Unethical Behavior Role Modeling In Death Of A Salesman

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Term Paper Title	Unethical Behavior Role Modeling In Death Of A Salesman
# of Words	767
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.07

Unethical Behavior Role Modeling in Death of a Salesman

     Much of a person’s personality is derived from his or her parents or the people with whom they live.  One’s behaviors are a reflection of his or her up bringing.  All actions of others in one’s environment have an impact in one’s behaviors.  That is especially true of parent’s influence on a child.  Nearly all morals and ethics are learned from parents.  Sociologists have indicated that as time progresses American ethics have decayed immensely.  Parents in America have become more lax with their children, and the strictly enforced code of ethics seems to have diminished.  Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, portrays the consequences of the laxity of parents with regards to ethics through the relationship of Willy Loman and his two sons, Biff and Happy.
     Rather than having played a positive role model for his sons Willy Loman, established a poor standard of morality.  For example, when Biff was in high school he was the star of the football team.  One afternoon he stole a football from the locker room.  When Willy became cognizant of Biff’s actions, Wily did not punish Biff.  Instead, he told Biff that the coach was likely to congratulate Biff for his show of initiative (29, 30).  Similarly, at another point in the play Biff and Happy stole lumber from a nearby construction site.  Instead of teaching the boys a lesson in ethics Willy was proud of his sons.  In fact, he bragged about the amount of construction materials the two stole (50, 51).  Willy allowed the boys to steal, which could be considered an immoral act, worse yet, Willy’s praise for their actions prohibited Biff and Happy from knowing stealing was an immoral act.  Studies have shown that at a very young age children were extremely impressionable.  Teaching the difference between right and wrong would give hope for a moral future.  In the play there was little hope for Biff and Happy because Willy continued to show poor standards of morality in a positive light.
     In addition to stealing, being dishonest also surfaces as an unethical behavior that was practiced and thus promoted by Willy Loman.  Willy was a salesman who had a rocky past few months.  Instead of admitting his failure...

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