Death Of A Salesman

Throughout every story read, there is a theme that the author uses to teach the reader a valuable lesson. The theme of the story is used to get an important message across to the reader, allowing them to possibly put themselves in the shoes of the characters in the story. In the play Death of a Salesman, the author uses not only one strong theme throughout the story but multiple themes in an enjoyable manner to let the reader learn from the troubles the main characters are going through. The characters in the play experience many hard times such as a spouse losing their mind, stealing, and the fallout of a married couple. Death of a Salesman keeps the reader interested while teaching them more than one important message while reading. While reading Death of a Salesman, the reader learns that the husband Willy talks to himself and is slowly losing his mind. His wife does not want to accept the fact that something wrong with her husband, while the two sons, Biff and Happy, know something is not completely right. The two sons are not only worried about their father but are always extremely embarrassed of how their father is now. Throughout the story, the reader reads about the sons thinking back to when their father was the most important person in their life and how excited they were when Willy came in from work, although they had not felt this way about their father in a long time. Although Willy works away from home, his sons and wife feel as though his condition is worsening and it would be best for him to find a job around home, while Willy feels fine and does not want to listen to his family. The theme the author wants the reader to learn in this part of the story is betrayal because the sons are giving up hope on their father and are continuing to leave him in the awful state he is in. Betrayal is a huge theme used in stories due to the main it affects the main characters in the story and how the emotions and actions of the characters affect the ending. Another tremendous factor in Death of a Salesman is when Willy’s son steals trying to keep his reputation high and remain popular. Biff steals a football from the school where he is a star football player, and is very popular when it comes to friends and girls. Biff’s mother constantly has to remind him to return the football although Willy is not as strict because he wants his son to be the most popular and best football player he can. …show more content…
Willy never truly let his family know the real him up until his death. Willy cheated on his wife Linda for many years without his family acknowledging, making the reader question who Willy really was. Willy gave other women nice, expensive stockings, leaving Linda with cheap, poor stockings to wear. This theme is shown mostly at the end of the play because Linda is not able to cry at her husband’s funeral but rather sobs repeating “we’re free”. Lies and deception is the major theme used throughout the story and many authors use this to prove overall how much one lie can damage a