The impression that Willy has on Happy is another example of the flaws of one generation impacting on another. Both Willy and Happy are following the wrong dream, “He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong.” Willy was a success at building things and using his hands, but felt that selling was a better profession even though he wasn’t successful at it. Happy also followed the wrong dream, saying “He had a good dream”, Happy follows the wrong dream because as a boy all Willy would tell him about was how successful he was in his job and that to be well liked is important. Willy is aggressive towards Linda, “Will you stop!”, Willy’s aggression towards Linda is reflected in Happy. The Woman says that Willy has “Ruined” her, and Happy says “I went and ruined her”, both Willy and Happy treat women badly and show little remorse toward them.
It could be argued that The Woman and Miss Forsythe portray how the flaws of one generation are imprinted on the next because they both reflect the same values and negative views of women, which are against the feminist society we live in today. Willy has an affair with The Woman, like how Happy has affairs with women who are due to be married, this is another flaw that Willy has passed on because Willy says that he is “lonely” and seeks attention from anyone who will give it to him. Similarly, Happy seeks attention by declaring irrelevant promises that he doesn’t intend to keep and by sleeping with women to feel wanted. Willy also lies about how successful he is in his job “I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own”, and because Willy always told his sons that the most important thing is to be successful, so Happy lies about his job status to, to appear more of a success “You’re one of the two assistants to the assistant”.
It could be said that the flaws of one generation are not imprinted on the next, although Biff does bad things that appear to be encouraged by his father when he was younger, it could be argued that Biff is actually rebelling against his father. Willy always dreamed that his son would be successful, but after Biff found out about the affair, Biff could have given up on his education so that he wouldn’t be accepted into college and he could follow a different path than to that his father wanted him to go down.
However, it could also be argued that the play is about Consumerism and the effects it has on society. This is because Willy can’t afford anything he owns “A hundred and twenty dollars! My God, if business don’t pick up I don’t know what I’m gonna do!”, and so the fear of his family knowing how poor they are is shameful for him, and it could be seen that this is the true reason why he kills himself at the end of the play, to get his family out of debt again and to have “the death of a salesman” like he believes he should have because of the effects of society on him. Several characters in the play represent consumerism, The Woman because she works as a receptionist for a sales company and desires stockings and other such material possessions and it could be argued that Howard ultimately is consumerism because he didn’t have to work to become the head of a company, and doesn’t care about loyalty or friendship and only about money because he fires Willy. In this way it could be said that because Howard “is” consumerism, his attitude will be printed down through generations, supporting the statement.
A strong theme in the play is Dreams, this is because Willy’s dream is to become a successful salesman and to die “the death of a salesman”, although it could be argued that Willy was following the wrong dream, Happy supports Willy’s dream, as does Charley saying “A salesman is got to dream”, justifying his dream. Biff and Happy, especially Biff, also express a dream to be free of the society they’re trapped in, wanting to work in the country “”We cold buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles.” this is significant because it’s different to everyone else in the play want to conform to the consumerism society whilst they want to be free of it. Their dream of walking on a ranch is often called the “American Dream” which was popular during the first half of the 1900s, Of Mice and Men is a novel in which the “American Dream” is an important theme, and both texts are set in close time periods to each other, suggesting that the “American Dream” was something that many people aspired to achieve.
I think that the play is very much about how the flaws of one generation are imprinted on another, because there are many characters where this is true. Although there are other key themes within the play, I agree with the statement because this is such a strong theme running through the book that has a large impact on the course of the play and the rest of the characters, whilst the other themes are important to the play they do not shape it in such a significant way.
