Willy Loman and the Legacy of Capitalism

When Death of a Salesman debuted in 1949, America was still healing from the psychological wounds of the Great Depression. The financial devastation of the Crash of 1929 continued to overshadow the American Dream, and capitalism became suspect as a viable system to promote economic success. Some critics have interpreted Death of a Salesman as an insightful indictment of capitalism, but the avarice and callousness of capitalism are the backdrop, not the cause, of Willy Loman’s under- lying psychological and emotional problems. Willy’s feelings of failure at the end of his career reflect not the ruthlessness of a free market or simply his incompetence, but rather Willy’s lack of insight when making choices as he pursues the American Dream. Willy’s decision to pursue capitalism’s materialistic values is based on what wealth represents to him—being respected and “well-liked,” which are merely exterior trappings that mask Willy’s deeper emotional needs. Willy seeks accept- ance and love from his family and friends because as a child, he lacked the male validation he needed in order to risk creating and following his own dreams. In the play, Willy constantly seeks guidance from male father figures such as Dave Singleman when endeavoring to under- stand how to be successful in his career. Willy tries to find answers from others instead of looking within his own psyche, causing him to appropriate the business dreams of others instead of creating his own. The dreamlike quality of the play, such as the sudden appearances and departures of Ben, reinforces Willy’s internal confusion. Willy feels dissatisfied with his life because he has always avoided making dif- ficult decisions while choosing the easier path of co-opting other peo- ple’s ideas of happiness. Instead of insightful self-creation, Willy buys into the media-propagated idea that playing by the generally accepted rules of capitalism brings material and emotional rewards. A free market holds few guarantees of financial security and no guarantees of emotional satisfaction. Brought on by his lack of introspection and ready acceptance of popular societal values, Willy mistakenly focuses 82 Linda Uranga on only one aspect of the human condition, the material; thus, when he begins to lose his grip on his job, he has nothing to fill the void and is confronted with his own emptiness. Under the guise of helping Biff to realize his potential in business, Willy attempts to mold Biff into the American success story, but at the end of his career, he becomes des- perate for Biff to redeem his (Willy’s) disappointments in business. In an interview in 1998, Miller admitted that Death of a Salesman was intended as a criticism of capitalism: “You wouldn’t be writing such straightforward critical work about America after 1950. Indeed, I don’t recall a single play that analyzed American capitalism as severely” (Kullman 71). Miller realized that after the Great Depression, America enjoyed one of the largest boom periods in the history of the United States, but while Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, the nation was not sure of the success of a long-term recovery. In 1998, Miller conceded that “when considering the income of Willy Loman, we’re talking about a world that already was disappearing” (Kullman 70). At the time of the Depression, people had no idea that American capital- ism would be a dynamic system that could adjust for its mistakes with the help of government-imposed controls and safeguards. In an inter- view with Christopher Bigsby, Miller recognized the changed nature of today’s capitalistic system by conceding that during the recession in the 1980s, the stock market was able to make adjustments to avoid a crash with the help of government safeguards implemented during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency (Bigsby, Arthur Miller and Company 20). But during the debut of Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Miller and some critics, stuck in the Depression mentality, saw capitalism as integral to Willy’s failure. In examining Death of a Salesman fifty-eight years later and from the perspective of a generation that never experienced the Great Depression, it is not capitalism that defeats Willy; rather it is Willy’s insecurities that feed his lack of trust in his own ability to know and define himself. The capitalism of today is not the system that caused the Great Depression, but Willy’s defeat is still relevant because capitalism is merely the tableau of Willy’s life and not the source of Willy’s down- fall. Our thinking today has expanded beyond simply career choices to “life passions.” Satisfaction of the “whole” person, not merely fulfilling the material needs of a person, is the goal. Self-actualization is the objective and is ultimately Willy’s desire, but the protagonist is never