Call to Greatness

Call to Greatness

The main point of the play is the idea of greatness. Willy longs to achieve great things as a salesman and to be remembered after his death, and tries to instill this hope in both of his sons. Where Willy, Happy and Biff all continue to fail, Ben, Charley, and Bernard succeeded. Willy is unable to see through his own delusion of the "American Dream", which he perceives as the ability to become "great" by obtaining mass wealth without any effort and to leave for a while and when you come back, royalty and greatness.

By playing certain roles his whole life for everyone around him, he never had to face the one the one person who could make him feel like a failure, himself. By telling people he is a winner and a great salesman, he not only made others believe it but he started to believe it as well. By telling Biff and Happy tales from when he was younger making sales all over New England instilled a false sense of hope in those boys. Happy being the younger more naпve of the two sons takes every word that his dad gives him and keeps it as if it will all come true. But Biff knows that there is nothing out there that can make someone great without any effort which is why he and Willy fight as well as him and Happy. In Willy's imagination of his life his son's will go out and make it big on something of no effort, but in reality he just can't understand why nothing is falling his way or his son's.

The roles that Willy plays for his customers were that of any salesman good or bad. They are all bad though. Making it seem like the consumer needed the item he was selling was not a role at all as much as it was a necessity when it came to selling useless objects.

Pretending to be happy in front of his wife and hide rubber tubing for potential suicide behind her back is a big part of his personality. It shows that even to the most important people in his life he is still willing to lie so he feels better about his own life. Or blatantly giving the torn stockings to his wife to sew might have been a challenge to himself to see how good he really was. And then throwing it in her face by saying that he would drive to Boston and make sales when he was really having an affair shows his weakness as a husband as well.

After coming to grips with his situation with Charley he finally decides not to take the job. It