Discuss the Characters We Hear but Do Not See Why Are They Significant in Terms of the Themes of the Play and in Comparison with Willy?

Discuss the characters we hear but do not see why are they significannot

in terms of the themes of the play and in comparison with Willy?

The first character that I would like to discuss but we never see is Willy's father. Willy would have people believe that Willy's dad was a great to success that he left a legacy to Willy a legacy of greatness. This cannot

be so because Willy says in act 1 that he only remembers a vague impression of his father.

"All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in mammas lap, sitting around a fire and some kind of high music"

Yet Willy in his attempt to create an illusion of dynasty in his family he tells Howard,

"We have a great streak of self reliance in are family"

This is why Willy's father is important it exposes more of Willy's fantasy and sense of belonging to something. Ben even implies that the father was some sort of traveling bum who would sell flutes which is hardly the picture Willy wanted to paint. Willy still holds on to an illusion that his father was a great man when he says

"I want them to know what kind of stock they spring from"

Bill Oliver is another important character because he enables us to have something to which we can see success and compare success. In one instance Bill Oliver is a huge powerful figure, Willy is not. He is popular Willy is not. Bill Oliver is a manifestation of everything Willy is not. Biff didn't have a cat's chance in hell of getting Bill Oliver to stake him in business but Willy put this idea into Biffs head he manipulated Biff into believing that he could get Bill Oliver to stake him, Biff finally comes out with

"Well he always said he'd stake me"

In this way Bill Oliver is used as a mark to show the kind of illusions that Willy creates and believes it shows Willy is so deluded that he believes the Lomans are on par with this hugely powerful figure.

Howard's father is a another point of Willy's delusions he tries to make out that he knew Howard's father socially