Ben Loman may not be the central character in ARthur MIller’s Death of a Salesman, but he belongs to the heart of the story. It is tempting to disregard his character as just another creation of Willy’s delusional mind because he is encountered only in Willy Loman’s hallucinations of the past. However, Ben is much more than that. His character, representative of Willy’s unrealistic dreams and the reality of his life appears when Willy is feeling most low and suicidal. Ben is first encountered by the audience while Willy is playing cards with Charlie as he expresses exhaustion after coming home from working. Here Arthur Miller uses Ben to inform the audience of Willy’s past relationship with his father and brother, providing background for Willy’s misguidedness and insecurities – Ben left to look for their father in Alaska when Willy was only three years and eleven months old (47).
Ben speaks of their father in the same manner as Willy speaks of him – in superlatives. “With one gadget he made more [flutes] in a week than a man like you could make in a lifetime.” (49) These boasts are exaggerations meant to emphasize Willy’s feelings of inadequacy to his brother and father. This familial history complements Willy’s relationship to Biff, just as Biff thinks himself a failure in his father’s eyes, Willy sees himself as inadequate compared to his father and brother. This is Ben’s most important role. He supplies the audience with information regarding Willy’s past, explaining how and why he ended up the way he is at present. Ben Loman is also representative of Willy’s lost opportunities.
The Essay on Early Family Willy Biff Father
Instability Lead Life to Its End The character Willy Loman from the play Death of a Salesman has been read throughout the years with distinct interpretations. Many people have given different reasons to what led to Willy's tragic fate. One interpretation I took was that Willy's instability in his life led to his death. Some point that led in to my interpretation were his early family life, his ...
In his second appearance in the flashback after Willy is fired by Howard Wagner, Ben offers Willy the opportunity to come with him to Alaska. Willy declines, sacrificing this dream in favor of a more mundane existence, and later regrets it for the rest of his life. “If I’d gone with him to Alaska that time, everything would ” ve been different.” (45) Ben represents a lifetime of failed hopes to Willy, so does he symbolize the ultimate end. He appears for the third time when Willy is planting seeds on the apron.
Willy admits this thoughts of suicide in their conversation saying it’s “Terrific… it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition” (125-126).
Willy’s only concern is what Biff would think of him. Arthur Miller expresses this concern through Ben when he says “He ” ll call you a coward… And a damned fool… He ” ll hate you William.” Only when he finds out that Biff loves him does he finally decide to kill himself.
This decision is represented by Ben when he reappears after Willy cries “That boy-that boy is going to be magnificent!” (133) and retorts “Yes, outstanding, with twenty thousand behind him” (133).
Ben repeatedly says in his appearances “When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich.” (48) Ben says in his final conversation with Willy “The jungle is dark but full of diamonds” (134) implying success in death. It was only in his death that Willy Loman succeeded. Ben Loman might not be central but his role is pivotal. He is Willy Loman’s conscience.
“Death of a Salesman” is Willy’s internal struggle as he looks to justify his final decision to end a life of disappointment. This is Arthur Miller’s exceptional work about an ordinary man in extraordinary despair.
