Performance in Death of a Salesman
...for each other, but also how their performances affect the lives of everyone around them. It is actually ironic that all of the characters try so hard to put on a show for each other to hide their problems, and yet the best thing for all of the family members would be to know the truth about each other so that they could help each other overcome their obstacles and work together as a family. All of the Loman family members in Death of a Salesman put on a performance. In the play Biff even states, “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house!” (Page 131) This quote shows just how much each of the family members has been hiding for their entire lives. The male Loman family members use performance more often than the mother, Linda. They use their performances because they do not feel supported by their environment. They all feel the need to create an image that their family can be proud of. Willy is one of the most obvious examples since he shows a long history of performing to upkeep his image. Willy performs continuously throughout the entire play, and through his dreams we as the reader are also able to see that he has been doing so for most of his life. However, as it does with most people, all of his performing exhausts Willy, to the point where he wants to kill himself so that he can escape from it and also take care of his family at the same time. Willy passes down his habits of performing to his sons too. At many times in the story, Biff shows that he has indeed adopted his father’s ways of hiding the truth. For example, a few times in the story it is mentioned that Biff had not address for a few months and his family was unable to contact him. Biff tells his family that he was at some job when really he was in jail for stealing a suit. Happy also hides his real image. He tells the family that he is the assistant buyer for the company he works for, but in reality he is “one of two assistants to the assistant.” (Page 131) Happy also uses women a lot in the story. He brags about many relationships he has with women, as if to try make himself look like more of a man than he really is. Although the male family members are the most obvious of performers, Linda Loman is also guilty of using performance to obtain the image of her family. She hides the fact that Willy contemplates suicide so that his image will be spared and she discourages their sons from any type of confrontation to Willy so that he will not be pushed to do the inevitable. In Death of a Salesman there are many different themes that could be argued as the best at describing what the story is really about. Some of the other themes in the play include: dreams, time and alienation. However, in my opinion, the theme performance is much more important and better represents what the story is really about further than any of the other themes. Dreams so play an important role in Death of a Salesman because Willy lives within a dream, and dreams about being an important, wealthy person and having the same for the members of his family. However, performance is more powerful than the dreams in this play in the sense that if Willy had not been performing so much throughout his life, he may have actually been able to pursue his dreams and actually may have turned out to be the successful businessman that he so badly craves to be. Willy performs so much that he is unable to admit to the person that he really is, therefore he is unable to take charge of his situation and change himself to actually be more like the man he dreams of being. Time plays a role in the play because throughout the story the reader is able to feel the pressure that Willy feels, thinking that he is running out of time. Performance is more important than time in Death of a Salesman because Willy is too busy putting on a show, trying to maintain his image of being an important man that he does not take the time to make the most of the time he has left. Wi...