City vs. Country--Psychological Lens

Death of a Salesman is laden with conflict--father vs. son, man vs. woman, man vs. the business world, man vs. his past, etcetera. All of these affect the characters' psyches, but one of the biggest influences is the conflict between city and country life. Within the first minutes of the play, Willy asks Linda to open the windows, and when she informs him that they are, in fact, open, he rants "The way they boxed us in here. Bricks and windows, windows and bricks" (26). The mentality that the city is oppressing, stifling, even suffocating the characters permeates the entire book. The entire play feels trapped, as if the audience is being sucked helplessly in to the black hole of lies, failed dreams, and unrealistic expectations that characterize the Loman family, only to be freed when Willy is freed by his death.

In the city, life is driven by success, which translates to money and the approval of others. When discussing the path his life has taken, Happy blatantly states "It's what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women" (31). However, before this self-affirming statement comes a monologue of doubt and exasperation--his life consists of constant ladder-climbing, never to be able to enjoy his present situation because he is perpetually looking forward, upward, and just out of reach. As the old adage goes, "the grass is always greener on the other side"--a mentality that can only lead to discontentment. Ironically, Happy will never be happy, simply because he will never stop attempting to reach that next promotion or that other, prettier girl. But isn't that the way of the city? You never reach the top, and if you do it's only to be overtaken by another, more successful, ambitious, lucky contender? Both Happy and Willy take similar approaches to their business-rooted discontentment. They lie. Willy conceals affairs, depression, even the fact that he isn't getting a paycheck in order to preserve the illusion of a perfect, happy family. Happy, similarly, lies about his job position (he's really just "one of the two assistants to the assistant" rather than the assistant manager, a lie he tells in order to keep his father happy and proud (124)), his love life (he promises, "I'm gonna get married, Mom. I wanted to tell you,"in order to keep his mother hopeful that a perfect family is on the way (70)), and even to the girls at the restaurant (when his father acts oddly, he claims "that's not my father. He's just a guy" (111)). Like a spider that has gotten caught his own web, both Willy and Happy have become entangled in their lies, and have nowhere to turn except for more deceit. They aren't hopeless--no, they continue to maintain a fervid hope that one day they will measure up to their own expectations. Rather, they are alone. Isolated by their deceit, only they can truly know themselves, if that. Relationships, even with their close family, are not between them and another person, but rather, the person they have created for themselves and another. They act out the scenes as the character they have created for themselves, but they lack the ability to step out of costume and into reality, because they are play-actors surrounded by genuine people. In fact, that inability to separate reality from fiction (or the past from the present) is at the root of Willy's hallucinations, and caused his eventual suicide--he couldn't live in the world any longer because he never knew how to live in the real world. In short, living in the city is portrayed in this play as an oppressive and constrictive lifestyle, and one that leads only to discontentment.

In contrast, the country is portrayed as this idealized, beautiful place, where people are free to live their own lives as their own selves, unbound by the social pressures of the city. Take the image of Willy driving home from Florida, where "the trees are so thick and the sun is warm," with the windshield down, letting the "warm air bathe over" him (24). Refreshing, calming, and beautiful, this depiction of a country drive is a sharp contrast to the depressing city. On a symbolic level, the windshield of the car represents the city, enclosing and entrapping. Once that gets out of the way, though, Willy is free to enjoy and experience life, symbolized by the trees, sun, and air. The largest contrast between city and country, however, comes in the form of Biff. He romanticizes the wild west, escaping there to find contentment and returning home only to feel that "all [he's] done is to waste his life" (31). He beseeches Happy to come out west with him, "buy a ranch, raise cattle, use [their] muscles," but Happy refuses, claiming that his contentment comes from his success and his women. However, Happy is quite obviously unhappy, discrediting the workaday lifestyle as a source of happiness. This provides credibility to Biff's claims that the west provides him with contentment. Interestingly enough, Biff is at peace when he is away from people and independent--yet another characteristic of a "country man." By living to please himself and rejecting the expectations of others, as Willy and Happy do in the city, Biff is able to come to grips with himself and his true personality. He understands that the city is not the place for him, saying to Happy, "men built like we are should be working out in the open" (31). Many people go to nature in order "find themselves," stopping and breathing in the fresh air and the beauty of nature on the beach, in the mountains, or really anywhere that is an escape from the pressures of work and day-to-day life. The country, nature, where a man can "be outdoors, with [his] shirt off," is where Biff finds individuality and contentment, away from the city and the pressures of his family, and where Willy escapes to in his mind when he realizes he can't escape the life he has built around himself in the city (30). Biff's honesty, when it comes to his actions, his future, his past, everything, is another huge contrast between the city and country mentalities. Because he lived on his own for so long, apart from his family or anyone else who held expectations for him, Biff is now able to separate himself from the web of lies that serve as home for the Loman family. He can see the truth of his own life, his inadequacies as well as his talents, and must tell the truth to his family to finally cut away the last strands of the web and be free. Essentially, the city is confinement and the country is freedom, and no matter how many seeds Willy plants in the city, attempting to salvage a little bit of country in both his physical and emotional "homes," it's "too late now"--nothing is going to grow (116).