Death Of A Salesman

My Father's Dream and My Reality

Told by Biff Loman

The bond between a boy and his father is one that should sustain the test of time. I have looked up to my father for the majority of my life and he's beliefs of life have influenced the way I grew up to be the man I am today. However in the end, a true man will follow his own dreams and make his own future.

My dream was working with my hands in the outdoors. It has taken many years but I now knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. My father, Willy Loman, I believe shared this same passion, however, he suppressed his dreams as it did not fit in with is predetermined mould for a beloved salesman. So, it then became my father's dream to work in sales and be well-liked. This is what my father had implanted into me from a young age. Now returning home after fourteen years of trying to 'find myself', we still had money to pay off on the refrigerator and the mortgage on the house still needed to be paid. These pending debts, like daggers ripping through my dreams, forced me suppress my own dreams and now seek the stable career of a salesman.

I had once worked as a salesman for Bill Oliver so I decided to go to him in order to find a job. Bill Oliver's office was finely furnished and had a wafting smell of cologne. The waiting room walls seemed to tower down upon me somehow mocking me. As with each hour that went by the walls seem to become larger and I become smaller. Sitting in that room waiting hour after hour for Bill Oliver made me think about why I was there and what I was doing. After much deliberation I concluded; I was never a salesman for him, I was just a shipping clerk. I had talked my self up so much that I had turned my dishonesty to what I believed to be true. I had blurred the line between illusion and reality foolishly thinking everyone else would follow. I questioned myself why this was so.

The answer to my question lied somewhere in the foundations of my past. Throughout my life I have been filled with great ideas and aspirations but nothing has ever become of them. I am a failure. I can now say this is the harsh truth of my life. My father wanted great things to happen but did not work for them. Bernard, my high school companion and next-door neighbour, worked hard during his life and he is now far more successful than us Lomans. In the past dad insisted he would never make it as he was liked but not well liked. He reassured me that I was and that was what I needed to be successful. It is now undeniable to me that this in not the case.

The night of my father's death is when this revelation become apparent. I had now realised we had been living this word of denial and dishonesty for too long and Willy needed to do the same. Once I started talking about our lives the truth about everything all came pouring out. Still, Willy can't - won't - grasp what I was saying. He still believed I do everything out of spite, maybe