The Cowardice in Willy Loman
...f as a football champion, which is one of the reasons Willy thinks Biff is so extraordinary. As Willy is finishing up his thoughts, his wife, Linda, calls him up to bed. After this happens, the sound of a speeding car is heard driving off into the night. In the same scene, Willy’s wife Linda has come to make a peace with their two sons, Biff and Happy. Linda also suspects that Willy may kill himself. She made a big mistake by leaving the disturbed Willy alone. The rubber tubing that Linda found on the heater foreshadows Willy’s suicide. Linda doesn’t want Willy to kill himself, but believes that she cannot interfere with his business. I believe that Willy’s suicide was an escape from shame and remorse. He couldn’t keep living his life as a lie. Willy could not face reality. When people spoke to him, he only listened to what he wanted to hear. After losing his job, he felt he was too unsuccessful of an individual to keep on living. His principles in life were embedded on being popular and ‘well-liked’, as he would say. He honestly though that if you were popular, you would be successful. Eventually, he faced reality and realized that he was not popular. A fusion of his stigma and his unpopularity is what eventually killed Willy Loman. He felt like a failure in the game of life. From Willy’s deformed point of view, the suicide was an act of love. He believed that by killing himself, Biff would be much more successful and better off. Willy wants to show his love to Biff by giving him twenty thousand dollars in insurance money. However, it is not even certain that Willy’s suicide will be called an accident. If the insurance company sees it as a suicide, Biff will not get the money. From the Loman family’s point of view, the suicide was very shocking and confusing. Each member of the family had a different opinion of why Willy took his life. Linda was wondering why no one had come to the funeral. This shows that Linda had always trusted Willy and had believed all of the phony dreams that Willy had told her. Linda had reason to believe that Willy killed himself because of the mortgage payments. Ironically enough, after Willy killed himself, the house was paid off and they were free and clear of any more payments. In the end, Biff comes to realize that Willy had "the wrong dreams". Biff is still going to go out west to fulfill his own dreams instead of making himself big in New York, which is something he detests. Happy believes that his father was a great man and will continue to defend him and try to prove that Willy did not die a fruitless narcissist. He will also carry on Willy’s dreams by being manager of the store. It seems that Happy is almost trying to become another Willy. I believe that Willy’s suicide was a cowardly act. Since he was fired, he felt that he had no reason to live. It seemed that t...