Biff is destined to no greatness, but he no longer has to struggle to understand what he wants to do with his life. Willy shouts, "I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman and you are Biff Loman!"Īt the end of the play, Biff realizes the illusions that Willy lived on. This conflict is the main material of the play.Įventually, Biff finally sees the truth and realizes that he is a "dime a dozen" and "no great leader of men." He tells this to Willy who is outraged. Act 1 The conversation turns to Willy and Linda's grown sons, Happy and Biff, who are upstairs sleeping after a double date. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Through the illusions that Willy believes, he cannot see that Biff is a nobody and not bound to be successful as defined by Willy. The timeline below shows where the character Biff Loman appears in Death of a Salesman. Biff wants to be outside on a cattle ranch, and Willy wants him behind a corporate desk. Willy wants dearly for Biff to become a business success, although Biff has an internal struggle between pleasing his father and doing what he feels is right. But now, he has come home and the problems begin. He was even jail for stealing a suit once. Biff then became a drifter and was lost for fifteen years.
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This shock changed Biff's view of his father and everything that Biff believed in.
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He was going to make the credit up during the summer but caught Willy being unfaithful to Linda. He flunked math his senior year and was not allowed to graduate. Biff was a star football player in high school, with scholarships to two major universities. It is only once he arrives home as an adult, that he fully understands the damage that Willy's praise has done to him.Biff Loman is Willy's son and it is the conflict between the two that the story of the play revolves around.
#Biff loman character traits full#
Biff states, "I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody!" (131). After several failed jobs and careers, he learns the error of his ways when nothing long-term comes his way. Consequently, he felt that he was too good for mediocre tasks and should not bother with them. Because of this excessive praise, Biff developed quite an ego as a young man and therefore believed he was better than most people. One such case is through Willy's constant praising of his children, regardless of their accomplishments or behavior. As a child, Biff accepts Willy's lessons and behavior, but as he grows, realizes the errors of his father's ways. Throughout the play, Willy is an overbearing but loving father, who sets the foundation for Biff's beliefs. Willy refuses to accept that reality is otherwise and this causes him and Biff to. Willy is fixated on his belief that he and his sons are great men deserving of success, fame, and fortune.
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The former believes in the American Dream while the other wants to fulfill his life in other ways. Although he has lived away from home for some time, he is still very much shaped by Willy's raising. Willy and Biff’s beliefs are quite antagonistic.
#Biff loman character traits free#
"Biff takes on several causes in the play, and perhaps the most obvious of those is his desire to break free of his father's influence and find his own path in life. From this definition then, it is Biff, not Willy, who is the true protagonist of the play. It is also someone the audience can relate to and want to see succeed. A protagonist, by definition, is one who takes the leading part in a drama, novel or story and who takes the leading part in a cause a champion. Although Willy is the title character of the play and center of most discussion surrounding the work, his lack of praiseworthy traits make him unworthy to be the protagonist. At the center of this family is their father, Willy Loman. The story criticizes the American dream and shows how the American society became. The story is about the Loman family and how they wanted to achieve the American dream. Death of a salesman is a tragedy, which shows the difference between a person’s dreams and reality.
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"Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, portrays a typically dysfunctional American family. Character Analysis Of Biff Loman In Arthur Millers Death Of A Salesman.