Vanessa Medina
Period: 1
English 3
6 April 2009
Essay
In “Death of a Salesman” Arthur Miller in 1948 attempts to give the audience an unusual glimpse into the mind of a Willy Loman, a 60 year old salesman who is no longer able to earn a living. Similarly, my grandparents are going through the same situation.

Willy receives only a small commission as he ages, and he slowly loses his mind and attempts to kill himself by inhaling gas from the water heater or from crashing his car. Throughout Death of a Salesman, 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; 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.

Willy Loman returns to New York during the night. His wife Linda hears him enter and is concerned and gets out of bed to go greet him. Willy admits to Linda that he had only made it to Yonkers before he had decided to return home. During the conversation Linda finds out that Willy has had several accidents that he seems to be emotionally unstable. Willy and Linda begin to argue about one of their sons, Biff, who has recently returned to New York. Willy is very mad and he tells Linda about the argument biff and he had before he left. The next morning the boys wake up and biff hears Willy, hap tells biff how Willy has been acting strangely as if he had been talking to biff and how he's been having trouble driving. Biff plays it off as nothing has happened; biff tells happy how hard it is for him to stick to a job. "I've always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I've done is to waste my life." Act 1, Part 2.

I can strongly relate to Willy Loman struggle. My grandparents are