The Salesman – the package
Illusions and memories give rise to endless story-telling that is coloured, repackaged, manufactured by the story-teller.
As Willy notes, it’s personality that counts and it’s not so much the story that is important but the way you tell the story so that it becomes “larger than life” and bigger than self. The story takes on a life of its own that helps one believe in a more certain and confident future.
When Biff says, we never told the truth for ten minutes in this household and Happy contradicts, “we always told the truth”, they are both right. Both are telling the truth, and both are repacking the truth in ways that suit the Loman brand. There are only endless variations of the “truth”.
Willy’s life is full of fanciful stories. It’s all about the way one presents and packages the Loman Brand: the green velvet slippers; Ben’s suitcase; the Loman Brand, the would-be football star, the stories have no definite beginning and no end in sight because Willy refuses to acknowledge that he is dependent upon Charlie for a loan. The stories lack a definite outline, they are vague representations of Willy’s desires, fears and phobias about self and his future, about which he agonises in existential terms.
However, what is common to Willy’s stories: his larger than life fabricated personality, his views and values about a Dream that keeps receding, and the more it recedes the more he seeks to grasp it. It is a dream that promises opportunity, fame and fortune for those who know how to speak it and name it.
It’s about going to the interview, presenting oneself to the manager dressed in a business suit (not a sport jacket and slacks) and talking as little as possible; “don’t crack any jokes” because this will appear to trivialise oneself. “Walk in very serious”. It is not a “boy’s job”, you cannot use boy’s words or language such as “Gee” because this will not lead to a loan of fifteen thousand dollars. Nobody lends the “kidder” money. You have to think “big” and ask for the world” and do it with confidence because only then will a man be treated seriously (51-52)
Memories and illusions intertwine in ways that fuse past and present, like the symbolic stage settings themselves, that suggest that the past intrudes upon the present in unpredictable and volatile ways.
Sometimes one exaggerates to good effect and for a positive purpose
Sometimes these stories eventually destabilise our sanity and set us up for failure.
In this regard, Willy Loman, fashions his own personal vision based on the American Dream – the myth of the popular, well-liked, influential salesman. It includes the ability to climb ladders, make a name and fortune for oneself, irrespective of background and origins, and prosper. His dream revolves around the need to attract another’s respect and become one’s own personal star. Willy idolizes Dave Singleman, who in his “green velvet slippers in the smoker” still manages to etch his name in stone at the ripe old age of 84. Dave Singleman, in the Parker House, captured Willy’s imagination and changes the direction of his life forever. He lets go of his plans to travel with his father and brother, Ben to Alaska.
BIG PICTURE STATEMENT: For some people, illusions are a useful prop in life promising success and fortune. For others, they may spell disaster. They may distort one’s lived experiences in sinister or delusional ways.
Willy exaggerates his reputation, status and popularity. He boasts to Biff that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and that he is well known, “they know me up and down New England” (24). As a measure of his status and reputation, he can park “my car in any street in New England and the cops protect it like their own” (24). He imagines that his funeral will be massive. “they’ll come from Maine, Mas, Vermont New Hampshire”
Willy persistently claims to be “vital in New England” when in fact he is about to lose his job, and acknowledges that “business is tough, it’s murderous, but not for me of course!”, Willy’s constant denial with regards to the insecurity of his job and his dire financial situation ultimately leads to tension in his family and erodes his confidence and authority.
Statement/Big Picture : Often individuals represent or distort the facts about themselves or invent unrealistic expectations. This can be dangerous and in the worst case scenario or can lead to a terrible tragedy.
In fact, as Arthur Miller shows, the more illusory the dream, the bigger the fall. The more one starts to believe in a shaky and false reality, the more unstable one becomes. IN other words, the more unrealistic the expectations and goals, the more disappointed one will become. The more likely it is that an individual will fail. Even Biff says, “The man don’t know who we are! The man is gonna know! … We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house”. Likewise, Charley constantly asks Willy to “grow up” as a reflection of his inability to confront his financial situation.
Arthur Miller presents Willy’s car crash as a metaphor of his psychological instability. They symbolize the dangerous gap between his dreams and his lived experiences. When Willy learns of the cost of car repairs, he curses this “goddam Studebaker” which previously was the “greatest car ever built” to present the car as the scapegoat for his financial woes. Miller suggests that Will is heading for the worst terrible type of car crash. Biff also identifies this danger when he labels Willy a “phony old fake”. This implies that Willy is consciously choosing to avoid the real circumstances of his life in favour of a more comfortable but impractical illusion of the eluding American Dream. Miller suggests that there must be a balance between what is real and what is not to avoid harm to oneself and others around them.
In this regard, Arthur Miller structures Death of a Salesman in a way that enables Willy to move in and out of the narrative sequence of his life. In his stage directions, Miller expressly notes that in the present, there is an imaginary border. The characters are to observe the “wall-lines”. In the scenes of the past, “these boundaries are broken” and characters enter or leave a room by stepping “through” a wall onto the forestage.” Symbolically, the past appears then as unbroken line with the present, influencing everything that happens. As Miller also suggests Willy’s past decisions clearly influence the choices he makes. Most significantly, he remembers how he was about to follow his brother Ben and his father to Alaska, “And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House.” As we know, Dave Singleman with his “green velvet slippers” could command an audience and still made a very respectable living. In this regard, both Dave and Ben are characters who loom large in Willy’s past imaginings. Ben is the reminder of just how much Willy has lost through the choice of role model. Ben explains, “I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And by God, I was rich!” (41)
Snatches of memories are often associated with flashes of emotions and hopeful sentiments. In Willy’s case, he remembers how Howard’s father, Frank, “came over to me” and “put his hand on my shoulder”. Willy wants to believe that the father was reinforcing Willy’s illusions of success. However, he is confronted with the realization that perhaps these moments in the past are already fictionalized and Willy momentarily becomes angry and disturbed when he recalls these moments..
Likewise, Willy wants to remember Biff as a potential football star. He had the “sun all around him” and Willy wants to “remember how he waved to me”. This enables him to minimize the extent of Biff’s failures and treachery — perhaps, another fictionalized recreation of the past.
However, sometimes we need to face the consequences of our fanciful memories. The more twisted and distorted one’s memories become, then the more difficult it is to remain true and authentic. Willy becomes increasingly dishonest. It is impossible for him to learn from his mistakes or to engage with others in a meaningful way.
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