How does biff treat willy

Like Biff, but to a lesser extent, Happy has suffered from his father's expectations. Mostly, though, his father doesn't pay that much attention to him. Willy was always a bigger fan of Biff.

Happy, maybe because he always felt second-best, has more of a desire to please his father. Despite his respectable accomplishments in business and the many, many notches on his bedpost, Happy is extremely lonely. Happy is competitive and ambitious, but these feelings are misdirected.

Biff is different from Willy because he does finally accept and embrace the fact that he has been living a lie all of his life. Biff is relieved once he realizes who he is and what he wants, as opposed to who Willy thinks he should be and who Biff needs to pretend to be in order to please him.

Once Biff states that "We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house," he severs himself from Willy because he openly refuses to live by Willy's philosophy any longer.

Ironically, Biff reconciles with Willy almost immediately following this statement. Since he acknowledges that he, too, is a "fake," Biff can no longer hold a grudge against Willy. Previous Willy Loman. Next Linda Loman. Linda attempts to stop the argument, but then Willy accuses her of siding with Biff.

Willy gives in and goes to bed. For the first time since the play's beginning, everything appears to be coming together for Willy during Scene Although the scene opens with an argument between Willy and Biff, the scene shifts as Biff attempts to reconcile with his father. Up until this point, Willy has relied upon favorite memories — memories in which Biff adores him — rather than accept the disintegrating relationship with his oldest son. Willy feels he has finally achieved a position of authority and respect again.

As a result, he immediately begins to dictate what Biff should do when he visits Oliver. The problem is that Biff wants to be honest with Willy, but Willy will not give him the chance. In a rare moment of lucidity and self-criticism, Willy moans that he cannot move ahead because people do not seem to like him. Linda tells him that he is successful enough.

Willy complains that he talks and jokes too much. He explains that Charley earns respect because he is a man of few words. His jealousy of his neighbor becomes painfully clear. As Linda assures him that he is the handsomest man ever, Willy replies that she is his best friend in the world. One of the most interesting aspects of Death of a Salesman is its fluid treatment of time: past and present flow into one another seamlessly and simultaneously as various stimuli induce in Willy a rambling stream-of-consciousness.

It is important to remember that the idyllic past that Willy recalls is one that he reinvents; one should not, therefore, take these seeming flashbacks entirely as truth. The idyllic past functions as an escape from the present reality or a retrospective reconstruction of past events and blunders.