At other times, Willy proudly recalls memories of Biff's last football game because it is more pleasant to re-create the past in which Biff adored him and wanted to score a touchdown in his name, rather than face the present where he is at odds with his own son.
Willy's constant movement from the present to the past results in his contradictory nature. Although he fondly remembers Biff as a teenager, he is unable to communicate with Biff in the present. As a result, he praises Biff in one breath, while criticizing him in the next. The cause of Willy's inconsistent behavior is his unbidden memories of a long-ago affair, which he forgets or chooses not to remember until the end of Act II.
It is difficult enough for Willy to deal with Howard, his buyers or lack of buyers , and the everyday reminders that he is not a great salesman like Dave Singleman; however, it is even more insufferable for Willy to accept the idea that he is a failure in his son's eyes.
Prior to the Boston trip, Biff, more than anyone, sincerely believes in Willy's success, potential, and inevitable greatness. Willy is able to achieve the success and notoriety he desires only through Biff, but this changes when Biff learns of the affair.
After the Boston trip, Willy tries to regain the success he once had by focusing on memories or events prior to the discovery of the affair. It is not surprising that Willy contradicts himself when speaking in the present about Biff or to him, for although Willy chooses to remember Biff as he used to be, he cannot eradicate the words Biff spoke to him in Boston: "You fake! You phony little fake!
Willy perceives himself as a failure: He is not Dave Singleman. He is just a mediocre salesman who has only made monumental sales in his imagination.
Now that he is growing old and less productive, the company he helped to build fires him. He regrets being unfaithful to his wife, even though he will never admit the affair to her. He is no longer a respectable man in Biff's eyes. On the other hand it treats the influence that these illusions exert on his two boys and their wrong upbringing.
Willy Loman who represents the main character of the play is sixty-three years old. He is married with Linda, a housewife and has two grown boys named Biff and Happy. Willy is salesman by profession and in his younger years he bought a small house in Boston with a large garden for his family. Meanwhile his firm for which he has worked for about thirty-four years has taken away his salary and he has to work on straight commission in New England like a beginner.
Nowadays Willy has problems to earn his living and he constantly borrows money from his neighbor Charley, pretending to his wife that it is his salary. In his memories, for example, he once says to his boys:. The finest people.
I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own. Collected plays. Willy seems to be painfully moved by this negative change since he often mentions it. Throughout the whole book we are told that Willy has a great deal of craft skills and in his opinion a real man is supposed to have a certain talent to handle tools. Willy also shows us permanently his admiration for nature.
While traveling in his car he is often contemplating nature and perhaps dreaming about a life in the countryside. At the beginning of the first Act we might think that Willy Loman is an ordinary elderly businessman, who seems to be exhausted by a trip for his firm. But later on we realize that he has hallucinations and sometimes problems to distinguish between past and present.
It gets quite clear that the old salesman has become senile. In his youth Willy had the choice between two ways of life. On the one hand he had the opportunity to lead a life in the countryside and work outdoors and on the other hand the possibility to live in the city and earn his money in the business. Bernard returns to the Loman house to beg Biff to study math.
Willy orders him to give Biff the answers. Bernard replies that he cannot do so during a state exam. Bernard insists that Biff return the football. Bernard leaves the house, and Linda leaves the room, holding back tears. The memory fades. Willy laments to himself and Happy that he did not go to Alaska with his brother, Ben, who acquired a fortune at the age of twenty-one upon discovering an African diamond mine.
Charley, having heard the shouts, visits to check on Willy. They play cards. Charley, concerned about Willy, offers him a job, but Willy is insulted by the offer. Ben appears on the stage in a semi-daydream. He cuts a dignified, utterly confident figure. He alternates between conversing with Charley and his dead brother.
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