Mogregory Morgan Morgan 1
Dr. Melanie Poudevigne
HFMG 3110
14 May 2017
Benefits of Exercise
The necessity of regular exercise and physical activity is hard to challenge. Most people
think of exercise as merely a need to change their outward physical appearance. Others see it as
means of torcher that their healthcare practitioner chooses to throw at them with each visit.
Rarely is it looked at as a means to feel better or live healthier. The truth is that regular physical
activity has numerous benefits, from weight control to combating health conditions and disease
to mood enhancement and even providing more energy.
The major dynamic in “Death of a Salesman” and that of the Loman family is represented
by the struggle of “cohesion” between Biff and Willy Loman, his father. “Too little cohesion
creates family interactions and relationships that are considered ‘disengaged,’” (Halstead 248).
This is evident well before Biff is officially presented to the audience, when his mother Linda
points out that Biff and his father are continuously at odds due to Biff’s shortcomings in living up
to the desires and expectations of his father. This sets the stage for the conflict between Willy
Loman and his son Biff which is centered on Willy’s idea of the American dream. “Loman wants
success, but the meaning of that need extends beyond the accumulation of wealth, security,
goods, and status” (Jacobson 252). “For him, the road to the American dream is paved with a
winning personality: ‘That’s the wonder, the wonder of this country,’ the protagonist tells his
young sons, ‘that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked!’” (Tyson 263).
Willy is not happy with Biff and therefore claims that Biff is lazy. Nonetheless, when Willy fails
to obtain prominence and success, he then turns to Biff, whom he tries to force his idea of the
Morgan 2
American dream upon. This act of force and dream is one that Biff adamantly rejects,
maintaining the lack of “cohesion” which seems to have existed earlier on in their relationship.
The family’s Identity is one of shame and guilt. Biff and Willy best represent this
framework through their own individual Quest for Identity even late in life. As Linda stated, Biff
represents a man that still searching and has not “found himself.” At the age of thirty-four, Biff is
still an adolescent. This is represented best by his lack of being able to maintain a job. And
further noted by the fact that Biff and Happy continue to sleep in the same bunk beds; regardless
in retrospect that it causes Linda to have reflections of better days, this symbolizes that neither
Biff nor his brother have matured. “Biff inherits from his father an extremely fragile sense of
self-worth dependent on the perception of others. ‘Be Liked and you will never want,’ says the
proud father of two sons who are, in his own words, ‘both built like Adonises’. But according to
