Constructive Speech What determines the outcome of someone’s life? Is it the choices they make or is it the situations they have been placed into? Good morning Mrs.Gittins, mediator, scores, my opponents, my colleague and audience. My partner and I agree on the fact that Willie is most definitely not to blame for the situation he has ended up in. In Willy’s case the outcome of his life is based on the situations he was placed into. We believe this is due to the fact that during his childhood years a father figure was not present. Also, Willy’s wife Linda Lowman clearly understood that her husband was mentally unstable but she decided to turn a blind eye and deny just like the rest of society and pretend as if everything were okay. In the play, Willie’s character is a tragic hero and an unconscious victim. He sees the world around him changing and his own inability to change with it seals his fate. The audience learns that Willie strongly believes that success is not what you know, but who you know and how well you are liked. At one point in time Willie was a very successful salesman, when Howard’s father ran the company. Many promises were made between Willie and Howard’s father across that desk in the office. Despite the fact that Willie worked hard his entire life, and was rewarded very little, the promises that he believed in for all his years of work and strived towards fell through. Now that he is old and not able to keep up at the pace he used to Howard thinks he is useless to the company. Evidence of this is found on page 81 when Howard says to him “Kid, I cannot take blood from a stone”. By saying this Howard implies the fact that since he is not getting the amount of sales he wants from Willy, he has to let him go. The environment in which a person lives has a very large impact on the type of decisions as well as how the person perceives situations. In this case, we believe that the time period and society had some impact on willies situation. This play was written in 1949. In this time period things were very different from how they are today. For example in the book, there is only one income which is from the male, which is very different from what we experience in today’s society. Also the mother stayed at home. Another major difference is that the Loman household had a very strange air to it. There was always unspoken feelings, and unresolved issues present. Being in this toxic environment was certainly not beneficial to Willie, which is why we believe it was a contributing factor. An example of this is near the end of the book when Linda refuses to accept the flowers from the boys because they left Willy at the restaurant. Or perhaps earlier in the book, whenever Linda mentions anything about her stockings, Willy becomes uncomfortable because it triggers memories of his affair. Many people believe that the presence of a parental figure in a young child’s life can cause problems later on in life. My collogue and I found that it is possible that due to the fact that Willie grew up without a father figure that he was not given and taught the correct morals and values, as he may have been had his dad been present in his life. However, we also believe that in Happy and Biffs childhood days that he tried to make his boys feel very loved. These actions were present in one of the flashbacks prior to Biffs big football game. He gave Biff a big pep talk and told him how proud he was of him.

Willie Loman was going through a very difficult time in his life, and unfortunately the pressure became too much for him to handle, and he decided to take his life. He was dearly loved by his two sons, and wife. In conclusion, Willie had no control over the situation he was placed into. The factors that contribute to this are that; he was lacking a father figure as a child, he was in a toxic environment, the society did not assist in this either, and the fact that he cannot change with the times, due to his mental instability . It was for these reasons that such a driven, percerverent man sealed his fate by his own hand.

Questions
1. DO you think that willy was mentally stable?
2. What is a mental illness or instability
3. Do you think it is possible to control a mental illness
4. Was it willies fault that he was mentally unstable
5. Do you feel that an environment has an impact on how a person acts and feels
6. Has your family helped you through a difficult time in your life?
7. How would you feel if you had no support from the people that are souposed to love you unconditionally through thick and thin?
8. Do you think that willys mental condition helped him cope with this on top of the stress he was experiencing from his bills.
9. DO you respect your elders
10. Do you believe that in business the people that helped build up the company should be shot down after they reach a certain age
11. How would you feel if your grandparents got treated like willy did by their boss
12. DO you think that mental conditions were understood in the time period of the book
13. Would you judge willie the same as you are now if you knew that he was mentally disabled?
14. Willie loved his boys, he worked long hours to put food on the table and pay the bills, he was doing the best he could, how could anyone ask for more than that.