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Misconceptions In Death Of A Salesman

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The downfall of the Loman family is solely caused by the family’s misconception of the American Dream. Due to his misconception of the American Dream, Willy lives his life while believing that he is fulfilling the American Dream, where in reality, he is not. However, he also passes this belief to his sons, and they start to struggle throughout their whole lives because they do no truly understand the American Dream and themselves. Willy’s misconception of the American Dream creates a constant conflict throughout the Loman family, where the majority of it resides with Willy and Biff. Willy lives inside his own fantasy world where he believes that the American Dream is obtained from popularity, financial success, and being well known. Due to his own misconceptions, Willy suffers from working long hours at a job he doesn’t like and is not good at. Willy fails to realize his own misconceptions throughout “Death of a Salesman,” and expects the same out of his own sons. And since Biff fails to meet his father’s expectations, most of the conflict in “Death of a Salesman” comes from the relationship between Willy and Biff. …show more content…

Willy raised Biff to live up to his all his ideals, and Biff up to a certain point, met his expectations. However, Biff would soon not meet up to his father’s expectations by failing the football scholarship due to his lack of mathematical skills. This causes Biff to start to doubt himself, and soon enough, Biff has lost his sense of direction and does not know what to do with his life. This gets so bad to the point where he cannot even keep a job for more than a certain amount of time. And even though at one point he dreams of working on a ranch, he is unable to pursue this dream because it does not meet his father’s expectations. Soon, Biff starts to blame his father for his shortcomings and this sparks the main conflict in “Death of a

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