Sacrifice In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

An individual’s capacity to self-sacrifice can be revealed because of the compelling circumstances around him or her. It is these special circumstances around an individual that can influence his or her willingness to sacrifice their values and beliefs. These circumstances can be situations, beliefs, or ambitions that will convince an individual to act in a certain way. This idea is portrayed by Willy Loman, in the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller; at the beginning, he is seen as valuing being well-liked and following the American Dream. Then Willy is asked to venture to Alaska, where he has the opportunity to do what he truly enjoys, which is working with his hands. He turns this offer down, as he is unable to sacrifice his dream,

Willy, who has raised his sons to blindly follow his dream, struggles to differentiate between reality and illusion. Over time, Willy believes that is “necessary to delude everyone [and] lying becomes the habitual mode of discourse” (Eisinger 100). By raising his sons to be “rugged, well liked” and indoctrinating the American Dream in his sons, Willy places an impossible pressure on them (Miller 49). This causes Biff and Happy to lie not only to their family, but also to themselves. Additionally, this caused Biff and Happy to look up and follow a glorified version of Willy that did not really exist. Biff is the only one in the family who eventually breaks out of the illusion that fools the rest of the family. At the end of the narrative, Biff realizes “what a ridiculous lie [his] whole life has been” (Miller 104). His self-deception ends when he realizes he has “been talking in a dream for fifteen years,” believing he was once something more than a shipping clerk (Miller 104). This shows that while Biff felt obligated to follow Willy in the business world, he had dreams of his own. Once Biff accepted himself for who he really was, he realized his true passions. On the contrary, Happy and Willy do not reach this state of self-fulfillment and do not realize the need to sacrifice their dreams in order to achieve happiness. Consequently, Happy deceives everyone into thinking he is the assistant buyer at work, when in reality he is “one of the two assistants to the assistant” (Miller 104). This demonstrates how Happy has become trapped in his father’s life. Unable to shake off his ideals of happiness, Happy becomes an empty person who lies to win his the approval of others. When looking back on the failure of the Loman men, Biff recognizes that Willy “had the wrong dreams” (Miller 138). This is a testament to the fact that Willy has failed, both as a father