Biff loman character traits series#

In one of the most powerful scenes, Biff confronts Willy about buying The Woman new stockings instead of buying them for his wife. During Willy’s sales trips to Boston, Willy begins to have an affair with a character known only as “The Woman.” His son Biff goes to visit Willy in Boston and catches his father in his adultery. We should always learn from it, but our focus should be on the present and future. Living in the past won’t get you anywhere. Willy is like that former jock who has done absolutely nothing with his life since his glory days on the high school gridiron. Usually he pegs not being “well liked” as the root of his current troubles. As he mulls over the past, Loman tries to figure out how things went wrong. He daydreams about a happier time when his sons loved him and he was a success at work. As the play progresses, Willy begins to retreat more and more into the past. Debt will only get in the way of that goal.ĭon’t live in the past. A man should seek to be independent and self-reliant. But having the latest gizmo is not worth the financial and emotional stress that comes with consumer debt. Sure, some debt is necessary in the form of a mortgage or student loans. His debt load was so crushing that he decided to kill himself so his family could have the insurance policy to pay for it all. The problem is that Willy took on massive amounts of debt to buy these things. There’s nothing wrong with such a desire. He wanted his wife to have a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, and a car. Willy wanted to give his family the best in life. Don’t be superficial like Willy put you shoulder to the wheel. Neither Willy nor his sons ever learn this, and they are consequently failures at the game of life. The true lynchpin of success is tireless ambition and hard work. Good luck and being well liked will only get you so far in life. But this philosophy simply sets Willy and his sons up for failure. The other part of Willy’s success equation was dumb luck he thought men just stumbled into success the way his brother apparently came into his diamond fortune in Africa. All throughout the Death of a Salesman, Loman tells his two sons, Biff and Happy, that the key to success in life is to be “well liked” and that all you need is “a smile and a shoeshine.” According to Willy, if you can become popular and get people to like you, you’ll have it made in life. Success doesn’t come from just luck, popularity, or personality. Here are a few lessons we can take from Willy on how not to be man. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to provide nice things for your family Willy just went about it all wrong. Unfortunately, Willy Loman bought into the idea and he let it destroy him and his family. Yet the reality then, as it is now, is that strenuously reaching to keep up with the Joneses can stretch a family perilously thin. Advertisers pitched the idea that the American dream was in reach of every man. Every family deserved a house with a picket fence, a new car in the garage, and all the newest appliances to make life easier. During the 1950s, men began to feel pressured to not just provide for their family but to also give them the luxuries that society was coming to believe every household was entitled to.

Death of a Salesman explores the world of post-war America and the effect that America’s new found prosperity had on men. This first profile in unmanliness takes a look at traveling salesman, Willy Loman from Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. The hope is that we can learn from his mistakes and not repeat them ourselves. We’re going to look at a man who was a paragon of unmanliness. Today, we’re going to do something a little different.

Biff loman character traits series#

Occasionally, the Art of Manliness runs a series called “Lessons in Manliness.” They are an attempt to glean important life lessons from successful and inspiring men.