![]() ![]() This leaves Biff with no higher education, ambition, or purpose in life, and no one to imitate. It crushes him so badly, in fact, that he cannot complete summer school, and therefore cannot attend college. Biff had idolized his father, and seeing his father’s adultery crushes him. Biff cries out at his father in anger, “Don’t touch me you– liar!” (95). The result of Willy forcing Biff to be someone he is not as a child is a lost and empty adult who can never meet expectations.Īt the end of his senior year in high school, Biff walks in on his father with another woman who isn’t his mother. ‘False Biff’ was their identity, but ‘False Biff’ accomplishes nothing after high school. The two had been one, and when they let go of that, they both shrank into nothing. Both Willy and Biff have expended their entire lives and imaginations upon this false “magnificent” Biff, who doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, Biff spends his whole life doing what his father wants him to do, and after letting go of Willy, he has no identity, no great goal, no dream, and seemingly no future. Biff likewise no longer admires his father. However, when Biff grows up, Willy no longer sees him as living up to his potential. Willy evidently thought the world of Biff when Biff was an accomplished highschooler, and Biff even reciprocated these feelings at that age. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away” (51). Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field with the representatives of three colleges standing by? And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out– Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he’ll be great yet. ![]() Willy speaks about a memory of Biff saying: “Like a young god. Eventually, Willy so appropriates Biff that Biff’s accomplishments are, in a way, his own. Willy lives vicariously through Biff’s accomplishments, wishing they were his own. Willy in effect steals Biff’s identity by forcing Biff to be the person he himself wants to be. Beyond all the other characters of the play, Willy hurts Biff the most because Willy attacks Biff’s fundamental identity. Additionally, Willy ruins Biff’s future and character. As a result, he falls into a despair he cannot understand the genesis of. Biff is forced to be someone he is not for so long that he loses his true self altogether. This is certainly the case for poor Biff Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” because Biff’s father Willy simply cannot accept him. Without these, one feels inadequate and lost. What would it be like to have no personal identity? Human nature is fundamentally oriented toward self-acceptatance and self-understanding. Biff’s Identity and Essence in Death of a Salesman ![]()
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