Arthur Miller wrote a brilliant play about one man's quest for fame and fortune that led to his demise. In Death of a Salesman Willy Loman suffers from not being able to tell what is real, and what is just happening in his mind. He never gives his family a chance to explain and always makes false statements about his past. Willy's tragic flaw is his unwillingness to accept reality.
Willy has flashbacks of his past, but rarely are his flashbacks accurate. During his flashbacks he remembers his sons, Biff and Happy, always trying to impress him. When Bernard, their neighbor, enters the flashback, saying Biff had to study, Biff changes the subject showing Willy sneakers that had University of Virginia printed on them. Willy believes that when Biff played football in high school, he was the most popular kid in school. When Linda, Willy's wife, enters his flashback on page 33, she tells Biff he has friends in the cellar, and Willy "remembers" that the friends swept out the furnace at Biff's command. When Biff was a senior in high school he failed math, but instead of taking summer school and making up the credit so he could go to college he didn't and Willy does not remember why. In the second act, while he talks to Bernard Willy realizes Biff caught him cheating on Linda in Boston and Biff was heartbroken.
Even worse than not remembering his past, he lies about his successes and failures as a salesman. He hurt his sons chances of being successful by always telling them how well he did but not mentioning when his sales were not up to par. He tells the boys that he "Knocked "em cold in Providence, slaughtered "em in Boston," (33) but goes on to tell Linda he barely made seventy dollars on commission. Willy never gave Linda the correct amount of sales he made after she first asked him, instead he told the rue after she figured out how much he said he did. He tells Linda he sold twelve hundred gross on his whole trip, but when she calculates in to be over two hundred dollars in commission he changes the figure to two hundred gross for the whole trip, bringing home just about seventy dollars.
