In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a hard working salesman who always kids himself about being a success, and can never truly believe that he and his son Biff are anything near average. Although Willy's demise was brought about by his hopelessness and the depression caused by this, his false hopes towards the future are what really drove him to commit suicide. The false sense of hope that he gets when he looks towards the future, the undermining of this hope by his constant inner hopelessness for Biff ever making something of himself, and the effect of loneliness all were major contributors to Willy's choice to commit suicide. Although all three of these are important, the dominant factor was that he saw hope where hope was nowhere to be found. Willy kills himself because he feels that in order to support best his family, he needs to take his own life (in order for them to collect the insurance and make a better life for themselves).
             Willy's hopes and dreams are for him to be successful for all of his life and for his boys to become even more successful. His hopes fell as quickly as they had risen as soon as he realized what has really become of all of them. This turned his hope into utter hopelessness. The hopelessness then drives him to engulfing himself even further into the false hopes that he dreams up. This is exemplified in Willy's heated quote, "The trouble is he's lazy goddammit!... Biff is a lazy bum!"(Miller 5). As Willy is realizing that Biff has not made anything of himself, he is getting very upset and stress is starting to take over. He seems to blame himself for how Biff turned out and yet he never is able to comprehend what went wrong. Another example of Willy's hopes being diminished is shown here when Willy and Biff are arguing:
             "- The door to your life is wide open
             - Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!
             - I am not a dime a dozen,...