What impression have you formed of the character of Willy Loman ? Would you regard him as a tragic hero?
The
most striking fact about Willy Loman is that he is a victim of what is known as
the great American dream. According to a popular belief in America, a man can
attain riches and status by means of personal attractiveness, personal charm,
personal contacts, and personal initiative. A man, in order to be successful in
life, should not only be "liked", but "well- liked". This
is the belief that men like Dale Carnegie have fostered. Willy is a worshipper
of material success, and he thinks that, not only he himself, but also his son
Biff, can attain the top of the ladder by means of personal magnetism and the
spirit of enterprise. Again and again, he speaks highly of himself and of his
son Biff. He believes that he is largely responsible for the large sales of the
products of the Wagner Company in the New England region: "I'm vital in
New England." He claims to know all the important people in his territory
and says that the cops will protect his car no matter where he parks it in New
England. He thinks himself to be a very successful salesman who can "knock
them dead" and "slaughter them", meaning that he can command
buyers and customers in the various towns of New England: "I'm tellin'
you, I was sellin' thousands and thousands, but I had to come home." He
has built up his own ego and is inclined to exaggerate his achievements:
"Oh, I'll knock 'em dead next week. I'll go to Hartford. I'm very well
liked in Hartford." All this is of course self-deception. But this is the
illusion which he nurses in his heart. He thinks that, in his old age (and he
is already old), he will emulate the example of Dave Singleman. Indeed, he
thinks himself to be "a big shot", and when he goes to Howard, he
goes with the hope that he will "knock Howard for a loop." "
Likewise,
Willy holds an exaggeratedly high opinion about his son Biff. He lionizes Biff
because Biff has distinguished himself as a football player, and he thinks that
this distinction in sports will take Biff very far. He speaks of Biff's
"spirit" and "personality". He admires Biff for his
"skilful simonizing" of the car, and is prepared to stake his money
on Biff. He believes that both his sons are built like Adonises. He compares
Biff to Hercules, and then to a god. He is much pleased by the fact that girls spend
their own money on Biff. He is greatly impressed by the number of Biff's
followers and admirers among his school-mates Even when Biff fails to live up
to his promise and has achieved nothing, till the ripe age of thirty-four,
Willy does not give up his illusion about his son. He thinks that Bill Oliver
will give any amount of money to Biff, and, when Biff fails miserably to get
anything from Bill Oliver, Willy refuses to listen to Biff's account of that
failure. Till the end Willy persists in speaking of the future greatness and
magnificence of Biff. In fact, one of the reasons for his suicide is that Bill
would be able to build up his career with the insurance money. As for himself,
he believes that his funeral will be a "massive" affair and that it will
be attended by lots and lots of people. Thus we find that Willy Loman is
wilfully blind to the realities, and that he lives in a world of his own, in a
fanciful world, dreaming of things which are not likely to materialise.
It
must, however, be admitted that occasionally Willy does become aware of the
factual state of affairs. For instance, he makes a pathetic confession to Linda
that people do not seem "to take to him", that they even "laugh
at him", that they do not "notice" him, that he "talks too
much" and "jokes too much", that he is fat and foolish to look
at. He is able to perceive even Biff's reality. Speaking to Linda, he says that
it is a disgrace that Biff remains unsettled though he has attained the age of
thirty-four: "But it's more than ten years now and he has yet to make
thirty-five dollars a week." "Not finding yourself at the age of
thirty-four is a disgrace." He tells Bernard that Biff's life ended after
that Ebbets Field game, adding: "From the age of seventeen nothing good ever
happened to him." He quarrels with Biff several times, though by the end
of the play he is fully reconciled to him and feels overwhelmed by his
discovery that Biff really loves him. Willy perceives the reality and yet
chooses to live in a world of illusions. This means that he is, most of the
time, in a confused state of mind.
Willy
is a muddle-headed person who often contradicts himself and often becomes
absent-minded. When the play begins, he has just returned home without
completing his business trip because he found that he could not concentrate on
driving the car. Speaking to Linda, he describes Biff as lazy "The trouble
is he's lazy, goddammit!" But within a minute or so, he describes Biff as
a hard worker: "There's one thing about Biff-he's not lazy." He asks
Linda to open a window, when all the windows are already open. He mentions
having opened the windshield of his car, when the windshield does not really
open on the Studebaker which he owns. He has mentioned the case of Dave
Singleman to Howard, but he forgets it a little later when talking to Ben till
Linda reminds him of it.
Will
is a pathetic figure throughout the play (in spite of the fact that there is
something comic about him too). Not only does he appear to be pathetic when
speaking to Linda about his shortcomings, but also in the course of his
interview with Howard and later in the restaurant when he is deserted by his
sons. Howard treats him in a cavalier fashion, and even though Willy lowers his
price from sixty to fifty and then to forty dollars a week, Howard does not
relent. Far from giving him a job in the city to save him from the botheration
and strain of travelling, Howard sacks him. To the restaurant he goes with a
broken heart because of his dismissal from his firm, but he cheers up at the
thought that Biff must have fared well at his meeting with Bill Oliver. He is
in a distracted frame of mind when he again and again refuses to listen to
Biff's account of his disastrous meeting with Bill Oliver. We are moved to deep
sympathy for him on each of these occasions. His suicide marks, of course, the
climax in this respect.
Willy
has a lot of self-respect and a sense of personal dignity. He refuses to accept
a job from Charley, even though he needs it badly. Willy's reply to Charley's
offer is: "I don't want your goddam job !" Thereupon Charley naturally
asks him: "When the hell are you going to grow up ?" Willy says that
he "just can't work for Charley". This self-respect is, perhaps,
laudable, but even here we find a contradiction. Willy has been borrowing fifty
dollars a week from Charley in order to pretend to Linda that he is still
getting his salary. Both Charley and Linda have, of course, seen through the
pretence. Willy's pretence does not, however, turn us against him. On the
contrary, it deepens our sympathy for him.
Willy
is greatly devoted to his wife just as he deeply loves his sons. It is true
that he has been unfaithful to her, but this infidelity can perhaps be condoned
in view of the fact that travelling salesmen do often feel lonely when they are
far away from their families for long periods and that most of them do
occasionally indulge in a mild kind of flirtation with other women. In fact we
have no reason at all to doubt Willy when he tells his wife: "You're my
foundation and my support, Linda", and again: "You're the best there's,
Linda, you're a pal, you know that? On the road-on the road I want to grab you
sometimes and just kiss the life outa you." Again and Again he feels that
he has let down his wife, and he carries a sense of guilt about his
"affair" in Boston. His remark that the woman, meeting Linda, has
suffered, is poignant, because it shows his recognition of a real fact.
Willy
is a lover of Nature. He speaks of the excellent road-side scen..y that he has
often enjoyed while driving to work: "But it's so beautiful up there,
Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm." He is sorry about the
congestion that has been caused in his neighbourhood by the construction of
numerous apartment houses, and he misses the fresh air of the past. He recalls
the time when lilacs, wistaria, peonies, and daffodils used to grow there and
spread their fragrance. The increase in population, he says, is ruining the
country. He is still fond of planting seeds in the small garden behind his
house, even though very little sunlight finds its way there. There is something
faintly poetic about this hard-boiled materialist.
Willy
is very good at manual work. It is his view that "a man who can't handle
tools is not a man." Biff pays him a tribute at the funeral when he refers
to the stoop, the porch, the bathroom, and the garage that Willy built with his
own hands. Says Biff: "You know something, Charley, there's more of him in
that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made", and Charley replies:
"Yeah. He was a happy man with a batch of cement", whereupon Linda
adds: "He was so wonderful with his hands."
*Ever
since the staunch puritan colonists landed in America with a cherished dream of
founding a new society, the American dream has been changing, ever changing in
diverse forms and dimensions, and gradually it took the amorphous shape of a
myth-'success'-getting success became o mania, getting it by all means so that
the entire society became symbolically a battle-field where cut-throat
competitor permeated and a sort of Darwinism-survival of the fittest become and
took an octopus-like grip of the American society as a whole where a man was
evaluated in terms of his 'success', achieved in any way-right or wrong.
*simonizing
polishing with great skill.
*He is comic in his contradictions and his absent-mindedness.