It can be made evident that Willy Loman from the novel 'Death of a Salesman' can be seen as a family oriented individual due to the mere fact that he pursued to have kids with his wife Linda. Also, it can be seen that his way of life was resolved around theirs. However, the relationship amongst each child differed slightly, this will be examined briefly. The relathionhsip that Willy tried to attain with his children was more on a financial standpoint. This can be seen where he encouraged his children to gain 'The American Dream', which was to be 'well liked', have numerous amount of women so that they can automatically be moved up the hierarchy structure within society. Although from a reader's standpoint his way of having a relationship between his children may seem to be wrong, it was his way of showing affection. He encouraged stealing, lies and even not encouraging assignments to be done. He did this because he thought these were trivial things in life and discipline was not a necessity because it was the American dream that mattered for one to be successful in life.
Although it was mentioned that Willy was family oriented the amount of love showed to each child was was not that of equality. In the case of Biff, Willy had a stronger connection with this child. Willy would emphasize more the importance of the American Dream and would try his endeavour to see him achieve it. When his friend's child Bernard would encourage Biff to work on his subjects especially maths. Willy saw it as a waste of time for child Biff, since he was already well liked and Bernard was not. Even though this may seem as the wrong advice for a parent to do, it was his way of showing that he cared. Due to Willly's actions it allowed Biff to also have a close connection with his father. However, the relationship between the two tragically crumbled when Biff found out his father was having an affair with another woman. There is when we see that close relationship amongst the two faded.
On the other hand, Happy and Loman originally had a faded relationship because Willy's actions. Willy preferred his son Biff and it was demonstrated on a daily basis. Nothing Happy did seemed to be enough for his father. He elevated Biff more which caused the attention span of Happy to be limited and crushed.
In conclusion, it can be said that Willy's type of parenting skills is different from a normal reasonable person but it was his way of showing love.
Very well Shamaise, I am in total agreement with your thoughts. Also what you've done is to bring something that not many individuals have thought of before; and that is the fact that all of Willy Loman's 'bad parenting skills' were actually actions of love. Although they may not have been right they were his way of helping his sons to achieve and make something great of themselves.
ReplyDelete