In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," Willy Lowman is an aging salesman who never tries to improve his present circumstances, but opts instead to flee from them, by recalling better times in the past when his life had fewer conflicts. Willy comes to realization that his life isn't exactly what he planed; He uses evasion as a drug and puts himself in a false state of happiness letting him escape his problems, and as the story unfolds, the audience soon discovers the lethality of his drug.
Willy's first dose of his drug, evasion, is when his son Biff returns home from out west. While discussing with his wife Linda, his disappointment in Biff, Willy is unable to cope with the reality of his son Biff's few accomplishments. Willy resorts to evading his disappointments in Biff, and chooses to return, in his mind, to a more auspicious time when things were better for him and his family. Although remembering the "good old days" is something perfectly normal to do, it is important that we don't let those better memories shelter us from our current problems. Not acknowledging your current problems only sets you up for a bigger fall when all the problems finally catch to you. This bigger fall can be depression, self-abuse, and eventually suicide. However in the play, Willy's refusal to acknowledge reality becomes so significant, that he honestly believes the past, and he lives his entire life through a false happiness never looking at the truth of his life.
As the play progresses, Willy becomes more addicted to his drugs: evasion and denial because they provide such an easy way out of his problems. The next time he heads to his safe haven of evasion, is during another conversation with his wife Linda. Willy is in low spirits and begins indulging in self-criticism; he moans that he cannot move ahead in life because people do not like him. He also complains that he talks too much and how he believes people laugh at him for being too fat.
