Father-son relationships and conflicts in The Death of a Salesman by Arthur MillerIn many literary works, family relationships are key to the plot. Through a family's interaction with each other, the reader is able to decipher the conflicts of the story. Within a literary family, various characters play different roles in each other's lives. Usually these are people who are emotionally and physically connected in one way or another. They can be brother and sister, mother and daughter, or in this case, father and son. In Arthur Miller's novel, Death of a Salesman, the interaction between Willy Loman and his sons, Happy and Biff, allows Miller to comment on father-son relationships and the conflicts that arise from them. Throughout most father-son relationships, there are certain moments when the father wants to become more of a "player" in his son's life than his son deems necessary. The reasons for this are numerous and can be demonstrated in several ways. Miller manages to give an example of this behavior through the actions of Willy Loman. When Biff returns home to recover, Willy perceives it as a failure. Because Willy desperately wants his eldest son, Biff, to succeed in every way possible, he tries to take matters into his own hands. "I'll get him a sales job. He could make it big in no time" (16). The reason Biff came home is to find out what he wants in life. Since Willy gets in the way, things get more complicated. Partly because of Willy's persistence in Biff's life, they have conflicting ideas about what the American dream is. Willy believes that working on the streets selling is the best job a man can have (81). Biff, however, believes that the most challenging job a man can have is working outdoors (22). When their two dreams collide, Willy becomes frustrated because he believes his path is the right one. If a father becomes too involved in his child's life, Miller believes the resulting factor will be friction. As unfortunate as it is, there are many cases where a father favors one son over another, which leads to social conflict within the less favored son. In most cases it is the eldest child who is favored while the younger child is ignored. Usually the father doesn't even realize what's happening. He is simply too caught up in his eldest son's successes and may even try to live his life through his son's experiences..