Willy believes his son has much wasted potential, seeing Biffs empty expedition to the West being acceptable until he returns tangibly empty handed. In this way, Biff and Willy are contradicting characters. Biff does not believe that outside influences can help to attain his view of happiness. Biff values self-knowledge and self-acceptance, the opposite of his father. Biff feels that his father never found himself, being that his father has no true happiness he fears the same future maybe true for him too. and “Indeed, Willy’s self-contradictions go beyond normal human inconsistency into the realm of severe internal division. He yells at Biff: “Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace” (Death of a Salesman) But later adds: “Greatest thing in the world for him was to bum around.” (Death of a Salesman) And again: “Biff is a lazy bum!” (Death of a Salesman) says Willy. …show more content…
There’s one thing about Biff—he’s not lazy” (Timothy A. Judge & Hurst Charlice). Observing the signs of clinical depression, caused by lifelong unhappiness from his father, lead to the decisions made by Biff. During Biffs exploit to the West he finds a passion in laboring on a farm. His father sees no prestige in that line of work thus he neglects to see that Biff has obtained his own happiness in something so simple. While Willy lives vicariously through Biff, he believes that the only way his son will be happy one day is if he is rich and popular. But all Willy’s wants for Biff, is what he wanted himself to be. In a final attempt to achieve that through his son, he commits suicide to leave his son with life insurance money to start a business with. This left Biff with a better understanding of what lead to his father’s self-pitying death, his misconstrued idea of The American