Willy Loman Eulogy

Words: 629
Pages: 3

For my transformative text, I chose to create a eulogy written by Biff in memory of his father, Willy Loman. Eulogies are personalized speeches that are commonly delivered at funerals and memorials commemorating someone who has lost their life, and reflecting on memories and characteristics that will be most remembered. Willy Loman took his own life and struggled to face guilt and blame for past actions that impacted his relationships with loved ones. The main purpose behind this text is to commemorate Willy’s life, to express Biff’s feelings about Will and to try to make sense of what he has done. He was not the most liked person, or considered as a successful business man and this reflected in the small attendance at his funeral. Because …show more content…
In the Death of a Salesman, the moments shared between Willy and his family before his death were significant to Biff to reveal his true emotions to his father because of the on-going conflict he found himself in with his father. The eulogy written correlated with the argument that happened in final moments of the original text and suggests that Biff has reached some kind of understanding of Willy’s death. This is conveyed through the sorts of things he says to Willy at the end, for example: “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens…I’ll go in the morning. Put him…Put him to bed”. This moment in the original text was significant for displaying Biff’s characterisation as his breakdown proved that he truthfully just wanted his father to forget about the artificial importance of success so he could be proud of his own two son’s achievements. Biff’s demeanor at the funeral is also important for the way the eulogy was to be written as he confides in Happy: “I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream… He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him”. Writing a eulogy gave me the chance to expand on Biff’s feelings at the end of the play and to get him to speak about it more