Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller provides a great set of intriguing characters; Biff Loman is the perfect example of a person filled with the struggle to be good and overcome his negative desires. Biff is a man who feels lost, is losing his father to dementia, and is realizing everything he learned as a child was a lie. He struggles to discover the truth and expose the lies that his family has created even if it tears them apart. Biff possesses many negative and positive characteristics, while the suffering of his father is what makes him become a man.
Throughout Biff’s life he has been a kleptomaniac that is the negative quality that led him to his epiphany. Biff steals to defy authority p until the end of his father’s life. As a young boy, Biff happily stole lumber from the nearby construction to make his father happy. Young Bernard runs to Willy, his father and states that “the watchman’s chasing Biff” (802) and Willy does not do a thing. Biff learns that he can be careless toward authority, so the reason he has not made a career for himself. He realizes that he steals to get what he cannot have due to the pressure of his father. When Biff steals the fountain pen from Bill Oliver in Act 2, Biff stops in the stairs and cries, “And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this pen for?”(833) He did not want the pen, but he wanted the life his father turned down, which was to work on a ranch in the West. The pen symbolized the career that he did not have and at this point he saw that he had to make a change in his life. Biff decides to return the pen and make things right with his family. He becomes humble and sees that stealing had nothing to do with authority, but it had everything to do with being something he was not.
Everyone led Biff to believe that he was the best at everything that he did not have to work to be great which became his major downfall, but later teaching him that the world does not work that way. Since a child, Biff’s stardom made his father think that he did not have to try to succeed; the school would not flunk him since he was so great as stated by Willy in Act One. Biff believed that and it came a shock when he failed(780). However, that was not the only reason. The discovery of his father’s affair forced Biff to lose hope in himself to achieve the American Dream. Willy’s affair opened the world of lies up to Biff, and he did not want to turn out the same way; Biff avoided being unhappy like his father. At Biff’s wits ends in the end of Act Two, he cries to Willy that “I’m not bringing any prizes any more.”(834) He shattered the false reality that his family had created to start a better life.
The shock of the lies made Biff’s morals step into gear and turn away from the negative aspects of his life. Biff is protective of his mother and tries to shelter her from the truth of his father’s adultery. This positive quality allows the reader to view Biff from a different point. Most of the play focuses on Biff’s faults, but this is something nobody can deny. He is all about his family and will do anything to save them. From the start Biff tells his father not to talk to her that way and continues that attitude until his father’s death.
In the end, Biff became more of a man than his father could ever make him. He learned that being a kleptomaniac was because of his resentment toward hi father for not letting him live out his dream. On top of that, the struggle he went through to find a job to please his family proves that he may not be a good guy, but he is trying to succeed without it just falling into his lap. Miller portrays a character who has much to learn, but can break away from his family’s lies and become the man that he wants to be. Biff’s character shows the struggle for the American Dream.
