What is willys tragic flaw

In his world of delusion, Willy is a hugely successful salesman. He disguises his profound anxiety and self-doubt with extreme arrogance. Periodically unable to maintain this image of strength, Willy despairs and pleads with successful people around him for guidance and support. Despite his efforts, it becomes clear that Willy Loman is not popular, well-liked, or even good at his job. In fact, he never was. In all likelihood, he never will be. Now an older man, Willy can no longer drive competently, pay his bills, or sell anything.

Despite Willy's evident failure to meet his poorly chosen life goals, he clings to a fierce belief in the American Dream and the promise that anyone attractive and well-liked can make it big. He has deceived himself his entire life and tries to live vicariously through his unwilling son, Biff. But Biff uncovers Willy's lies when he finds out that Willy has been cheating on Linda.

Choosing to alienate his son rather than face reality, and tormented by his failures, Willy spirals downward. So let's talk about all these flashbacks. Part of this "downward spiral" we keep talking about has to do with Willy losing a grip on reality and on time. Because his life, by his standards, sucks, Willy escapes into the past and also conveniently gives us, the reader or audience, the background information we need.

All this escape business brings us to Willy's mistress. Miller makes sure we are able to understand these reasons for why Willy has the affair. But we don't hate Willy. We don't even call him a cheater. Because we understand the psychology behind his affair. He is simply trying to escape. Which brings us, right on schedule, to the end of the play. As we all know, Willy kills himself. But why? Well, he was clearly still harboring misguided hopes about success for Biff.

It seems Willy would rather kill himself than accept the fact that really, honestly, all his son wants is some shirtless sweaty time in Midwestern haystacks. The point is, Willy is still deluded when he kills himself. We all know the money isn't going to be used to start a business. What's sad is that Willy doesn't. That final delusion is almost worse than his death itself. Speaking of this death, let's talk about the title of the play.

Willy was always in pursuit of being the perfect salesman, and before he kills himself he expresses a wish to die "the death of a salesman. Willy doesn't really care who he lies to, or what he lies about. While Willy is talking to Linda when he gets home from what was supposed to be a big trip, she asks if "he sold anything" Willy, being the liar he really is reply, "I did five hundred gross in Providence, and seven hundred gross in Boston" At that point, Linda gets all excited because she thinks that Willy has a huge commission coming to him.

But, Willy then dashes her hopes by telling her the truth: "Well, I—I did—about a hundred and eighty gross in Providence. Well, no—it came to—roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip. That statement by Willy brings down Linda hopes, but Willy doesn't realize that. Willy doesn't realize that he hurts everyone he lies to. Another one of Willy's downfalls is that he expects too much from everyone. Willy always thought that Biff was the greatest kid in the world.

Happy continually brags that he is losing weight, while Biff, ready to go to college on an athletic scholarship, shows enough disregard for his studies to fail math. As an adolescent he steals from the locker room without reprimand from his father the same way he steals from Bill Oliver as an adult. This reinforces the values that Willy has instilled in his sons.

In the second flashback of the play presenting Biff and Happy together, Happy brags about losing weight again, showing his focus on physical appearance and athleticism, while Biff steals from the nearby construction site.

For Willy, this crime is not important. Although the American dream that he pursues prescribes hard work to achieve financial success, Willy cannot conceive that hard work and dedication are critical for achieving it. Happy disregards women with whom he has insubstantial relationships and Willy cheats on the devoted Linda. Like his father he is a compulsive womanizer, who tells lies to the women he meets.

For example, when both sons are at the restaurant waiting for their father, Happy claims that Biff is a professional athlete, to finally forget about his father in favour of seducing Miss Forsythe. In the final, most cruel move that Happy makes, he denies that Willy is his father, thus repudiating his father even more than Biff has done by fleeing the Loman house to live a life marked by crime and virtually no gainful employment. Thus, Biff does little out of calculation, but merely continues his pattern of foolish mistakes.

While Biff may have started to fail in order to spite his father, by the time he becomes an adult, his self-destructive behaviour is ingrained. Biff never wanted to go to summer school and thus graduate high school after visiting his father in New England.