How Infinitely Was the True Downfall in “Death of a Salesman”

How Infinitely was the True Downfall in “Death of a Salesman” The union of a man and wife coming together in marriage has been a major part of human history. Marriage has continuously changed throughout time, especially in the past few years, and is one of the oldest human concepts and is still an important aspect in many people’s lives. While many strive for a happy life with their significant other, this does not always happen. This is because as long as marriage has been a part of history so has the leading cause of divorce: infidelity (Scott). This is not only seen in history but has also become a reoccurring topic in social medial, television, and literature. In Arthur Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman,” the main character, Willy Loman, has an affair with an unnamed woman, in spite of having a completely devoted and fervent wife at home, Linda Loman. While Willy suffers from psychological issues, his unfaithfulness in his marriage caused a ripple effect of problems in his personal life with his two sons, Biff and Happy Loman, and his wife, and ultimately led to his failure of achieving the “American Dream” and to his decision to end his own life. Willy Loman is the most average character Miller constructed, and his averageness is another cause of his self-destruction. As his job as a salesman, Willy is not successful at his job and no longer receives a salary and is strictly working on commission; this makes supplying for his family difficult. Not only is Willy not thriving at his work, but he is also underappreciated and eventually is suspended by his boss who is substantially younger than him. Despite all of these difficulties, Willy is so determined to provide for his family and succeed at his job, that he goes as far as tampering his marriage to get ahead in his company by sleeping with a woman to secure customers. Willy’s response to this challenging situation he is faced with, shows the reader he has a weak and swayable personality that can easily be influenced by others and events. Willy’s impressionable personality could have been influenced to have this affair by the countless instances of infidelity that are written in history and that were also occurring in the 1940s. Disloyalty in marriage is one that is thousands of years old. One of the first well-known documentations of infidelity in a marriage is between the Christian prophet Abraham and his wife’s servant, Hagar (Zucker). When Abrahams wife, Sarah, could not bear his children they both decided to take this situation in his own hands and let Abraham impregnate Hagar. Hagar gave birth to a son, Ishmael, and years later Sarah gave birth to her son, Isaac; this rivalry between these two half-brothers then started the great schism between Judaism and Muslims (Zucker). This is one of the first examples where the consequences of adultery is seen in the world, yet it does prevent any future events to not make the same mistakes. Throughout the middle ages, for kings and high ranked nobles it was common to have a mistress. This was not only common, but some of these women were treated better than the wives themselves. These are two instances where infidelity has affected and influenced the course of history. While these examples go far back in time, during the 1940s a public affair that was known by everyone at the time was between Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (James). These two were a major public figure in the movie industry and made nine movies together. During this time the two were “secretly” seeing each other, even though the whole country knew the truth behind their relationship (James). But what was unique about this situation was the fact that Tracy remained married to his wife, Louise Tracy, until he died in 1967, despite constantly betraying their marriage. This well-known twenty-five yearlong affair could have influenced Willy’s decision to cheat on Linda, and possibly make him think that he too could have the same outcome as Tracy. Willy could have been trying to mirror Tracy’s outcome of having both a wife at home while still maintaining another relationship outside his marriage. These instances illustrate how adultery has been a continual occurrence in the world from thousands of years ago, to throughout the 1900s, and is still present today. An outside factor of the play that could have influenced Willy’s feeble character traits play is Arthur Miller view on marriage. Marriage is a common topic to associate Miller with considering he was married to one of the most famous actresses and sex-icons in the world for five years: Marilyn Monroe (Henriksen). While these two were not married at the time this play was written, Miller’s view on marriage was still tainted. Before his marriage to Monroe, he was first married to Mary Slattery (Petrusich). Miller admits that “it wasn’t enough” for him and ended his first marriage (qtd. in Petrusich). This perspective on marriage that Miller has on based on his real-life experiences could have transferred in his pretrial of Willy and how he feels and acts upon his marriage with Linda. Even though this affair between Willy and this unnamed woman caused problems in his relationship with his wife, it also affected his relationship with his two sons, Biff and Happy Loman. Needless to say, Linda and Willy did not provide the best structure in their son’s lives considering neither of them amounted to much in their lives. Happy was currently an assistance to an assistance at his work (97) and the only real thing Biff had accomplished was playing high school football and since then has been doing manual labor working on ranches (16). Despite having not having their children accomplish any real goals in their lives, growing up Biff received much more attention and admiration than Happy ever did. Willy would praise Biff’s athletic ability and good looks and let him get away with practically anything he wanted, including stealing. This lack of authority that Biff grew up with is one of the causes as to why he could never hold a job or why he was in jail for 3 months for stealing (97). Not only can the readers see this in Willy’s flashbacks, but Biff admits it saying, “I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody” (97). This selfrealization from Biff, shows the reader that even he sees the affects of his lack of discipline from his parents growing up. This types of behaviors from Biff and Happy could be caused by more than just bad parenting. As study on unilateral divorce showed that children of struggling marriages have less[t8] success than other children that live in a happy and stable home (Caceres-Delpiano). Even though Willy and Linda never did go through a divorce, it was obvious that their lives together was not a pleasant one, which has just as much affect on children as a divorce. The National Affairs journal goes on to say that children that go through these experiences are “two to three times more likely than their peers in intact marriages to suffer from serious social or psychological pathologies” (Wilcox). This could explain Biff’s need to constantly steal as a way of pushing the limits of how far he can go before facing the consequences. As well as all of Happy’s many promiscuous relationships so that he could finally feel loved by someone in his life. To this argument, there have been several rebuttals saying that actions like Willy’s towards his son is not the cause of why they ended up as failures. A journal written by the National Affairs states “that boys need not be harmed by the absence of their fathers” and can be replaced by others who can provide the same amount of love and discipline such as other family members and school authorities, like teachers and counselors (Wilcox). While some children have the option to look elsewhere, in Biff and Happy’s case, it was nonexistent. Their Uncle Ben has been dead for several years and both were out of school at this point with no real guidance besides that of their father. In addition, a research paper written on why fathers are important to a stable household says that when children grow up in the same home as their father, they develop a severe and “the highest level at attachment” to them (Furstenberg). This is one of the oldest and most obvious research discovered; so, to say that children can look elsewhere for a fatherly figure is completely inaccurate. While the Loman marriage was filled with problem, they are not the only ones that experienced these difficulties in their lives. A Pew Research article on marriage states, “fragility of marriage are as old and universal as marriage itself,” and goes on to say how it is even apart of every culture for the past thousand years (III. Marriage). Even though this type of union has been going on forever, so has infidelity. This is even considered a crime in several countries such as Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Somalia (Chamie). These types of relationships have been studied by the Journal of Sex Research, and they have discovered that not even a full generation ago “one-half of Americans men and one-fourth of American women” were participating in extramarital affairs (Spanier). This continuous recurrence could have influenced why an institution that has be around for all of history has recently emerge a new way of thinking about marriage. Thirty nine percent of people agree with the statement that “marriage is becoming obsolete” (III. Marriage). The article also emphasizes the importance on the wording “becoming” in that phrase. While marriage popularity and considerably declined, this still leaves the majority of people still believing marriage does matter. This could have been Linda’s perspective as to why she never said anything to Willy about the affair even though she knew what was going on. Or because of this desire for a happy marriage, Linda could have just chosen to not see what was right before her eyes. This is why this institution is still a major part of societies all over the world today. Besides the fact that four out of ten Americans believe marriage “is on the rocks,” another major cause of these marital problems is financial troubles (III. Marriage). This is seen throughout “Death of a Salesman” as Willy continuously stresses over not receiving enough money to support his family. What is unique about this problem compared to all the others that Willy has, is that this is extremely common among men. In another PEW Research regarding men as finical providers, “roughly seven-in-ten adults (71%) say it is very important for a man to be able to support a family financially to be a good husband or partner” (Parker). This type of pressure that Willy is going through could have untimely caused him to relieve his stress through his affair as well as his death. While this poll has been taken in 2017, this idea was even more popular in the 1940s when most women did not work. Another seventy percent of women think that a man must be a good provider in order to be a good husband (Parker). In the play it is never stated that Linda has a job, and neither Biff or Happy make a significant amount of money to help their parents, so this leaves Willy to be the sole provider. This is even more difficult in a time when the county just went through a severe depression. So, while there is no valid excuse for Willy’s actions, he did not have the most stress free and easy life. This view that society puts on men could have been another reason why Linda never said or did anything about Willy’s affair. A research paper, Historical Changes in Stay-at-Home Mother: 1969- 2009, writes about how after World War II women’s role in jobs outside the household quickly started to diminish once the men returned back from their service (Kreider). Miller never indicates whether or not Linda had a job once or has any type of qualifications to support herself without a husband. Because there was no other information given about Linda’s background, the reader can assume she was possibly stuck in this situation of a failed marriage and had no way out without severely affecting her life for the worse. One of Willy’s constant failures that is different than all the others is his persistent want of the typical “American Dream.” James Truslow Adams is known for coming up with this phrase in 1931 and is all about living a happy life with a stable, well paid job, in a house with a family (Samuel). This lifestyle is the embodiment of many American citizens today; however, in Willy’s life he never reached this “dream” because he was too focused on the finical side. In Willy’s mind, if he did not have the money, then there was no dream to be accomplished. Because the idea of money and obtaining wealth was such a vital aspect in Willy’s life, he would do anything to achieve this dream. Willy would even go as far as cheating on his wife and use this woman to gain customers to try and get ahead at his work. This woman that Willy has the affair with is not even named, showing how little he cared about her to not disclose her name. This attitude illustrates to the reader how Willy’s affair was not one out of passion or love, but greed and his constant desire for wealth. Another reason this “American Dream” consumed Willy was because this goal was once obtainable for him. Throughout “Death of a Salesman” Willy mentions his brother Ben Loman who had just died. Ben is the definition of the American Dream achieved by a person in Willy’s eyes, and his biggest regret is not following Ben to Alaska. Ben tried to convince him to come with him go on a trip to find their father. Somehow along the mission of finding his father Ben, “a man [that] started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines” (27). This type of luck that Ben fell upon, was something that Willy never received in his life and is the reason why he has so much regret. Throughout Willy Loman’s life, situations and events never went the way he had hoped to lead him to his “American Dream.” This dream consisted of what the “American Dream” embodies: a nice house, a family, and a successful job. Not only did Willy want all of these things, but one of his biggest goals was to obtain wealth. When this goal of his did not succeed because of this lack of success at his job, he went behind his wife’s back, Linda, and had an extramarital relationship with an unnamed woman to try and gain clients. While Willy suffered from psychological issues, he was fully aware of his actions when he entered into this affair. He even expresses guilt and continuously tries to keep this secret from his family. Unfortunately, Willy is not the first and will not be the last spouse to these types of relations outside their marriage, as this has been going on for thousands of years in every culture and society. Even though this is common among marriages today, this does not make it right; and in Willy’s case, his affair is the event that causes a ripple effect of downfalls in his life, including his death.