I’m fat. I’m very – foolish to look at, Linda. I didn’t tell you, but Christmas time I happened to be calling on F. H. Stewarts, and a salesman I know, as I was going in to see the buyer I heard him say something about – walrus. And I – I cracked him right across the face. I won’t take that. I simply will not take that. But they do laugh at me. I know that.
– Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In this flashback of arriving home after a work trip, Willy shares his feelings of diminishing self-worth and self-esteem with his wife Linda. He criticizes his own physical appearance and admits to losing his temper and physically attacking someone who dared to refer to him as a "walrus." An image obsessed Willy deceives himself into believing that his business problems have to do with his appearance, he doesn’t accept that he is simply a failed salesman.