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The Loman Family

715 Words3 Pages

Growing up in a trailer park and being close to people of several different backgrounds, I early on started to analyze other families and compare them to my own. Many of the families I was close to were dysfunctional and had many unspoken problems. I had a friend that was told by her father that she was a mistake and was supposed to be a boy, so in response she tried to please her father and act like a boy, which lead to her being the subject of tremendous bullying. This situation relates to the Loman family’s in that the children try hard to please their parents and as a result are unsuccessful in other areas of life. The Loman family throughout the course of the book showed these and many other dysfunctional and codependent characteristics. …show more content…

Characteristics of a dysfunctional family are irrational beliefs, love being earned instead of freely given, unresolved and/or undiscussed family issues, and an obsession with “public image.” In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, many of these characteristics are present, leading to the conclusion that the Loman family falls under the “dysfunctional family” category. For example, because of Mr. Loman’s obsession with being well liked, Biff became the popular football player, while Happy became the ladies’ …show more content…

Through the course of the book Mr. Loman has visions of his family being happy and idyllic as well as of the woman he cheated on his wife with, and though his family was fully aware of these visions they did not seek help for him. Mrs. Loman, on the other hand, deals with issues not by creating a false reality but redefining the one she lives in, a denial which fosters the codependent environment where no one gets help. As Linda said, “[they] don’t know what to do…[they] live from day to

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