Whats Wrong with Willy Loman?
The hero of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is nobody special, yet we feel his life and tragic death to be deeply significant. Laurence Coupe argues that the clue might be ‘ideology’. Willy Loman sacrifices himself for exactly those beliefs and values which are the ‘common sense’ of our own competitive society. *** John Lennon’s song ‘Working-Class Hero’ has a verse which runs as follows: There’s room at the top, they are telling you still, But first you must learn to smile as you kill, If you want to be like the folks on the hill … The ‘working-class hero’ of its title is told that if he is sufficiently ruthless, he too will be able to make it to the ‘top’ in the rat race. At first sight this song might seem to sum up the way in which ideology works: indoctrination by an external force which programmes the individual to behave according to certain patterns and expectations. But ideology functions in ways more complicated than those at which Lennon’s lyric hints. What is act
