Themes in Death of a Salesman

One theme that I have noticed is how a man is more dominant. Willy in this book is the person to provide for the family. His life revolves around his work so he can be there for his family and buy them the things they need. This gets contradicted though due to the fact that Willy has a mistress. His wife is in need of stockings but instead of buying his wife the stockings he buys his mistress a new pair. Linda his wife doesn't have the money to provide for herself thats why she depends on her husband. She stays at home and prepares the food for when he gets home.

Another theme would be cheating. In the family cheating is somewhat common. You look at Willy and what he is doing. He is cheating on his wife with his secretary. He provides his mistress with a lot more things then he does his wife. Then you look at his son Happy. Happy plays girls on a daily. He is not into commitment. Its one girl after another when it comes to him. These kind of traits seem to run in the family. Its as if Willy passed it onto his sons.

Finally there is the theme of falling apart. It seems as if not only the house is falling apart, but also Willy himself. Willy seems to be getting old, and not be able to take good care of himself. Also based on how he contradicts himself it makes it seem as if he isn't stable and cannot make up his mind about anything. The house is also falling apart. It needs fixing and no one is doing it. Willy's marriage seems to be going downhill as well. Even though it may seem clear, nothing is being done about it.

Willy

Willy tries to get his two sons to be successful in life, and not end up the way he had ended up. He brought the two of them up differently. Biff the older son who is 34 seems to represent the tragic side of Willy, and how vulnerable Willy is. Happy on the other hand seems to represent the self-centered and high ambition side of Willy. The way Willy tries to teach his sons is not well in my opinion.

I feel as if a son needs to know that the parent will be there for them no matter what, and support them no matter what the decision they make in life is, or if the decision is very bad help them make the better decision over all. Instead of making it clear that he is not happy with the way the lives of their sons are at the time period, and not supporting them so they can get back up on their feet, he makes it clear that they are not worth anything which brings their self-esteem down.

Willy is also very inconsistent with the things that he says. In a sentence he will use to contradictory words to talk about that one thing. For example he says, “Biff is a lazy bum!” then he says “There’s one thing about Biff… he’s not lazy.” He does this more then once. He does it throughout the reading. It is as if he cannot make up his mind. This leads to him being a bad parent to his two sons.

Linda does not point out what he is doing, but instead agrees with him. It is as if she loves him so much that she is blind by his flaws which are obvious to everyone else. I feel as if she harms him because by her doing this he is not learning. He just keeps doing it and feels as if there is nothing wrong with anything that he does.