Analyse af 'Death of a Salesman'

1. Willy recalls his sons’ teenage years as an idyllic past. What evidence can we find to show that the past is not as idyllic as Willy imagines it to be?

Willy is an old frustrated man, who lives in his own world, and sees what he wants to see. He recalls his sons’ teenage past as an idyllic time. But this isn’t true. This is shown many times in the book. Biff is quite lazy in school and he doesn’t make his homework, even though he is offered help from Bernard. Biff flunks math, and can’t go to college. Biff also steals a ball from Bill Oliver. This is a bad habit that follows him later on in the story. A big evidence that shows this wasn’t an idyllic past is when Willy is in Boston on a business trip, and suddenly Biff shows up and finds out his own dad has a secret lover. This is a huge fail, and perhaps the point of no return. This is the point where Biff doesn’t want to go to summer school to study math. Willy has always seen himself as being very well liked, and recalls the older days as better days, where he earned more money. But this isn’t true at all. Because in a flash back shown on page 27 in Penguin Plays you hear that they’ve got almost no money.