In the Comments section below, please post a response of at least one full paragraph (min. 5 sentences). Your assignment is twofold: 1) you are to demonstrate a clear understanding of the text by attempting to summarize the text's argument as precisely as possible, and 2) you are to use your comment to ask the text (or ask your peers) at least one thoughtful question.
Remember: your comment can respond directly to other students' posts on this text. The goal of this forum is to offer an opportunity for intelligent dialogue related to the works we are studying in class. Respectful debate is always welcome.
According to MedicineNet.com - People with dementia have significantly impaired intellectual functioning that interferes with normal activities and relationships. They also lose their ability to solve problems and maintain emotional control, and they may experience personality changes and behavioral problems such as agitation, delusions, and hallucinations. We discussed whether this disease could be contributing to the case of Willy Loman. In his old age, and considering everything he’s been through in his life, it is a very possible contributing factor. Because this play was written to show the case of many struggling Americans portrayed in the character of Willy Loman, it was decided to rule Dementia out as a reason for Willy’s condition. If Willy Loman, however, was more of a realistic character rather than one that acts as a symbol of all the American people that spend their whole lives trying to make it big in the real world, I believe that this condition would explain a little about why his outbursts and lack of understanding seem to be uncontrollable. How then is he so adamant on maintaining this fantasy as he watches his life and his family crumble around him, if he doesn't have any other pending conditions?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachel that Willy seems to have many symptoms of dementia.It doesn't seem as though Willy is just a struggling American. He does however, deal with a lot of normal issues, such as feeling like he's been unsuccessful in life and struggling to provide for his family. He also deals with trying to live the life he wish he had had through his kids. Willy realizes what a failure he is, yet won't admit it, so he deals with his problem by yelling at his kids and trying to make them successful. It doesn't make sense to me that he could be in a stable health conditions considering his frequent hallucinations and insane outbursts. Could Willy be drowning so much in his lies that he goes insane without ever having an actual health problem?
ReplyDeleteGracie, I think that Willy's life would have gone a lot smoother if he had been honest and if he had not put so much pressure on his family. He had so much faith in the American Dream that he forgot that people achieve it by working for it. He let his sons get away with only thinking about their future instead of perservering on their own. If he had only taught them the techniques instead of telling them that the dream would come to them their lives would have gone differently.
ReplyDeleteAs Gracie said, Willy tries to live the life he wished through his kids. Willy tries to live his version of the American Dream through his kids, especially Biff. Biff is the football star and is well liked. Willy says that people will always remember Biff for these things. Willy preaches that this is what it will take for Biff to be successful. Biff doesn't work hard though, he fails math. I don't understand how Willy doesn't see that his way to success doesn't work, especially when he sees his kids fail. My question is since Willy failed why does he still have the same view for his kids and let them fail?
ReplyDeleteRachel, your diagnosis of Willy is very insightful, and I agree- he does display many of the symptoms of Dementia. He struggles to maintain hi relationships and to interact properly with those around him. He also has trouble keeping control over his emotions, and most of the time they control him. However, rather than a medical condition, I think he suffers from the pain of reality. He doesnt want to accept his life; its somewhat similar to a midlife crisis. He struggles with his identity and clings desperately to his illusion as it slowly falls apart around him. In the end, he just can't accept it. Why did it take so long for him to realize reality? Why couldnt he accept it?
ReplyDeleteI agree he has a hard time gripping reality, but really a midlife crisis at his age? Maybe he is just realizing that his entire life has been a lie. He thought he was something he's not and believing a lie led to his demise. It's hard to accept things for what they really are. Willy disappointed himself and thus made an alter-ego where he is this big shot. It took him so long to realize reality because he started to believe the lie. The only way he was brought back down to earth was through Biff finding out about Willy cheating.
ReplyDeletesorry that was freakishly long guys....
ReplyDeleteAlex, I don't know if he believes his life is a lie. When he and Howard were having the discussion in the office, Willy genuinely believed that he was one the best salesmen in the business, and was shocked when Howard told him that he didn’t have nearly the amount of sales that he claimed he had.
ReplyDeleteI think the thing about this is that Willy is dwelling on the past through out this play. But When he is flashing back to the past it shows him always focused on the future for him and his sons. So Willy is now relying on his daydreams of the past, and his daydreams of what he still thinks he and his sons can be. It seems like in this play Willy can never focus on the present which could be why hes such a failure and now going wacko.
ReplyDeleteI definitely don't think Willy is going through a midlife crisis. It does almost seem like he has dementia, like Rachel said but there is more to it than just that. I think this might have been caused because Willy just couldn't handle his real life. He constantly boasts about how he is respected by everyone and is well-known. The sad fact is that that just isn't true. He doesn't want to admit to his family or himself that he is now old and never accomplished his goals or done anything really important with his life. This is why he wants his kids to be like him only better. He wants to live for them and have them be successful at the same thing he was trying to be successful with. Was Biff finding out that his dad was having an affair what really drove Willy over the edge? He constantly goes into fantasies of that moment, but what does that mean? Is he trying to forget it and is the fact that he can't making him lose his grip on reality?
ReplyDeleteI agree that Willy is not simply going through a mid-life crisis. I believe that he just has a false hope that the American Dream can be achieved simply through being nice. He wants to get to the top, by being lazy nice. However the story tells us that in order to be successfull you must be hard-working and cut-throat. He wants to believe that being nice will work out, but he keeps failing and trying to cover it up. He lies to himself and to his family in order to make himself feel successfull. He keeps pushing back reality in order to be happy, however I believe that if he let himself be dissapointed in himself once, it would make him a better salesman. His acceptance of failure would push him to work hard and to actually be successfull.
ReplyDeleteI tried to post this after Alex before but it didnt send....just sayin
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that Willy is experiencing Dementia or even a mid-life crisis. Unlike Alex said, I don’t even think that Biff discovering the affair brought him down to earth. I think that’s what started the delusions in the first place. Willy kept saying that in order to succeed, one must be well liked. He liked the idea of sleeping with other women because that meant, to him, that they liked him. Also, as Doctor C pointed out in class, sleeping with that woman was Willy’s way of “getting to the top.” In Willy’s mind, this woman liking him would lead to other people, potential buyers of his products, liking him as well. Willy wasn’t having an affair because he fell in love with another woman; he was having an affair purely for business reasons.
Also, Biff was always the favourite child. Willy loved Biff more than Happy, and even his wife, because Biff was a football star. Biff was well liked. Willy projected onto Biff the life that Willy had always wanted to live. Willy tried his hardest to mold Biff into a Willy clone. Willy also loved that even though he wasn’t the most well liked, he still had a family that loved him – still had a son in Biff who loved him. When Biff discovered the affair, Willy didn’t think that he could ever be forgiven and didn’t think Biff loved him anymore. I think this is when Willy began to daydream and fall into a different world. Willy didn’t think that Biff loved him therefore he didn’t think any of his family loved him. Since his family didn’t love him, he realized that not many people in the business world liked him either. In his mind, Willy began to create people who did like him. Not fake people, but the people in his past before the affair, back to a time when people loved him. He began to relive those days. These people include a young, athletic Biff, Ben, Willy’s brother, before he left for Africa, his wife before the affair, and even his mistress before the affair was discovered. These delusions are part of Willy’s philosophy that he needed to be well liked. Willy created people in his head that liked him and those people were easy to deal with than those who actually deeply cared for him, though he couldn’t see it. I actually think that there is no other way for Arthur Miller to end Death of A Salesman, than with Willy’s death (not just because of the title). He had tried to commit suicide before, but was unsuccessful. I think he was waiting to know that his family loved him again. Biff needed to convince him that he was still liked – loved even. Willy didn’t just want to kill himself; he wanted to give his family $20,000 of insurance money. I don’t think he would have actually killed himself unless he thought they liked him enough to accept his “sacrifice.” In the play itself, Willy’s mind keeps telling him that they will call him a “damned fool” and disrespect him for committing suicide. In a way, he was Biffs’ apology as an invitation for Willy to give Biff $20,000. In reality, Biff was trying to convince his father of the good that he had, and to not kill himself, but Willy couldn’t see past his own ideas. Willy chose to kill himself and “earn” the twenty thousand dollars for his family. Ironically, Willy’s death and the insurance money earned from it, seems to be his only successful “sale.”
My question is, why does Willy keep saying, “isn’t that remarkable?”
I think Willy just didnt understand what it really took to be a good salesman. He wanted to be well liked and thought that that was the only thing keeping him from becoming successful. Thats why he tried to get biff, a wel liked football star, to sell. ITs also why he was having an affair with the assistnat. I think thats why he was so devatated when biff found out, cuz he realized that being well liked could mess up other relationships. And why he cried at the end, cuz he was relieved that despite him turning on his family, that biff still lvooed him
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chris in that I think that even though Willy might suffer from dimentia the emphasis is put on the fact that he suffers from the pain of reality. The pain of reality is that he is not a succesful salesmen and that his life is not like that of Uncle Bens. I think the realization that he is not what he sought out in life ( the american dream)is what really causes Willy to kill himself. Willy the patagonist, is suffering from the realization that the American dream didn't work out for him and that his sons aren't living it either. This pain I think is seen throughout the whole play and at the end I think Willy finally comes to understand it and accept it instead of turning a blind eye to it.
ReplyDeletethis didnt send but my question is does Willy's wife realize that Willy is suffering from a possible disease or does she just believe he is sad and suicidal?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I do not believe Willy Loman has Dementia in this story. He is simply a man who epitomizes the "losing-side" of the American Dream. Arthur Miller uses Willy "Low-Man" as an example to illustrate just how corrupt the American Dream is in his point of view. He, through Willy Loman, is attempting to show that the American Dream is controlled and stimulated through greed and the defeat of many others. Willy Loman is one of the many others, who must fail in American Society, in order for others to succeed.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Willy Loman constantly retreats into his past is a mechanism he uses to escape the present. He does this because he realizes that he is a failure in that, he never accomplished the "American Dream". The fact that he retreats into his past is something else that is odd because he sees his past as better than it is. In this way, Miller's Death of a Salesman is similar to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Overall, Willy Loman is constantly looking to his past as a way to escape the present; that is, his failures in life.
ReplyDelete