Willy Loman, the main character, is a sixty year old male. He lives with his wife in the Bronks, in New York. In a house that they have almost completely paid off. Willy has two sons, Happy and Biff. Willy's job is travelling salesman. He has to drive to New England very often. The novel starts when he comes home from trying to drive to New England. He stopped earlier because he was not conscious of where he was driving. His mind would not stay focused on the road, he kept thinking about his past and the country side. His past was very nature based, and he had to learn how to use the new technologies. He was a man of the country side, he liked to grow his own vegetables and he liked to make swings for his sons on trees. Later on, around his house, they built large apartment buildings. The construction workers cut down the trees and covered the surrounding land with cement. Willy still had his vegetable garden but nothing grew properly. His life became more and more dependant on machines, he needed to drive his car. He had arch-supports for his feet, and he wore glasses. All these changes in lifestyle also changed him mentally.
At the start of the book, Willy Loman is just an old man with problems at his age. He already has a small quantity of self inflicted problems, but the further into the book/play the worse his problems get. The worse his problems get the more he relies on technology and the more he changes into a person which has nothing. He hates technology because he is incapable of using it to its full potential so he gets help from someone and when that does not work he goes back in time, mentally, he has re-runs of his past. In his past the only true pieces of machinery he used was his car and his fridge, where as during the time period of the play he needs to use machines to fix his needs, glasses are not handmade, neither are arch-supports and neither is aspirin. The males in his family all have that problem, they have such good connections with the outdoors that they do not enjoy things that keep them indoors or are made unnaturally. This is what creates issues in the family's future.
Willy Loman has feet problems, he needs to wear arch supports. His feet most probably were flat when he grew up and no one had thought to fix them then, thus causing him to have to wear them later on in life. If he stays up on his feet for long in one day his feet will get tired, and start to hurt. On the first day of the story line he comes home and complains about his feet hurting. Willy Loman hates the fact that if he wants to walk normally he has to depend on a manufactured object, his arch-supports.
Willy Loman also needs to wear glasses to see well. In the movie in his flashbacks he does not wear glasses. He does not seem to wear them very often, they are one of those objects he must rely on that are made by machinery. He has to have glasses, he really does need them to see, in certain cases. Willy Loman subconsciously tries not to wear his glasses because of the fact that they are unnatural.
Willy Loman's job makes him dependant on his car, he needs to travel to sell his merchandise. If he does not sell he does not get paid, he has to sell at least something. Willy knows this yet during the time period of the play he chooses not to sell so much, he almost does not try to do his job. He goes to his neighbour to ask for money. The car costs money, the petrol for the car is quite pricey, and Willy does not wish to waste his more on that. He wants to buy seeds, and other natural things. His car is like a burden to him because it is making him dependant on that major machine. He seems to blame all his problems on his car. His death is simple to explain, he wanted to commit suicide, but he did not want to be blamed for this crime so even in his death nothing is his fault it is the car's.
When Willy Loman goes to Harold's office to ask if he can be moved to work in New York he has an incident with a tape recorder; “WILLY [leaping away with fright, shouting]: Ha! Howard! Howard! Howard! HOWARD [rushing in]: What happened? WILLY [pointing at the machine, which continues nasally, childishly, with the capital cities]: Shut it off! Shut it off!” This scene causes Mr. Loman to lose his job, and part of his self respect. He now shows himself he is incapable at using a machine.
In one of Willy Loman's many flashbacks he has to pay for a repair to his fridge. When he is short on money, having a good afternoon with his kids, his wife is sitting in the kitchen looking over the bills. She mentions to him that they have to pay extra this month because their fridge needed to get repaired. This makes Willy Loman mad because he has to spend his money on something that is a machine, something that he does not want to see or have around.
At the start of the play when Willy Loman arrives home, his excuse is that the car was going “off the shoulder” and he would be driving and looking at the landscape, and he would not remember where he had been driving. This shows that the landscape effects him very much, making his love for nature visible in a not so healthy way. He could have driven off the road, like his death at the end of the play. The idea of the landscape effecting him shows that he missed his old “perfect” life, where he worked, and his kids went to school and he had his house. Now he has no job, his kids also have no great futures and his house is all he really has left, only he does not like its position so much any more.
In most of Willy Loman's flashback, there are two large trees in the garden. His sons had hug a swing in between them. The trees would blossom, and they would look lovely in the spring. When the play starts there are no trees because they had been cut down, to save space for the new apartment buildings. These trees symbolize the good old days to Willy Loman. They show him that things have changed, time has changed. When he remembers the trees in his flashbacks his heart breaks a little, because they are a beloved memory of his, a memory of nature.
Willy Loman often repeats that he is going to buy seeds to plant in him vegetable patch, when he does get the seeds he tries to sew them like he used to, only now nothing grows. And he is talking to himself. He planted when his kids were young, plants actually grew in his patch. Nothing grows any more, because there is no more sunlight that reaches the garden of Willy Loman's house.
One of his sons Biff was quarterback on his high school's team. He played well and he always tried really hard to win, to make him father proud. Football is an outdoor sport and Willy Loman was an outdoors man. When he thinks of his son he is instantly reminded of the fact that it was outdoors, a connection to peace, serenity, tranquillity, and the old work, hard physical labour, outside.
Biff again loves the outdoors, he hates working in offices, he wants to do manual labour. Biff is similar to his father in that way. He wants to work in the sunlight, with plants and animals. He has an idea of having his own ranch, out in the middle of nowhere. The summer heat, the long grass, the animals and the harvests, all these things intrigue him to see more of the outside, more of the nature part of life. This is like his father because Willy Loman always wanted an outdoor life, he was always ready to do a lot of manual labour. Alaska is an escape to Willy Loman. Its a different life story, a road that he could have gone down but chose not to. Part of Willy is happy that he had that life he did. The other part always still wonders what could have it been like if he had gone with his brother to Alaska. Willy mainly wishes he had gone to Alaska, all the dreams of his he didn't achieve were part of the going to Alaska, because he would have never have known what happened in Alaska. And that allows Alaska to be a place of new beginnings, like the American dream. This American dream of his does not have machines, or if it does he owns all these new technological objects. There is one point in the novel where Willy Loman has a “flashback”. During that time he buys something that is a bit over priced for his family budget. It is a machine, and this causes him to be worried about his house payments. This is where machines take over the nature part of Willy's life.
At the end of the play when Willy Loman kills himself with his car it is not very described. The audience does not physically see his death. This is what makes his whole life similar to a delusion. He is a nature fanatic, he loves and cares for anything outdoors and related to nature. Yet his life is one hundred percent dependant on machines, his car, his fridge, his glasses.
In the end I think this book has many important life stories. Parts of people's lives that they are not willing to tell anyone. Willy changes through out the book. The changes in his case are negative, because they result as his death. I am glad we read this book at this time in our lives because teenagers go through depression a lot. This book sort of allows us to have no reason to go to a counsellor. It shows that everyone has problems with their lives and we can not fix all our mistakes ourselves. People our age seem to blow up our problems to a much bigger size, we are dramatic and we use hyperbole on everything. The meaning of the book to me is that, everyone needs help. Different people different amounts, but no one can always keep everything in. Keeping everything to yourself can cause even more major depression. You need to explain and share, so that you can be helped, and not die a lonely death like Willy Loman.
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