Wake Up Willy

Wake Up, Willy

"He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine … A salesman is got to dream, boy."

(Requiem, page 138)

Willy Loman longs for the success of his brother Ben, but refuses to accept the drudgery in the work of his friend, Charley. Essentially, Willy wants the freedom that Ben has – leaving for Alaska on a whim, ending up in the wrong place, and still succeeding on his own – without the responsibility and hard work that Charley puts in to be modestly and stolidly successful. The incongruity in Willy’s wishes – that Willy wants all the glory without any of the guts – leaves him in a place where, truly, he is still a child. And, like a child, Willy could never live like Ben because he needs the security of a job and life like the one Charley has. As the play winds on, Willy cannot wake up from his fantasized version of true American success and, ultimately, allows Miller to illustrate the shallowness of the American Dream.

Ben represents success based on the benchmarks Willy has created: that if a man has a good appearance and is well-liked, he will thrive in the business world. Yet, the amount of truth in Ben’s character is questionable. More likely, Ben has been idealized in Willy’s mind to become a mix between truth and fantasy – one who exemplifies the principles that Willy lives his life by and bestows on the Loman boys.

"William, when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich!"

(Act 1, Page 52)

In fact, either Ben leaves out the part of the story where he worked tirelessly for four years in the jungle to make his fortune or this is another example of Willy nurturing his fantasies in his own idealized hallucination of Ben. Either way, Willy cannot wake up from the dream world his head is in involving the seemingly effortless success that comes about his brother Ben, nor can he realize that, at least in his world, success is based on more than projecting a good, confident appearance and being well-liked: it involves hard work and effort. And, while he idealizes Ben and raises him to the point of symbolic greatness, he idolizes Dave Singlman (single-man), who, at the age of eight-four, can “go into any city, pick up the phone, and… [make] his living,” because he represents the only solid example of success under Willy’s principle – and even then, Singleman is alone.