Willy Loman is an idiot. Not in the literal sense, he’s very smart, but he doesn’t understand the world around him. It changes, and he’s living in the past.
But that’s not the assignment. What does Willy think of individual opportunity? Well, he believes in “the american dream”. The literal sense of it. He believes that your life is what you make out of it. He’s free to make his name, his wealth, and his family the way he wants. The problem arises because he has a flawed idea about how to shape his life. His job is a traveling salesman, and the author makes it quite obvious that Loman is a “traditional” salesman. He relies almost completely on first impressions, appearance, and personal image. Thus, he raises his children to reflect that idea, and the conflict arises when he and his kids realize that the way they’ve been thinking and acting doesn’t get them by anymore.
Arthur, the Author, Miller believes quite the opposite. In the book, Willy and his two sons, Happy and Biff, try to make their way through the world by using their “attractive appearance”, and fail miserably. In the end, it drives Willy to death, and breaks up the family because they’re all living lies. The two kids convince themselves they are worth something, and the dad is, to use the medical term, “off in La-La-Land”. The author is trying to tell us that to succeed, we need to be more than a facade. We need to be substance, have knowledge, make our selves useful, and be proactive in securing our future.
No comments:
Post a Comment