18 / 3 - restaurant scene
happy and ms forsythe
happy’s character
happy is characteristic of an american society because he prioritises short term interests - not focused on helping willy, but on the women. american ideals of novelty rather than repairing something existing. suggests leaving his family for new family, making willy’s downfall more tragic because it’s a shallow reason for happy to be abandoning him
adds pathos for happy because he can’t escape his flaws. people can’t improve if they’re products of a capitalist society cuz that is a characteristic flaw of capitalist society
early psychological ideas of happy always chasing short term pleasures
nuclear families
happy not trying to start a family with this woman but just flirting for the fun, maybe millier commenting on nuclear families
happy is feeding willy’s delusions in an attempt to make him happy, placate him rather than caring about being honest or actually supporting willy. his role is to be the happy one, but he takes the short cut by lying and chasing short term pleasures. ironic but a good portrayal of american society in that time - that is what’s considered happiness because in a sense it is freedom (no job, being able to chase women, and living out many lives through these lies he tells people about himself)
being happy is naive. willy is naive as well but not happy. do emotions affect any part of this? happy counteracts his own unhappiness by chasing short term happiness
nomanclature - the fact he’s called happy makes us constantly question if there is a role for happiness or not
willy prioritised short term happiness as well, and we can see how that played out for him because he chose the affair instead of his family and now he is suicidal. almost foreshadowing for happy - idea of a never ending cycle
willy naming him happy (he didn’t but let’s pretend); blatant demonstration of the expectations and pressure that parents put on their kids - ‘i want you to be happy’, and now you’re more aware of your lack of happiness because your name brings attention to it. even though it has good intentions, ‘we want you to be happy’, capitalist society means there’s always a pressure to live up to your parents expectations, so happy tries to get happiness the easy way
his name is harold, ‘at west point they called me happy’
their hamartias all come out in this scene - willy yelling at his kids and hitting them, happy lying and running off with women, biff stealing the pen. when they’re trying to be a functional family they fall apart and revert back to their nature, no way to improve in a capitalist society because your flaws are intrinsic to a capitalist society
happy takes willy’s message of being ‘well liked’, except uses it for short term pleasures as opposed to the business world like willy meant for biff to use it in
poverty and capitalist societies
drug crisis - you see money as the standard because of tv perpetrating it in society, so impoverished people find the easiest way to make money, i.e., drug dealing. happy cannot find happiness in a genuine sense because it’s too difficult in this modern world, so he does it ‘the easy way’
ideas of poverty changing over time - relative and general poverty
poverty itself is a social construct
how poverty is utilised in media, including this book
weird, because the play does promote the american dream in a sense - bernard just worked hard and he got it. seems counterintuitive because miller usually criticises the american dream as something based on luck
idea of hard work being the answer is part of communist ideology
interaction with ms forsythe
the thing happy looks for is wealth - looks for a well dressed woman. wealth being a symbol of morality and success. happy also lies about his own wealth to flirt - willy’s influence, you're a fine man if you own a tennis court
double entendre - he could be asking if she’s a salesman (obviously not) or asking if she’s a prostitute, just like willy asked jenny if she’s one. again willy’s influence. weird way to flirt. mirrors his father’s actions, both of them faking through life. miller warning us that a capitalist society will survive if the parents pass down the ideals to their children
willy disregarding happy means happy is trying to copy him more, trying to get his approval. how does willy feel about happy turning into him?
does happy upset willy? willy seems like he doesn’t care about him. heir theory - biff is the heir, happy is the spare. if you make family a social construct than a familial love is disregarded. psychology, freud, trying to become your father
happy is ignored, happiness is literally ignored by this family
‘if happy represents willy, then willy ignoring happy, shows how far gone he is because he respects biff’s work ethic more although he doesnt say that, shows how he is so unaware of what he’s like’ - chloe, explain plz…
text is subtle to us, but not subtle to willy. these moments that lack nuance are there to show how willy ignores the thing right in front of him because he is blinded by the american dream - he ignores happiness, ignores a job offer to his face. these obvious instances are to show how far gone willy is rather than to ‘speak’ to the audience
happy, like willy, also blinded by the american dream because he immediately assumes the woman is a gold digger and that’s how he flirts with her
‘would you object to a compliment from a stranger? you ought to be on a magazine cover’ ‘i have been’
connection between status and looks, good looks means high status
highman, lowman, holly said ‘no game’
do we believe her? happy lied about his and biff’s position so how do we know she really is a model?
if she is telling the truth, then it lowers the lowman’s status because she doesn’t need to lie about her status whereas they have to create a facade of their identity to raise themselves to the same level. would show a clear social hierarchy that happy is trying to break
if she was a higher social status, would she recognise happy as an imposter?
happy wants something that’s out of his reach. feature of the american dream, false class consciousness, just like willy has
modelling, ideas of selling yourself. ‘all you have in life is what you can sell’, appearance is commodified, ‘the vast maw of modernity has chewed up reality and spat the whole mess out as images. according to a highly influential analysis, we live in a ‘society of spectacle’. each situation has to be turned into a spectacle to be real - that is, interesting - to us. people themselves aspire to become images: celebrities. reality has abdicated. there are only representations: media’ - regarding the pain of others, susan sontag
biff’s role
'‘he walked away. i saw him for one minute. i got so mad i could’ve torn the walls down! how the hell did i ever get the idea i was a salesman there? i even believed myself that i’d been a salesman for him! and then he gave me one look and - i realised what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been. we’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years. i was a shipping clerk’
as society gets more developed, jobs titles lose their meaning. you don’t actually know what they do
unfamiliar with what they do. lowman’s are outdated in this modern world
surname related to what you do, and identity tied to job, so losing your understanding for your job means losing your own identity
biff is opposite to his dad. knows he’s dreaming, not a salesman; opposing the american dream. ‘dream’. biff is in a better position to willy because he knows reality from a dream state
understands an american dream is a DREAM therefore not tangible and real. the only one in the family to recognise it as such. rest of the lowman family base their whole lives around something that’s not true. biff separating himself from lowman family, audience separating biff from family as well since he’s the only one living in reality
the net is closing around willy. this is how biff is contributing to that
reality is intruding on willy and happy’s perception
biff tries to remain sane and moral but you can’t be sane in this kind of society
about sanity - the audience is dragged in willy’s memories because he is our narrator. the audience is also being dragged from reality because of willy
like lear - the madness means he cannot differentiate reality to memory. shown through staging; how the memories take place simultaneously / replacing the present
contrast to happy - biff recognising he is living in a dream and that that is wrong, and happy constantly lying to different people about who he is and what he does. happy is content with living a false life; he depends on it
willy and the burning woods
‘i’m not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? there’s a big blaze going on all around. i was fired today’
fired, fire. lexical link. are the woods him?
pathos for willy. moment of anagnorisis, woods represent opportunity and the american dream (like ben going into the woods) so for the woods to be burning it’s willy recognising the system, and that the fundamentals are flawed
dig at consumerism and it’s negative impact on nature
if he loses lose his job and opportunities, there is no hope for him. bare woods also means no opportunity, but in a burning wood you are also at risk of burning yourself. total destruction. not just losing a job or an opportunity but losing everything (foreshadowing suicide). house being in the woods suggests that with the burning woods, his house (therefore family, livelihood) is at risk too
link to industrialised nature. capitalism has burnt the woods, contaminating nature. capitalism is unnatural to humanity and inevitably will not last
capitalism taking over nature - biff wanting to open a farm and willy saying no
capitalism taking over nature - setting: house in the woods. his house stuck out. the woods have been knocked down to make the tall skyscrapers, and now willy’s house receives no sun. the woods burning is not just the current moment of willy being fired, but the way natural society abdicated for industrialism, and that marks the moment willy couldn’t keep up with society and the woods (opportunity) burnt for him. when the woods around his house were knocked down to build tall buildings, willy’s house received no light, and that was the moment willy was doomed to fail
willy’s sudden clarity. accepted the truth that the woods are burning - significant because he’s just told the truth. however he is just about to have biggest lapse again (memory of woman and biff). anagnorisis is tied to peripetia. almost like willy is punished for telling the truth, or can’t handle the truth so his mind reverts back to memory. willy will have clarity, but then switch back to this distorted reality