Willy Essays - Death Of A Salesman, English-language Films, Biff

Willy Loman Character It is every father's dream for their children to grow up and lead a better life than they did and provide for their family better. Willy Loman was no exception to the rule, because he wanted the best for his children from a very young age, especially for his promising son Biff. Biff was loaded with potential as a boy in high school, and Willy recognized it and promoted it more than he needed to. Although Biff sees his life as not a complete failure, his monstrous adolescent potential transformed into years of failure, and blame for this must be put on the shoulders of his father. As the old adage goes, "like father like son." This could be attached to the relationship between Willy and Biff but some would contend that it would be taking a lot away from Willy. While many of his tactics on raising his children were skewed, it is conceivable to say that he worked as hard as he could to provide for his family. He was never afraid of work. No matter how terrible he was at it he was always able to convince himself he was good, which helped him earn the money his family needed. Of all the terrible things, though, that Biff took from his father hard work was not one of them. Hard work is something that Biff can never say he was a part of. He always looked for the easy way out and when he found it he took it. People will contend that Biff is not a failure only because Willy messed up raising him. They would say that Willy may not have been the best father but it was Biff who made the decisions that ruined his own life. Decisions that Willy had no control over. Is that really true though? Willy had a complete influence on those decisions because the only ways in life Biff knew were the ones that he was shown growing up by his father. As a star football player in high school, Biff had it all. As Happy unmistakably said, "he has a group of girl's following him everywhere, now that he's captain." Growing up Biff idolized his father, and the attention was returned from Willy to him. Willy saw his son as a child who could do no wrong. Willy pushed him to have a "conquer the world" attitude which he thought would push him to success. It was a selfish action though because Willy wanted Biff to succeed only so he could feel as though he had done a good job raising him. Unbridled potential like Biff had, sometimes needs to be allowed to develop on its own and not be prodded and urged the way Willy did. Obviously Biff did not respond to the pressure and stress that Willy put him under at a young age so his talents and ability were wasted throughout his whole life. Willy's downfall as a parent was not that he wasn't interested or involved in his son's life, but rather his neglect to see what Biff needed from his father. From his youth as well, Biff was influenced by Willy regarding illegalities such as stealing and lying. Willy felt as though Biff should, and could, make his own rules for life. When he stole a football from the team he was praised rather than scolded by his father. Willy thought, "coach will probably congratulate you on your initiative." He let Biff drive without a license as well as encouraging him to steal from a nearby construction site. Willy was ignorant to that fact that Biff was a different person than he was. Willy was so caught up in the fact that his set of morals (or lack there of) was successful that he preached them to Biff, where in fact the only reason Willy saw them as successful was because he was so optimistic/unrealistic in looking at his own life. As a result of incident like these Biff never learned right from wrong, which haunted him later in life. Biff spoke so beautifully and eloquently about the Dakotas and Texas, that it seemed as though those were places he could succeed in and spend the rest of his life in prosperity. However, he was not able to hold down jobs in those areas because of stealing incidents. Had steeling been discouraged or even not been promoted in his life from an early age he might have been able to settle down in an