Death of a Salesman at Lyric Stage Co.

Expectation and reality

 by Angel Xie

Overconfidence will lead to desperation. Expectation is not in accord with reality and “Nothing is impossible if you put your heart into it” is not always true. People should learn to be realistic and adapt to the way the society work instead of making everything work as they expect. That’s what “Death of a salesman” by Arthur Miller tells you.

 The play shows you the downsides of putting high expectation on someone or something. It refers to some common problems between the parents and their children as well. In the play, father Willy and mother Linda have two children called Biff and Happy. Biff and Happy are old enough to fight for their career but they still live with and depend on their parents. Willy is senile and having mental problems but Willy sill wishes that he can keep developing his career because he has to sustain the family and he believes he can do it. He is so confident about himself that he didn’t want to use the opportunity his friend gives him so he loses his job eventually. He expects his son Biff to become a salesman as he did but Biff doesn’t succeed. Willy is angry with his sons and also himself and he feels disappointed for his deterioration of ability. There are so many unfortunate things happen to him and pressures on him that he gave up his life eventually.

Parents like to compel their children to become whom they wants their children to become and usually push the children too hard. The children always want to be free and they don’t understand their parents’ expectation and love. The parents and children make the tragedy together.  The circumstance the family meet in the play must be familiar to a lot of families. So the play will benefit a lot of families, both the parents and the children. And actually not only in the families, but also in some other cases, people should learn to find a balance between expectation and reality and give each other more understanding.