Death Of Salesman. Essay, Research Paper

The character development of Death of a salesman s Willy Loman and

Who do you think you are s Rose begin with the same financial background but the novels allow us to differ them by there aspirations and there family life. Although Willy Loman and Rose live with in the same economic status they both have different aspirations and a different family life.

Willy Loman s economic status is not very good. He is very poor but he does not want to believe that he is suffering financially. He is dealt a bad hand, an example of this is that he lives in the “wrong” house and the “right” house would be Charley s house. Willy is always speaking about how he is still working (male pride) but he is really not ex: “I just back from Florida”(p.13). Rose lives a similar lifestyle she is also poor, she lives in Hanratty , Ontario. She also doesn t want to believe that she is not well off. She and her family live on the “wrong” side of town . She tried to deny it by writing it off as something else

“Rose thought of her own family as straddling

the river, belonging nowhere, but that was

not true” (p.5)

Willy s aspirations were more for his boys then for himself, his central goals were for his children to be popular and well liked. Indirectly he wanted to have money. “That s just the way I m bringing them up, Ben rugged, well liked, all around.” (p.49). Rose is similar she wants to escape from the little town of Haratty and have money and go to college and see what it s like to on top for once. “she just wanted to get out of that town and that life” (p.36).

Willy Loman has an awful family life . His kids Biff and Happy resent him for pushing them to be so popular, even though he did it out of love trying to bring them up the right way. Although his wife sticks by him, she still has some anger towards his stubbornness. Rose s family life is very different , she doesn t show much caring towards her daughter Anna. Anna is secondary to Rose s lifestyle. Rose does not mention her a lot, she doesn t give her a lot of attention . Even when she is in hospital having Anna she is more concentrated on becoming friends with the lady in the next bed then on her pregnancy.

“The first thing Rose saw, on being taken

back to the ward after having Anna was

Jocelyn” (p.122-123)

I have proven that Willy Loman and Rose show that two people can come from the same financial background but still have different aspirations and different family lives.