Topic > Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Willy's journey from desperation to depression

In "Death of a Salesman" Arthur Miller provides the theme of disillusionment and depression, the conflict of coping with urbanization and to misplaced identity. Willy Loman's personality is portrayed with the help of Miller and captures the trauma of someone who cannot compromise and change with the new style of a mechanized and modernized world and suffers from perpetual neurosis as a result. The different characters such as Biff, Happy, Bernard and Charley help to bring out the unique components and nuances of Willy's character. The show focuses on Willy's emotional and psychological journey from a stage of desperation to succumbing to depression. The struggle between rationality and deliberate slipping into the dream world and the character of Willy who truly refuses to see reality make the story realistic and relatable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Willy Loman's character is said to be trapped in adolescence. Even though he has reached the ripe old age of sixty and is the father of two grown children, he still idolizes the romantic concept of the rags to riches story. For him, his uncle Benjamin represented ideal virility. However he is fascinated by his uncle's air of secrecy who would say when he had amassed enormous wealth "Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked in the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I went out. [...] And by God once I was rich.'His obsession with virility and machismo could be understood as his failure to meet society's expectations of a successful male.He prided himself on having been a successful salesman in his formative years and sought refuge in an imaginative past. He wanted his children to be what he could not. Willy wanted his children to be popular, famous and successful, but he could not contain in them the tenacity and diligence necessary to succeed as a child Willy went through apparent and fleeting moments of pleasure and victory but no longer had the foresight to give the right instructions to his children. He lived in the illusion that his children were the most exceptional and brilliant among all the other children in the area. But by the time he realized the truth it was too late. He got old and all his sons were men in their thirties and yet they still hadn't settled down with a job and a wife. He was even more depressed when he discovered that others were far ahead of him in terms of money, social reputation and boys connected with impervious futures. Charley, whom he pitied, is the father of a profitable and renowned son. Willy's disillusionment is total when he learns that he has overestimated the credibility of his children and that he has built false expectations on them. Willy had been blind to the facts when it came to self-knowledge. He barely understood himself and his children who had been like him. His immaturity which made him take refuge in a vibrant past also prevented him from accepting the existing reality. His lack of ability to face reality and understand his failure increased his pathos and bitterness. His existence seemed stagnant and fixated with false hopes that his children would find a foothold in their respective lives. Like Willy, his children also seemed to be trapped in their childhood. They seemed out of place and yet they brooded about the old school days, fun, games and girls. Biff, who was once curiously more conscious than Happy, admits his failure: "Maybe it's really a problem..