In the beginning of the play, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller portrays the main character Willy Loman as a hopeless salesman with the heart of a dreamer who is engrossed with the idea of success. Miller makes it known to the reader that Willy is not a successful man. Willy, even in his sixties, is still a traveling salesman that does not have a stable job and holds on to the idealistic dreams that are, eventually, his downfall. Willy displays a strong resentment toward his situation. He believes that if his original employer, Frank Wagner, had lived then he would have a more fruitful life. He reminisces about days gone by when he was an important man.
             Before Biff Loman, the son of Willy, can make an appearance, there is mounting turmoil between father and son. Willy's wife, Linda Loman, states that Willy "shouldn't have criticized him" (1485). Father and son are perpetually at odds with each other because of Biff's inability to live up to his father's expectations of him. She tells Willy that his son is "crestfallen . . . and admires him" (1485). Biff has not "found himself" and remains, at thirty-four, Biff still remains an adolescent. He, like his father, lacks a stable job (1486). Willy expects Biff to achieve success. He says that he wants Biff to have a steady job so as he can take care of himself and his family. Through his son's success, Willy will become important. Ironically he would rather have his son miserable and successful.
             Like his father, Biff is a drifter with little sense of maturity. He moves from job to job but seems most content working at a cattle ranch. The " twenty or thirty different kinds of jobs" Biff has had since he left home cannot compare to herding cattle throughout "the Dakotas and Arizona" and being able to see "nothing more inspiring or –beautiful than the sight of a mare or new colt" (1488)...