Willy's idea of success

Willy Loman is an older man that is losing his ability to comprehend the present. He lives his life in flashbacks and is “lost” through most of the play. However, he does seem to know what he wants in his life and how he is supposed to achieve it. Willy believes that individual opportunity is not based on others. Your success comes from being “well liked”. Willy talks about this thing of being well liked through the play. He believed that Charley, who was successful, was not well like and the same went for Bernard. This puzzled him, because it went against what he had believed his entire life. However, his son, Biff, was the person Willy wanted him to be. He had been well liked and was successful, in the beginning. Willy based success of this and tried to put it into his life. Willy wanted nothing more than to be well liked. If this became true about him, then success would come.