“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak” (Thomas Carlyle). A good wife is aware, strong, persevering and caring. Linda Loman is an oblivious, weak, enabler and cannot be characterized as a good wife. In many instances throughout Arthur Miller’s play The Death of a Salesman, the audience sees Linda acting poorly as a significant other. Through the duration of the play her pathetic attempts to show her love for Willy are outweighed by the actions used in benefitting herself and her well-being.
How is Mrs. Linda Loman oblivious? Linda is fully aware of her husband’s suicide attempts and even tells her sons! Why can she not confront her husband? She tries to pass the blame onto her sons as seen on page 123 “Linda, Cutting Happy off, violently to Biff: Don’t you care if he lives or dies? ” (Miller 123). Clearly she is a poor excuse for a wife and does not truly love her husband and wants to make things easier for herself by overlooking serious matters. Linda frequently is caught blaming her children for Willy’s raging fits.
Linda, her voice subdued: what’d you have to start that for? Biff turns away. You see how sweet he was as soon as you talked hopefully” (Miller 65). Biff told his father to stop yelling at Linda and now she gets mad at her son for his father’s rage. Linda is incapable of being a good wife because she is only looking out for herself while letting her family trample over her. Weakness is not a virtue of a good wife. Linda Loman has no strength to stand up for herself. She allows her husband and sons to yell at her and treat her like a door mat.
On page 67, Willy had previously been yelling at his family and Linda and Willy have gone upstairs to get ready for bed. “Linda: I’ll make a big breakfast-Wily: will ya let me finish? ” (Miller 67). This is one of several scenarios where Willy is being rude to his wife even when she offers to cook for him. Again on page 64 Willy yells, “Stop interrupting! ” (Miller 64). No respectable, strong woman would allow herself to stay in a situation where she is treated so insignificantly. Linda’s overly tolerant attitude diminishes any signs of being a good wife.
Linda must always praise him but the other woman is frequently requiring things from him and tempts him into cheating on his wife when he escapes to Boston, for ‘work’. “Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts, and his higher nature – and another woman to help him forget them” (Helen Rowland). Helen Rowland was an American writer who died shortly after the play was written and her quote goes along well with Willy’s affair because hints are made throughout the play, such as her careful word choices, that give the reader the suspicion that she knows something is going on.
A good wife would not allow that to go unspoken about, therefore another example of how Linda Loman is a terrible wife. This is the most lethal quality of Mrs. Linda Loman, she is an enabler. An enabler is “one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior? “(Merriam Webster). Linda finds a hose that her husband had been using to asphyxiate himself and Linda says to her sons, “I’m-l’m ashamed to. How can I mention it to him?
Every day I go down there and take away that little rubber pipe, but, when he comes home, I put it back where it was. How can I insult him that way? I don’t know what to do. I live from day to day, boys. I tell you, I know every thought in his mind… ” (Miller 60). Linda has zero strength to stop her husband from this suicidal act and says it hurts her too much to stop it. That is the definition of pathetic. Linda says on page 59, “with great difficulty: Oh, boys, it’s just so hard to say a thing like this! He’s just a big stupid man” (Miller 59). The oldest on, Biff later in the play confronts his father about the rubber hose and Linda orders Biff to stop. “Biff: all right phony! Then let’s lay it on the line. He whips the rubber tube out of his pocket and puts it on the table… Linda: Biff! She moves to grab the hose, but Biff holds it down with his hand… Stop it! ” (Miller 130).
Linda wants to be comfortable and not prevent potential death. She is selfishly providing her husband with the means for suicide and refuses to ask for help. “For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and then again nothing deadlier than a bad one. (Hesiod). The Greek poet Hesiod wrote this in the seventh century BC. Willy Loman’s wife is nothing more than a pathetic woman with no backbone. Arthur Miller shows Linda to be a pathetic excuse for a wife and should never be looked any of her ‘wifely’ qualities. Linda is a blind wimp who does not care about anyone but herself. These poor qualities prohibit her from being a good wife and mother. We frequently see the temptations she falls for in blaming her children. The Death of a Salesman is full of pitiful examples of Linda acting selfishly as an unloving wife.
