If there were no money, there would be no food. Willy Loman represents a uniquely American figure: the traveling salesman. Every week, he takes a journey to stake his bid for success. It would be difficult to miss the survival of the American frontier mentality in the figure of the traveling salesman. The idea of the American dream was heavily influenced by the rush for gold and fast money. Thousands of new niches opened in American culture, and the aspiring young man with talent and a dream could not help striking gold somewhere in the jungle of economic transactions. Willy, despite his ina

Willy is obsessed with being "well liked." In part, his obsession is due to his fusion of his professional role with his identity. The consummate salesman is a favorite of the buyers. He performs his role so well that he blurs the lines of friendship and business relationships. In doing so, the consummate salesman all the more effectively seduces the buyer into purchasing his products. However, Willy has bought his own sales pitch, so he regards his professional contacts as "friends." Their indifference to his sales pitch hits him even harder since their rejection constitutes a personal attack. He regards being "well liked" as a measure of his success because he has bought his own sales pitch. Not being liked constitutes both a personal and professional failure. Willy believes that his customers or his so-called "friends" liked him for who he was. In the future, Willy fancies the idea of being like his role model. "And Old-Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'unerstand, put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of 84, he made his living...And when i saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. 'Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? When he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral."(Willy - 81). Yet when it comes to Willy's funeral, Linda had one question "Why didn't anybody come?" (Linda - 137). Once again, the dream of fame has b

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Approximate Word count = 1103
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)