The character’s roles in Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman, can be portrayed at its stereotypical best. The characters fall into a trap of not being able to think outside of what their station in life is or should be. Their perspective on life is completely dependent upon what is considered society’s norms at that time. Women were to be seen and not heard, while the husbands were the person that brings the money to the table and provides for the family. The man’s purpose in life was to have a job, support their family, and make enough money to retire. If they were unable to achieve that, they were considered a failure to their gender (237).
Gender roles can be seen throughout the play. While this may not be the main theme of the play, it is one of the major secondary themes. One part can be seen at the beginning of the play when Willy comes home from work to his wife and kids. Generally the father goes to work every day to provide for his family, while the mother is a stay at home wife who takes care of her children. The lady of the house generally only contributes to the household priorities. She was to have no thoughts of her own self, but to go along with whatever her husband wanted to do. When it came to the children, she raised them according to how her husband wanted them to be. The two sons were raised to be what society would call a real man. During this time period in history, this was the way of life. Some people would even call it “The American Dream.”
During most father and son relationships, there are certain times where the father wants to become a major priority in his son’s life than his son believes is necessary. There are endless reasons for this and can be demonstrated in different ways. Miller is able to portray and give an example of this behavior throughout Willy Loman character and his actions. When Biff comes home to gather up himself, Willy perceives it as a failure. Since Willy desperately wants his oldest son, Biff, to be successful in life and in every way possible, he tries to take matters into his own hands. “I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time” (16). The reason that Biff came home is to find out what he wants to accomplish in life. Because Willy gets in the way, of what Biff wants to accomplish, matters become more complicated. Partly due to Willy’s persistence in Biff’s life, which is no surprise as a father figure. They tend to have conflicting ideas as to what the American dream is. Willy believes that working on the road, and selling is the greatest job a man could have (81). Biff, however, feels the most inspiring job a man could have is working outdoors (22).
Although Happy and Biff had wished to get an ideal father, their wish narrowed down when Biff saw his father’s act, and when Happy saw his father’s discriminative act. But Biff and Happy didn’t become disillusioned when their quest for an ideal figure ended in an embarrassing awful experience. They took Linda as an ideal woman, a good woman. But they didn’t come across a women as good as their mother. So, they just treated women whom they met as a means of enjoyment, and as a disposable item. This disgusting habit to treat women as garbage, was acquired by Biff and Happy from their father Willy Loman.
It is important to consider the progress of Willy’s relationship with his family, as the family is one of the most important elements of the American Dream. In the present, Willy’s relationship with his family is built with tension. In his memories, Willy sees his family as happy and secure. But Willy’s conception of the past is not as picture perfect as it may be presented, as his personal consciousness shows through. No matter how much he wants to remember his past as an American and blissful, Willy cannot completely erase the evidence. He wants to remember Biff as the bright hope for the future. In the thoughts of his memories, however, we find that Willy does nothing to discourage Biff’s compulsive thriving habit. In fact, he encourages it by laughing at Biff’s theft of the football.
Over the years, Biff and Willy have came to mutual opposition. Willy is unable to let go of his commitment to the American Dream, and tends to place tremendous pressure on Biff to fulfill it for him. Biff feels a deep sense of inadequacy because Willy wants him to pursue a career that conflicts with his natural inclinations and instincts. He would rather work in the open air on a ranch than enter business and make a fortune, and he believes that Willy’s natural inclination is the same, like his father’s before him.
Willy’s relationship with Happy is also less than perfect in Willy’s reconstruction of the past, and it is clear that he favors Biff. Happy tries several times to gain Willy’s attention and approval but fails. The course of Happy’s adult life clearly bears the marks of this favoritism. Happy doesn’t express resentment toward Biff; rather, he emulates the behavior of the high-school-aged Biff. In the past, Willy expressed admiration for Biff’s success with the girls and his ability to get away with theft. As an adult, Happy competes with more successful men by sleeping with their women—he thus performs a sort of theft and achieves sexual prowess.
Willy’s relationship with Linda is even more complex and interesting. In one of his moments of self-doubt, she assures him that he is a good provider and that he is handsome. She also sees through his lie when he tries to inflate his commission from his latest trip. Although she does not buy his pitch to her, she still loves him. His failure to make her believe his fantasy of himself does not lead her to reject him, she does not measure Willy’s worth in terms of his professional success. Willy, however, needs more than love, which accepts character flaws, doubts, and insecurity—he seeks desperately to be “well liked.” As such, he ignores the opportunity that Linda presents to him: to view himself more honestly, to acknowledge the reality of his life, and to accept himself for what he is without feeling like a failure. Instead, he tries to play the salesman with her and their sons.
Biff was thrown off by Willy as a qualified figure capable of transforming dreams into reality. Hoping that if a proper atmosphere be given Biff can easily accomplish and reach his dream, Willy gave so much freedom as Biff desired, and was happy to get so much love and freedom from his father. So Biff took Willy Loman as a role model. Willy became his path to becoming a better person. In this way harmonious understanding developed between Biff and Willy Loman. But one day Biff happened to see his father spending time with a girl in a hotel. His father didn’t confessed of what was going on, but the lady decided to burst out of the restroom. Willy and the woman with whom he was enjoying felt embarrassed and a little self conscious. Biff saw that his father had given her an expensive silk stocking, that was a cause behind the financial strain on the Loman family. Willy had been accepted by Biff Loman as an ideal figure. Having seen his situation with that woman, Biff’s attitude towards his father changed permanently. Biff knew that even such a highly admired and idolized man like Willy Loman had feet of stone. The fact that his father is guilty of infidelity traumatized Biff. From that moment onward Biff began to show hate to his father, and completely lost all respect to him. On account of the distorted and disturbed relationship between Willy Loman and Biff Loman, the family structure began to deteriorate. The Loman family began to reveal the dysfunctional behavior Willy had compared Happy with Biff, and found out that Happy lacks far behind in terms of Biff’s immense potential. In comparison to Biff, Happy was far behind. So Willy began to give more attention to Biff and less to Happy. This discriminatory act of Willy Loman made Happy furious. Which is why Happy didn’t show any respect to his father when Willy was on the brink of suicide. The hatred relationship between Willy and Happy created an unstable relationship in the structure of Loman family.
Linda was upset at both Biff and Happy because they had tortured their father. Many people have agreed with that conclusive statement, that Willy Loman committed suicide because due to the fact that Willy’s marital affair was on the brink of extinction. Had this truth concerning his extramarital affair been revealed to Linda, she might have been alarmed, and her entire feelings of loyal commitment to Willy Loman might have changed out of nowhere. Therefore, it is clear that the Loman’s family lacks a lot of bonding experience. This dysfunctional family revealed neurotic, unbalanced and unknown behavior. The distorted gender relationship seems to be a cause behind the deterioration of the dysfunctional Loman family.