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Death Of A Salesman Quote Analysis

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Death of a Salesman Do you ever live life in the past? Always thinking about your “Glory Days,” thinking about how great it was then and how meaningless your life is now? In the book,“Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller, many of the characters live in the past because there current life isn’t as glorious as before. The character Willy, is always remembering what happened in the past because he can’t bear to deal with the future. This is also the case for Biff, Willy’s son who had a bright future in high school. Willy remembers times when his sons were successful in Highschool and his job could provide for them all. But this isn’t the case now, his job is a struggle, always has to borrow money from people just to support his two grown up boys still living at home. In the book it says, “Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never leave home anymore,” (Miller 30). Also it says, “A hundred and twenty dollars! My God if business doesn't pick up I don't know what I’m going to do!” (Miller 36). These quotes show how earlier in life Willy was full of hopes, dreams, and a want for a new business. But later he is struggling to come home and pay off the debts that he owes. …show more content…

This left him finding temporary work, but eventually ending up back home. As it states in the book, “you’re suppose to study with me today… Mr. Birnbaum say that if you don’t start studyin’ math he’s gonna flunk you, and you won’t graduate,” (Miller 32). “Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of jobs since I left home before the war,” (Miller 22). These quotes explain how he wasn’t focusing on school work when he needed to and instead chased girls and played football. Then, in the future Biff explains how he jumps from job to job, unable to support himself, and comes

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Biff failing math and not going to summer school may have been instigated by Willy encouraging him to blow off his studies and Biff discovering that Willy was having an affair. One cannot lay the blame totally on Willy because while he may have been the catalyst Biff made that decision not to study or go to summer school. Willy is kind of responsible for his family not being wealthy. He turned down an opportunity to go to Alaska with his brother a decision that would eventually cost him. Had he gone with Ben he could have been rich from finding a diamond mine in Africa.

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Thirty five years later after devoting his life into the career, he hasn’t accomplished the same success that dave have achieved, but “he possessed too much snobbery to admit that his own destiny was in a simple career as a carpenter” (Death of a Salesman). Willy obviously wanted more in life, and since he saw himself not achieving anything, he taught his kids into his way of seeing life, hoping they would have gone the same path and get the dream he had for himself. When Biff came home he realized that Willy was disappointed in Biff, he “resolves to reform his life for the sake of his father, and act 1 closes with the familiar denial of old wounds and Biff’s promise to make a business deal in New York” (Death of a Salesman). Willy’s confusion about the real “American Dream” makes him teach his sons wrong, and his failure because he never understood what was “really needed to succeed insisting to the end that ‘personality wins the day’”

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