Introduction
The twentieth century for the world and America, in particular, was a period of eternal upheavals, crises, and the resulting hopes for the best. Many authors of those times tried to present reality positively, hoping for an early improvement in both their own lives and the state of the society in which they lived. However, the overwhelming majority of creative people created works that categorically, with the force of a hammer striking an anvil, declared the deplorable state of the world around them. The most laconic in the depiction and criticism of the society of his time was Arthur Miller, who presented the world with two significant works: “Death of a Salesman” and “Incident at Vichy.” Of these two plays, the most interesting is the story of the failed salesman Willy Loman, who lives in a small house between the two skyscrapers. By analyzing Willy’s life path, his relationship with his family, and the end of his long but poor life, one can understand why his desire to please everyone ultimately led him to failure in everything.
The Childhood Trauma
It is worth starting with the very plot of the play, which takes place directly in New York during the protracted depression and economic crisis that befell the United States in the 1930s. The life of ordinary workers and small entrepreneurs, as Willy Loman is, is entirely hopeless and gloomy. However, to the surprise of any viewer and reader, the work’s main character is surprisingly optimistic and, at least outwardly, cheerful. This is due to the nature, or rather psychotrauma, of the protagonist, who was a boy who grew up without a father figure. The only close candidate for this role was his older brother, Ben. However, he also leaves home at the age of seventeen. Later, Willy often sees Ben in visions – at the age of seventeen, he left home, and by the time he was twenty, he became fabulously rich in the diamond mines of Africa. For the broken and deeply saddened Willy, the brother is the living embodiment of such a dear hero of the American dream. He wants his sons, especially the eldest, Biff, to succeed in life, getting rich and becoming worthy.
At a certain point in the play, Happy speaks to his brother the words that his father repeats all the time. For example, he declares: “You’re well-liked, Biff. That’s why I say to come back here, and we both have the apartment” (Miller 14). However, the eldest son of a salesman is not as convinced of his father’s words as his brother Happy, and for several reasons. One of the very first and foremost betrayals of his father in childhood, because for Biff, his well-liked father was an idol. However, being guided by his father in the direction of becoming a charming guy, Biff kicks off his studies, gets a low score in math, and ends up being denied a diploma.
The Obsessive Thoughts
The very idea that the main thing in a person’s success is his decent appearance and charisma grew out of Willy’s childhood trauma when he was still a child and despair when he was a grown man. In the future, the trauma and pain of the hero only worsened, intensifying with time. In reality, the hero’s obsession with the idea that a well-liked man, respected in society and pleasant to those around him, is simply an attempt to grab a straw, to find a remedy for the oppressive and cruel reality. It is also worthwhile to understand that the hero reflects an already existing pattern, discovered by Freud, the way of a man without a father and replacing it with an obsession (Noras). The tragedy of the work is that Willy passes on this pattern to his sons, seeking to instill ​​the importance of moral behavior and appearance for continued success. The main character is insane and obsessed with obsessive thoughts, expressed in the image of his older brother, who disappeared when Willy was a child. This is also confirmed in Willy’s conversation with his sons:
“What’s the mystery? The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress” (Miller 28).
The Disillusionment
In an attempt to get a job with his former boss, Oliver, Biff takes an even more brutal blow to his convictions because he is not just denied. The chief walks past Biff without even noticing him leaving his office. Biff is broken and crushed because he was discouraged by the boss’s indifference, so rude and absolute. Biff and Happy had already booked a table in advance at the restaurant where they and their father would celebrate their older brother’s hiring. However, upon meeting his brother, Biff tells him everything and shows his shock. Such strong emotions in the protagonist are caused not so much by the refusal of an important person and not even by the loss of hope of finding a regular job. He realizes that a significant person does not waste his time on everyone. At the same time, the timid and broken Biff, like his father, constantly strives to please everyone and receives blows of fate over and over again and failures in endeavors.
As a result, while waiting for his father at the restaurant, he tells Happy that he will say to him everything as it is. Let the father, at least once in his life, face the truth and understand that his son was not created for commerce. Having learned a lesson in fate, Biff tells his brother that his father did not teach them business acumen and what is essential. The owners always laughed at their father: this romantic of business, which prioritizes human relationships and not self-interest, for this very reason, was often the loser. Biff does not want to live among deceptive illusions like a father but hopes to find his place in the world indeed. For him, the big smile of a salesman and polished shoes are not a symbol of happiness.
Happy scares his brother’s attitude because he has also achieved little and, although he proudly calls himself the deputy boss, in fact, he is only the assistant of one of the assistants. Brother Biff seems to be repeating the fate of his father – he builds castles in the air, hoping that optimism and a white-toothed smile will lead to wealth and success thanks to a human attitude. Happy asks Biff to lie to his father, to say that Oliver recognized him, received him well, and was delighted that the man was returning to his work. And on that, both brothers agree, thereby symbolizing Biff’s attempt now to try to imitate his old, not completely broken with self-deception, personality. For a while, Biff succeeds, and he plays in front of his father, a successful applicant for a job in a commercial enterprise. But, in the end, the father’s cheap optimism and a set of standard phrases that his son achieved this because he was well-liked by a man enrage Biff. He yells at his father and speaks the truth, confessing that a significant and severe person ignored him, a worthless person.
After that, Willy breaks down and slaps his son in the face, accusing him of constantly disappointing him. Biff runs away, Happy tries to catch up with him and talk to him, and Willy experiences something akin to a seizure, subconsciously trying to find another straw in his memory. As a result, he buys seeds, and returns home at night, ignoring his sons, goes to the backyard, and, surrounded by skyscrapers that surround him and symbolize oppressive reality, sows plants. Then Willy speaks to his brother and, in a sense, admits that he was wrong all his life and was weak, which he says to himself through the subconscious image of Ben. As a result, Willy gets into the car and tries to commit suicide one last time, hoping that his family will receive insurance after his death.
Conclusion
Thus, Oliver’s character, or rather his indifference to people uninteresting to him, is essential for understanding the fallacy of Willy’s views. Oliver is a decent person, a relatively successful businessman and boss, who at the same time ignores unimportant and uninteresting people. All of this goes against the convictions of well-liked Willy, so poor and broken in his aspiration to be liked by everyone, and this becomes the end of his self-deception for Biff, just as death is the end for his father. For Biff, this may be the beginning of a new life without the burden of his father’s trauma, and for Willy, it is the total of a boy’s life without a father and without a brother whom he had hoped for. A naive search for the meaning of life in dreams and self-deception could be found in the play about the death of a salesman, a small ship that was looking for a quiet haven.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. Penguin Classics, 1998.
Noras, Maya. “The Role of Defense Mechanisms in Willy Loman’s Character: A Freudian and Marxist Analysis of Death of a Salesman.” Akademin För Utbildning Och Ekonomi, 2020, Web.