Feeling Like A Failure In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

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Death of a Salesman What does it mean to feel like a failure? Have you accomplished all that you thought you would as a young child, adolescent, and young adult? For some people their dreams never come true, leaving them to feel like they aren’t living the life they should have lived, blame feeling like a failure on others, or live their life vicariously through other people because it makes you feel like you have done a great service in helping someone achieve all the things you wish you could have. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman we are introduced to a character named Willy Loman who has this very issue. Willy believes he hasn’t accomplished much in his own life and feeling this way causes Willy to have internal conflict within himself, external conflict with his wife, and with his children. Willy Loman throughout the story deals with the fact that he believes that he hasn’t truly accomplished much in his lifetime. He is getting older and is not quite where he would like to be and so this causes Willy to be very disappointed with his self. At the beginning of the play we find Willy …show more content…
However, he feels like a failure and does not feel that his family thinks high of him and this makes him angry. To begin with, his relationship with his wife is very servant- master like. Willy does not treat Linda with the respect she deserves. Linda will try to comfort Willy and he will raise his voice at her. On pg. 1002 Linda says, “Take an aspirin. Should I get you an aspirin? It’ll soothe you.” (Miller). This is an attempt to be caring for Willy but Willy being so prideful responds back and says, “I was just driving along, you understand? And I was fine…” (Miller 1002). Things like this show how much Willy’s personal issues affect his relationship with his wife. She becomes his scapegoat and deep down does he love her? One can say yes but he doesn’t show it the way he

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