The death of Willy Loman was tragic and he was also a fool. This was due to his character and circumstances beyond his own control. Willy's life was built of false dreams and hopes. Willy's main values in life are money and being well liked. All of these factors helped with Willy's mental undoing and ultimately his death.
From the start of the play you can see that Willy's character is one of confusion and is pessimistic. Willy was on his way to Portland when he claimed that he was tired to death and had to return to New York. He comes home and talks to Linda but doesn't know why he came back. He thinks to himself and says, "I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee". This shows his confusion about why he drove 4 hours back to New York. Through out the play you hear sounds of the flute being played. This because Willy is reminiscing when he was 3 years and 11 months old his whole family was together as a family unit. So much hope, comfort and security lay before Willy. This was probably the happiest time in Willy life. Then his older brother Ben left to go to Alaska. This means that Willy never had a father figure in his life and his character was built on the capitalist society that he was living in. Willy's character wasn't developed by his dad. This was beyond his control and an unfortunate set of circumstances for Willy. This greatly affected him because he is not a strong person, just like his son Biff. Biff isn't strong because when he found out what a fraud his dad was and that he was being unfaith full to Linda. He didn't get over it and in the end ruined most of his life because he didn't want to go to summer school.
Willy is a compulsive liar and constantly brags to people about how popular and how much money he used to make. This are all false dreams due to Willy's foolishness he doesn't ever overcome the lies even before he dies. For example in the last few pages of Act 2 Biff breaks down and tells his dad his a phoney.