“that he could sell more in a week than Willy could in a lifetime”.
He is represented as someone who was successful in his own way as Ben tells us:
'Great inventor, father. With one gadget he made more in a week than a man like you could make in a lifetime.'
Willy, when measured against Ben was even worse as Ben was rich by the age of twenty one. This again indicates Willy’s lost opportunities in life. So Willy is surrounded by great successes in a society where success and money is what is respected. This means that Willy is far from respected.
A technique Miller employs is using language to aid deeper meanings in the storyline. It is used frequently throughout the play. The references to the 'jungle' as the setting for Ben's ruthless success carries uneasy connotations of a place where only the fittest will survive and in which weaker members will die. Indicating that Willy will not survive in the financial world.
Even after all that Willy went through with his own failure and his sons he still does not understand why it happened to them. He believes that the only keys to success are contacts and popularity. Unfortunately, in the business of sales, Willy has outlived his contacts and his popularity (if he ever had them) and is now unable to make any money. The best example of this is when Biff failed Maths and was going to fail school Willy said he would
“talk to his teacher and she’d understand”.
This shows that Willy thinks he can get by in life by being popular and charming but he realizes the hard way that this is not true.
Willy Lowman's home is presented as 'small and fragile’, surrounded by a wall of apartment blocks whose presence contributes to the trapped, claustrophobic atmosphere. He refers to a time before the build up of this area when there were 'two beautiful elm trees’. The world outside Willy’s house seems menacing and mean ready to swallow up an economic failure like Willy Loman. Miller uses this technique greatly throughout the play. He includes extensive stage directions to make sure the stage is perfect as it is a large part in the storyline of his play.
However Willy’s outlook and ideas of life did not only cause his demise but he also affected his boys, Biff and Happy, greatly causing them to fail in life also. He was an indulgent father to his sons and so establishes a 'matey' relationship with them. He is known as their pal and there is not much ‘fear or respect’ that was necessary for a good father son relationship especially when the play was set. He has transmitted to them an ambiguous morality, failing to set down clear moral standards. For example, he wavers about the incident with Biff taking the football from school without asking the coach. Here Willy laughs with him at the theft, saying halfheartedly, ‘I want you to return that’.
Willy denies his failure to his family when his boys were young and so they grew up thinking that their father was a successful well known salesman.
“I was sellin thousands but I had to come home…”
“…they love me there”
“I met the Mayor of Providence”
This made his boys take all their father’s advice thinking he is successful and well known and they would be just like him. But in fact the advice was wrong and morally incorrect. These lies and exaggeration later led to the boys’ failures.
Willy encourages his boys to cheat and steal along as they achieve their goal of becoming popular. Willy encourages Biff to cheat off Bernard in the exams so to pass. They consider Bernard to be a ‘loser’ and socially disabled and so he will not get far in life at all. But Bernard worked hard at school and in the end was far more successful than Willy and his sons. Another good example of poor morals is when Willy tells his sons to steal building material from the site near by.
In Willy's life, therefore, there is a double standard which society has encouraged: proclaiming to his sons the virtues of clean living, friendliness, sportsmanship and honesty, his own life denies these qualities in that he has a mistress on the road and he lies about his business success. This dishonesty is reflected in his boys and their final outcome. Willy's failure is not only a financial one but, more seriously, a personal and moral failure.
Willy’s idea of success is being popular and 'well liked', of being physically attractive and good at sport. These gain preference over academic achievement which he makes clear calling Bernard a “pest and loser” and tell him to go away even when he was trying to help Biff in his exams..
“Bernard you’re such a pest! Don’t be anemic”
One the interesting points and almost sums up the idea of the play is Willy’s motto that he tells his boys over and over again in order for them to abide by it and become successful like their father.
'Be well liked and you will never want'
This is amusing as it is ironic because at the end of the play Willy is in constant debt and wanting to have led a better life. So Willy’s theories and ideas about popularity being the key to success were proved wrong by his own sorry life.
The end of the play sees Biff confront his father about this issue and Willy could not handle it so commits suicide. This is interesting as his death was a financial failure too as life insurance does not cover suicide. His funeral was a failure because no one apart from his close family Charlie and Bernard came. So no matter how sad it sounds but Willy Loman’s life was an entire failure. Until this day Willy Loman is a symbol of failure because of society’s false value system.
This play is based the mid 20th century when success was achieved through hardwork and industry and wit and charm would not earn you a living and this is the main reason Willy Loman failed in life.
The play is one of the great tragedies and is a very depressing experience for the audience. No matter how much Willy deserved to fail because of his poor value and morality we cannot but feel sorry for this confused man.
