
that this weekly loan is his paycheck. His delusions
include the idea that he is “indispensable” to his
company, and yet his manager still insists on letting
him go.
At the beginning of the play, his family is wor-
ried that Willy has had another automobile acci-
dent. There is the idea that these “accidents” are
reoccurring and are not accidents at all, but suicide
attempts. “The insurance inspector came,” Linda
tells her sons. “He said that they have evidence.
That all these accidents in the last year—weren’t—
weren’t—accidents” (58). His wife has also discov-
ered another one of Willy’s secrets: a rubber hose
attached to a gas pipe, which proves her suspicion
that Willy is trying to kill himself.
Why are there so many failed attempts? One
could wonder if Willy has the strength within him-
self to go through with the task. Perhaps, in some
way, he still feels that there is hope, that he can make
something great of himself. When his sons tell them
of their plan to start their own business, Willy feels
that there might be something to live for after all.
When their plans fail, Willy’s hope is dashed.
His only chance to provide anything for his family
is to commit suicide and allow his sons to use his life
insurance policy to become successful. In this way,
Willy wants to leave a legacy. His opinion is that
he is worth more dead than alive, yet through his
mental ramblings with his brother Ben, he becomes
aware of the possibility that the life insurance com-
pany might not honor his policy if they discover he
has taken his own life. Still, there is the added hope
that when his family attends his funeral and sees all
of his friends and the buyers he has made contact
with over the years, they will realize that their father
was a great, “well-liked” man. “Ben, that funeral
will be massive! They’ll come from Maine, Mas-
sachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old
timers with the strange license plates—that boy will
be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized—
I am known!” (126). These conditions finally give
Willy the courage to go through with his suicide,
which is disguised as another one of his “automobile
accidents.”
Willy’s delusions ultimately lead to his destruc-
tion. His faith in his personal American dream (to
be well liked) has skewed his idea of success, and
his willingness to pursue this dream at any cost is
what has caused him to choose a career that does
not coincide with his interests and who he is as a
person. It is because he cannot live up to his own
expectations that he continually falls short. Had
Willy altered his perception of the dream and found
contentment in the life he created for himself, his
needless death could have been avoided.
Erin Bresciapride in Death of a Salesman
The idea of “pride” in Death of a Salesman is a com-
plex one. It cannot be said that Willy Loman was
continually full of pride, but at the same time some
of the biggest mistakes he makes center around the
fact that he was too prideful to adjust his vision of
success. This is most evident in his career choice.
More than anything, Willy wants to prove to the
world that he can achieve “the American dream”
by working as a salesman. Unfortunately, this goes
against his true calling—working with his hands.
This skewed vision also leads him to turn down two
other, very important career opportunities.
The truth is that Willy Loman was not meant to
be a salesman. At his funeral, his family comments
on how much he enjoyed working outside and using
his hands. Biff confesses to their neighbor, Charley,
that “there is more of him in that front stoop than in
all the sales he ever made” (138). His family remem-
bers how skilled Willy was at construction, adding
a bathroom to their house and building a garage. As
his hobby, it is likely that Willy found more pleasure
in his projects around the house than as a traveling
salesman. Unfortunately, Willy’s belief that there
was no future for him in construction led him to