The discussion about the relativity of happiness to success seems to have been left unresolved in our class. One side believed it to be ludicrous to relate success and happiness with each other. The two terms are completely separate ideas and the saying that one is happy and therefore he or she is successful is null. According to this party, the happiness of an individual should never be an instrument by which to measure success. I tended to side with the arguments put forth by this group of individuals during the class discussion. The other side’s arguments were unclear to myself but I believe they were attempting legitimize the lifestyles of characters in the play by saying that if they are happy then they are successful.
The argument seemed to be at a stalemate when the second group couldn’t seem to comprehend Matt Rosenzweig’s comment that if this latter belief were true, then everyone would be happy because there would be something in every individual case that could legitimize them, no matter how successful they actually were. When presented with the counterargument of what measures success, we came up with one- the Greenberg scale. Although not a trained statistician myself, I constantly attempt to estimate the successes of the characters in the play along this scale.
There are obviously very few successful individuals in the play that we directly encounter, if any at all. This is easily seen even without the made-up, standardized Greenberg scale of success. Willy is an aging man who cannot afford to retire and is so bad at his job that he is on commission, not even a stable salary. His wife is in the same situation as he is, relying on their two sons to care for them in old age; but this turns out to be a poor decision. Their first son, Biff, is in his 30s and cannot find an adequate job because he is “restless.” This problem most likely stems from his high school days when he was a University of Virginia prospect. It is not uncommon to see former athletes unable to find their niche in society after all the fame, glory, and attention passes them by. How can one find solace in the joys of life after having played on the big stage in front of tons of fans? Their younger son, Happy, is somewhat better but clearly cannot support the entire family. He holds a respectable job with a decent salary, and the reader does not learn much of Happy’s personality other then that he seems to be an extreme womanizer.
Anyway you look at it, these individuals have contributed nothing positive to society or to themselves. A successful individual might be a selfish one, amassing a fortune for him or herself, or a generous one, giving up all possessions to help others. The Lomax family falls under neither of these categories and thus, I conclude, is not successful in any nuance of the term.
(496)
