Was Willy Loman's family responsible for his demise?

I think that Willy's family contributed to his demise, but they should not be considered fully responsible for his demise. This is because Willy, himself had a great impact on him dying at the end of the novel.

Firstly, it may be said that his family played a part in his demise, but they were not fully responsible. Willy's relationship with his sons Biff and Happy seemed to break down, which consequently added to Willy's demise. This is made evident by the way in which his relationship with Biff started going downhill when he walked in on his dad and another woman in the hotel room in Boston, giving off the impression that he was having an affair with "The Woman". The relationship gradually got worse as Biff got older and went away, where Willy and Linda did not hear from him in a long time but when Biff came back the relationship continued to crack until it broke in the end. This happened when Biff went to his old manager, so to speak, only to find out that he never really worked for him and all the things he thought were true really were false. That was when Biff truly realised that the American Dream his father instilled in him and his brother from the beginning really did not make sense at all and was not going to get him anywhere. He thus broke away from his father's aspirations and Willy was hurt and thought that he did not do a good job as a father. This is made evident when Biff tells Willy at the restaurant what really happened at the meeting, as well as when Biff ran out to his father that same evening when he was in garden and they both felt like they had let down one another. Thus adding to him wanting to kill himself for letting Biff end up with a bad life and he himself being fired from the job, so he ended his worries and troubles by doing just that.

In addition, the fact that Happy was neglected from his father from such an early age, since Willy always seemed to be more concerned with Biff, Happy adopted from an early age to be less concerned with his father, and accept his position as the years went by. This caused Willy to have less love and concern from one of his family members that he should have had, but because Will never really paid much attention to him, Happy seemed not to bother to try sometimes since he knew he was not going to get the attention he wanted or deserved. As a result Willy was not able to have the love he could have gotten from Happy and Happy continued to be less concerned with him. This is made evident when Biff and Happy invited their father for lunch at a restaurant and Happy was not the least bit concerned that they left him there by himself while he was in the bathroom. Happy was more concerned with the ladies he invited to sit down with them at the table.

Furthermore, it may also be said that Linda was considered to be a loving and caring wife to Willy, but it may also be argued that instead of always trying not to aggravate him and say the wrong thing, she should have helped him by taking to him to see a doctor when she realised he was getting crazy in his head. For example, the hose she saw in the back by the gas tank should have told her that something was wrong.

More than anything, it may be stated that Willy was the main cause of his death since he had the American Dream trapped in the depths of his mind, that he would stick with that dream even if it was not working out. Willy stuck to this dream and tried to influence his children from an early age that this dream was the way to go and the way to make things happen. He was right about one thing. It did make things happen. It made him slowly go crazy as a result of being obsessed with the dream and eventually led him to kill himself.