Is there betrayal or abandonment in the play Death of a Salesman?

It should be remembered that, for Willy, history repeats
itself. Willy was abandoned by his father and older brother when he was
little:

WILLY
(pulling Ben away from her impatiently): Where is Dad? Didn’t you follow him? How did
you get started?

BEN: Well, I don’t know how much you
remember.

WILLY: Well, I was just a baby, of course, only
three or four years old...

BEN: Three years and eleven
months.

WILLY: What a memory,
Ben!

BEN: I have many enterprises, William, and I have
never kept books.

WILLY: I remember I was sitting under the
wagon in — was it Nebraska?

BEN: It was South Dakota, and I
gave you a bunch of wild flowers.

WILLY: I remember you
walking away down some open road.

BEN (laughing): I was
going to find Father in Alaska.

WILLY: Where is
he?

BEN: At that age I had a very faulty view of geography,
William. I discovered after a few days that I was heading due south, so instead of
Alaska, I ended up in
Alaska.

Willy's father made
and sold flutes. He too was a traveling salesman. Thus, that Willy spent so much of his
time on the road is not surprising at all. Compared to his father and brother, however,
Willy was much more of a family man, absent for long periods of time though he may have
been.

His infidelity can not be so easily explained, but
it, too, may stem from his early abandonment. As Willy says to
Ben:

WILLY
(longingly): Can’t you stay a few days? You’re just what I need, Ben, because I — I have
a fine position here, but I — well, Dad left when I was such a baby and I never had a
chance to talk to him and I still feel — kind of temporary about
myself.

What a
sad admission to com from a grown man.