Willy Loman

The character of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" stands as the epitome of the broken American dream. Will spends his entire life dreaming about his future and the future of his sons only to find in later years that none of his great expectations had come to pass. Though Willy still spoke highly of himself and his sons, his continued suicide attempts, whether he was consciously aware of them or not, stood in opposition to his boasting. Over the course of his life, Willy Loman slowly began to realize his decreasing status, though he chose to blatantly ignore it by speaking often of the incredible prosperity his job would bring in the near future. As we are informed in the first act by Linda, Willy's mental state becomes more actively debilitating when Biff visits or otherwise reminds the family of his existence. This forces Willy to re-evaluate the state of his life and further emphasizes the fact that Biff did not turn out to be some world renowned individual, as Willy had promised his son and himself. Biff's presence forces Willy to remember the promises he made to Biff in his childhood and feels more and more responsible for his son's lack of success, though he denies it until much later in the play.
Willy put a great emphasis on being well-liked. To him, if a person was not well liked, they could not be a success, which is reiterated over and over again in various lines of the play. As a salesman, Willy did wonderfully in the early years of his career, but when age crept up on him and his buyers either died off, moved away or retired, Willy began to lose his status in the workman's business world.
However, it took a hell of a long time for Willy Loman, salesman extraordinaire, to finally lose hope and slip into a state of mental instability, haunted by the memories of previous decisions in his life so deeply that they were represented as physical forms on the stage. To things like unpaid bills, Loman only responded with a hapless "things will pick up soon" air.
When Willy is fired from his job at last, after asking for a position as a stationary salesman without having to travel all over New England, the steadfast soldier begins the final descent into oblivion. This tragic event, coupled with the news that Biff's and Happy's scheme to sell sporting goods had fallen through, sends Willy over the edge to the point of no return. His memories become more vivid and more horrifying and violent, the worst being when Biff finds out about his affair. He begins to regret his refusal to take a job in Alaska offered by Ben that might have been much more financially rewarding than his salesman's job.
When Biff exposes evidence of Willy's suicide attempt to him, Willy denies it, until Biff speaks the harsh truth at last:
"You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them!"
Willy finally realizes what has happened, when it is put to him in such a straightforward fashion, and takes heart in the fact that Biff actually does care deeply for him. At this point, the audience is led to believe that perhaps there will be a happy ending for the family after all. But Willy's madness returns full force when left alone for more than a moment. And though Linda constantly cries for him to come upstairs, Willy runs to the garage and takes off in the Studebaker, later committing suicide.
The character of Willy Loman can best be described in one of the last moving speeches in the play.
"Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back- that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory."