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Willy Loman's Father

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The Role of the Father
There is an old saying that goes, "like father, like son." This describes the passing down of personality traits from generation to generation (in this case, father to son) in such a way that the mannerisms of a son almost directly mimic the mannerisms of his father. It is common that most children unknowingly inherit some of their parents' idiosyncrasies, but it is not always clear why. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, the character of Biff, although he is hesitant to admit it, shares many emotional characteristics with his father, Willy. This may be due to the fact that both men have similar relationships and feelings about their fathers, whom they both resented and, at the same time, aimed to please. This causes …show more content…
Willy's father was very absent and left when Willy was very young, yet he never stops thinking about his father. The entire play begins with the sound of a flute, which Willy's father played (Miller 1), making it clear that he, or at least fatherhood in general, is of some significance in the production. It seems that Willy constantly reminisces about his father and attempts to please him, even though he was never around to see Willy's sons or any of Willy's "progress." In a similar way, the young Biff always aimed to please his father, attempting to be "well-liked" and taking extra steps in order for his father to recognize his accomplishments ("...just for you, I'm going to break through for a touchdown!") (Miller 32). During Willy's brother Ben's first visit, Willy remarks how he is bringing up his boys to be just like his father (Miller 49). He also states that "Dad left when I was such a baby and I never had a chance to talk to him and I still feel- kind of temporary about myself" (Miller 51). This can be directly linked to Biff; when Biff and his father became absent from each other after the incident with the Woman, Biff left in search of many occupations of various levels of skill in an attempt to "find himself," but never truly did. He says that when he arrived back at …show more content…
From then on, Biff recognizes that his father is not a perfect man and that he himself is not going to be on top of the world merely because he is a football "star." He goes out looking for himself, in search of the reality that he believes has been hidden from him all of his life. Willy, on the other hand, goes in the opposite direction and continues to develop a more distorted form of reality. In his mind, the incident never happened, and he locks it away and pretends that it is not the reason why Biff did not go to summer school or why the family is slightly torn apart. As Willy's sales continually decline and his promise of ever making a sale dwindles, he only sees it as hopeful, each time he goes out saying that he is going to make more money than ever before. Biff is the only one in the family who mentions the reality of Willy's financial troubles, saying "we never told the truth for ten minutes in this house" (Miller 131). Although his sense of the real world was distorted before the episode, the line between fantasy and reality for Willy blurs even more when he realizes that someone close to him (in this case, his son) discovers that he has been lying. He wants everyone around him to believe that what he is saying is true that he pushes even harder after the incident to force the incorrect state upon everyone else. When his credibility is questioned, he no longer calmly

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