Death of a Salesman EssayBiff has always been imbued with the values of his father, of the business world and the goal of money. Biff's father, Willy, is a salesman and success in life is money. After high school, however, Biff began to get sick of the routine and competition of the work he did involving business so he left the city to go to work outdoors where he feels he belongs. He makes little money on the farms and ranches, which doesn't fulfill the expectations he has inherited from his father. He's back home because he feels lost and doesn't know what to do. The first experience Biff has that changes his outlook is one that changes his opinion of his father. It is one from the past. Biff deeply admires his father, almost as a hero, like any kid. When he fails math and therefore cannot graduate from high school, Biff goes to his father who is in Boston on business. He is convinced his father the salesman can talk to his teacher to raise his mark. In his father's hotel room, he is horrified to discover his dad with another woman. Biff's image of his father is shattered. He calls his father a liar, a fake and a phony. This is when he starts questioning himself and all that he has known. He seems to lose belief in the world his father has told him about, and he is no longer motivated to finish high school. This event in Biff's life changes his view of his father, and his father's values, which he had adopted as his own. In the present and back at home, Biff has told his father that he is going to see Bill Oliver, for whom he once worked as a salesman, to ask for a loan to start a business of his own in sporting goods. He is going to do this for his father although he says he hates the business world and his father's values which are still hanging on to him. In the restaurant where he is to meet his brother Happy, and Willy, after meeting with Bill Oliver, he tells Happy something that has been revealed to him. He never worked for Bill Oliver as a salesman but was only a shipping clerk. Bill Oliver would not meet with Biff at all because he did not know who Biff was. Biff believed that he was a salesman for this man, but realizes that the Lomans have been living under false memories and lies. Biff, like his father's illusion and exaggeration of being a success as a salesman, went along all his life with these and other revised versions of reality. Biff changes his views and breaks from these illusions. Willy himself realizes he has never been a success and possibly chased the wrong goals in life. Still, he will not give up this dream of the salesman. He has in mind one last business deal, to cash in on his $20 000 life insurance policy by killing himself. This will set Biff up financially, transferring his dream onto his son. Willy leaves at night and crashes his car, killing himself. At the funeral, Biff says, "I know who I am." With his father dead, he is free from his father's goals and dreams, and is free to be his own person. His father's death changes Biff, lets Biff become fully himself with no one else's imposing sense of the world. Seeing his father in Boston, the meeting with Bill Oliver and his father's suicide reveal to Biff a new awareness. These events change his view of himself, his father and the world. Often, events in life give people new information which helps them become more aware of themselves and of their surroundings. |