Death Of A Salesman Compare And Contrast

In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller portrays the struggles that one family faces as the man of the house experiences dissonance between reality and his dreams. Willy Loman, the father of Biff and Happy and husband to Linda, lives in his illusions of an easy attainment of success in every aspect of life: as a father, a husband, a lover, a friend, and a salesman. He is disappointed in his own failures in providing the way he wants to for his family, thus he is critical of his sons and wants them to be successful. Biff, Linda and Willy’s thirty-four year old son, though once an achieved football player and adored by women, failed math and never graduated high school. He has been unsuccessful in every job he has had because of his compulsions to steal. Happy, his thirty-two year old brother, is an assistant-buyer in a department store, but sees himself as more much
The film also depicted the flashbacks and delusions of Willy very well. I had a much easier time understanding the difference between the present and what was happening within his head when I was watching it rather than reading it. In the script, the audience can definitely tell that something is not right with Willy’s mental state, however, in the film they make his character seem much crazier, psychotic even. He is constantly yelling and when he is not yelling he is pretty close to it. Linda is also much more emotionally distraught than the play version of herself. I suspect that this change is due to the more volatile version of Willy she is married to in the film. The biggest difference, I would say, is the expressive portrayal of each character. In the film, it is like the director intentionally heightened every emotion the actors were intended to portray. I did not value this aspect of the film because I think that there is beauty in staying true to the original author’s depiction of each