Death of a Salesman vs. Fences - "Failings of Fatherhood"
Failings of Fatherhood
Almost everyone can agree that it is a parent’s duty to set their children up for success. The drive to achieve and earn more than our parents is a cornerstone of the American Dream, but what happens when parent and child can’t come to a consensus on what constitutes “doing better”? In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, we meet increasingly unhinged salesman and father, Willy Loman. His warped and inflated definition of success is something his two sons can never hope to achieve, and along with furthering his own mental decline, it permanently damages his sons’ feelings of adequacy. In August Wilson’s Fences, Troy Maxson is a father who views his negative experiences as a black man in America as reason enough to hold his son back from pursuing some amazing opportunities. Willy and Troy’s parenting styles, although nearly opposite in nature, ultimately set their children up for failure in a very similar way.
The longer one reads into Arthur Miller’s classic play, the more apparent it becomes that many of Willy Loman’s lines can’t be taken at face value. His desire to consider himself successful is so intense that he must completely delude himself to maintain some semblance of sanity. However, keeping up this façade for so long means he’s constantly getting reality confused with fantasy. “I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. "Willy Loman is here!" That’s all they have to know and I go right through,” (Miller 21) he brags to his children. “A hundred and twenty dollars! My God, if business doesn’t pick up I don’t know what I’m gonna do!” (Miller 23) he later laments. In a single line, spoken to Linda, Willy’s two minds seem at odds almost instantaneously. “Oh, I’ll knock ‘em dead next week. I’ll go to Hartford. I’m very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don’t seem to take to me.” (Miller 23) It’s evident that Willy Loman can’t even live up to his own expectations, and had he not been so dismissive of reality, he might have known better than to let his children fall into the same trap.
An inability to please himself hasn’t stopped Willy from instilling the same value system in his sons, Biff and Happy. He convinces them that success is wholly dependent upon how popular and attractive you are, rather than how smart or hardworking. “…Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.” (Miller 20-21) On top of this, he’s utterly oblivious to the possibility that his sons may not want to be salesmen like him, and that their idea of success could falter from his own. When Biff comes home after a foray into work as a farmhand, his father’s judgement is quite telling. “How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life?…it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!” (Wilson 5) he says to Linda. Willy never stops to consider that, despite not making much money on the farm, it could still be enough for Biff. Evidently, it’s not enough for Biff, but it has less to do with how much money he made and more to do with Willy’s parenting.
“This farm I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. There’s nothing more inspiring or-beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. And t’s cool there now, see? Texas is cool now, and it’s spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not gettin’ anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I’m thirty four years old, I oughta be makin’ my future. (p.11)” Biff’s concerns about how society, and likely Willy, might look down upon his life choices are what ultimately bring him running home. His father has taught him to value the money he’s making more than he values personal happiness regarding his chosen line of work. His feelings of inadequacy are a direct result of both social norms and Willy’s insistence that the boys follow the path he has set out for them.
Happy’s discontent as a result of Willy’s parenting appears less hinged upon career and financial success. In fact, he’s been fairly successful in business and leads an active sex life. Happy’s situation poses another negative effect of Willy’s parenting. “All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager? He’s a good friend of mine, and he just built a terrific estate on Long Island. And he lived there about two months and sold it, and now he’s building another one. He can’t enjoy it once it’s finished. And I know that’s just what I’d do. I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment—all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, plenty of women, and still, goddamnit, I’m lonely.” (Miller 12) Happy has almost everything he should want, but still isn’t satisfied and can’t seem to figure out why. This further expresses the emptiness in the American Dream that Willy has so unwittingly passed down to his children.
August Wilson’s Troy Maxson is a man in stark contrast to Miller’s salesman. In Fences, Troy comes across as a responsible and realistic man, hardened by the events of his past. You’d never catch him throwing around the old pigskin with his son, Cory, as you might Willy and his sons. Once poised to achieve great things as a baseball player, Troy knows a thing or two about being bogged down by racial inequality. When his best friend Bono suggests that Troy just “came along too early”, Troy lashes out by saying “There ought not never have been no time called too early!” (Wilson 9) His frustration is clear and warranted, but he fails to acknowledge that the country might have changed for the better since his time.
When his wife, Rose, tells Troy that Cory has been recruited by a college football team, Troy doesn’t react as warmly as one might expect. “I told that boy about that football stuff. The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football.” (Wilson 8) Even when Cory later points out the recent success of black major league baseball players, Troy refuses to see their achievements as long-term or positive. “If they got a white fellow sitting on the bench…you can bet your last dollar he can’t play! The colored guy got to be twice as good before he get on the team…They got colored on the team and don’t use them. Same as not having them. All them teams the same.” (Wilson 34) Troy forces Cory to decline the meeting with his recruiter and give up this opportunity to achieve more than his father before him. Troy had further experienced prejudice in his work as a sanitation worker, upset that black workers were unable to work as drivers. However, he eventually fights back against this inequality and is able to reverse the unjust rule and become a driver himself. This shows that Troy is aware things are improving for blacks in America, but unwilling to believe that Cory could achieve success as a black football player. Instead, his bitterness toward not being able to play baseball outside of the Negro Leagues taints his parenting. This time instead of the white man, it is Cory’s own father holding him back.
Troy’s idea of what it means to be a good parent is detached in a way. He sees his role as more of a provider than as a friend to Cory. “How come you ain’t never liked me?” Cory asks after his father puts an end to his college prospects. “Don’t you eat everyday?...Got a roof over your head…Got clothes on your back,” (Wilson 37) Troy says. Troy seems to see parenting as a burden, which becomes even more apparent in his treatment of his son from a previous marriage, Lyons. “The only time I see this n***** is when he wants something. That’s the only time I see him,” (Wilson 16) Troy says when Lyons comes by asking to borrow money. Troy just shows once again how hypocritical he can be, seeing as he himself was largely absent from Lyons’ life by being in jail throughout much of his childhood. “You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain't got no tears. I done spent them.” (Wilson 40) He doesn’t seem to see that the basic responsibilities of being a parent aren’t so much a cause for praise as they are a bare minimum of decent parenting.
Troy further refuses to accept or acknowledge Lyons’ career as a jazz musician, just as he did Cory’s hopes of playing football in college. His constant invalidation of any aspirations that don’t align with what he expects of them, will continue to haunt the way they live their lives even upon his death. "Papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you and lay there until you couldn't tell which one was you anymore...I'm just saying I've got to find a way to get rid of that shadow, Mama,” (Wilson 96-97) he says to his mother before Troy’s funeral. It’s clear that due to Troy’s parenting, Cory still hasn’t been able to build a sense of self beyond his father’s expectations.
Willy Loman is a man who believed in the American Dream all along, and it spells his ultimate downfall. Troy knew there would be no American Dream for him from the start, and yet his perceived practicality only brings him further unhappiness. They are at the two extremes of the parenting scale, with one instilling insatiable ambition in his sons, and the other grounding his sons in a bleak reality. The two men, although of vastly differing mindsets, prove how damaging the misguided teachings of a father can be to a child. What they each seem to neglect is the concept of trust: that their children should be given the chance to forge their own path. It is through blind devotion to their values and insistence on passing them down to their sons that Biff, Happy, Lyons, and Cory’s later unhappiness largely falls upon their fathers’ shoulders.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. Death Of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. Print.
Wilson, August. Fences. New York: Plume, 1986.