"How can they whip cheese?!" is what Willy said to Linda when he when he found out that she had bought the new American-type whipped cheese rather than his traditional beloved Swiss cheese. Alright Willy, no need to make such a big fuss about cheese. But then again it's not just about the cheese is it? His anger is more like a build up of all his frustration with the changing times that he can't adapt to (from the numerous apartment complexes "suffocating" his house, to the fact that being responsible matters more than being "likable" or having many personal contacts.) But his question about the cheese- the fact that he is indignant/ incredulous about it and can't accept or understand why people would make this new whipped cheese- kind of sums up his attitude towards reality- he simply can't accept it or adapt to his changing circumstances and so creates his own “reality” instead. I feel like in his drive to find his definition of success (money and fame) throughout his life in the past, he ends up losing sight of what is truly important to him- the good relationship with his wife and two sons and the fact that perhaps he is actually more talented as builder and farmer than a salesman- and that’s why he’s constantly haunted by his past actions and he keeps having flashbacks interlaced between his present circumstances.
In terms of his job as a salesman, as much as he boasted in the presence of his sons, he did confide to Linda that he has to put in much more effort just to barely keep up with other salesmen in sales and how “Other men [salesmen]- I don’t know- they do it easier” (1563). Even though Willy seems to really enjoy his job from the way he enthusiastically describes it to each person around him, the way he repeatedly desperately explains it (how you can have so many contacts, be so famous in every town (“the police will protect my car like its their own!”), and have so many people attend your funeral) makes it almost seem like perhaps he is trying to justify to himself why he chose to enter and continue with this profession despite the fact that he can never get ahead on his sales, always feels “awful lonely” on his trips, and is so tired by the end of his career and yet is only fired after all those thirty-four years he put into the company. Rather than being a salesman, always traveling and on the go, I feel like we get a glimpse of Willy’s true desires that he had been repressing in the past with his “dream” to be successful and well-known, when he describes to Linda how, once Biff gets the deal with Oliver and settles down, Willy wants to “get a little place out in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens…” (1585). I wonder if he would have been more content if he’d started his career as a farmer rather than a salesman? Perhaps he could have made more money because it seems like he has more of a knack for building and planting things. So perhaps the theme is that sometimes when you are too focused and set on a certain dream, you end up losing sight of who exactly you are and what's truly important to you. After all his affair with the receptionist who would get him through to more buyers, caused him to lose his son's, Biff's respect and be unable to have a guilt-less conversation with his wife, Linda.
One last aspect I didn't quite understand was Willy's last conversation with Ben's spirit before his suicide. Before the catalyst of Biff's tearful truthful breakdown, when Willy is still stubbornly planting the seeds in the backyard, Willy talks Ben about how "[A] man can't go out the way he came in... a man has got to add up to something." (1621) and seems to only want to hold his funeral so that his wife can get the twenty-thousand dollars (from his death?) and Biff can finally be impressed by all of the people that show up for his father's funeral (the only way Willy feels Biff will love him, is if Willy once again impresses Biff? -just as he did whenever he used to tell young Biff and Happy all his impressive stories of his sales trips). But after Willy realizes Biff still loves him under all his spite (not in the awe, impressed way he used to love Willy), he seems to change his mind and wants to sacrifice himself so Biff can have the "twenty thousand dollars in his pocket" and he'll "worship" him for it and "he'll be ahead of Bernard again!"(1627) ? I just don't understand where Willy thinks the "twenty thousand" will come from- perhaps from all the "contacts" he thinks that will show up at his funeral?... In the end I don't know whether to dislike him (for all his verbal abuse towards Linda, Charley, and others, his contradictions), pity him (for his loneliness on the road, unreliable sons, inability to face reality), or admire him (for the 34 years of hard work he put in to support his family)...
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