well liked or success?

Willy Loman’s idea of success is being “well liked.” He thinks that when you are well liked that you are successful. Having people know who you are and getting by on how much you are liked is Willy’s idea of success. He used to be a good salesman because people knew who he was and would buy from him just because his name was known. Now that many of his buyers aren’t around, he isn’t “well liked” because he no longer has all of those contacts that keep him successful. He relies on this because he thinks this is what success is. He pushes this idea onto his family. They now don’t know what else to believe and think that they must be well liked too, and then they will be successful. When they move away, they learn that this is not a reality and learn that they have to do things for themselves and cant get by on being well liked.

Willy’s idea of individual opportunity is doing your best to get people to like you. He pushes his son Biff to be this football star and when he struggles in school, he tells his son to cheat off of his smart friend. He doesn’t think this is wrong because Bernard isn’t really well liked, and he isn’t going to go anywhere in life anyway. Biff has a chance because everyone in town loves him, he is well liked, which is all that Willy wants for himself and his sons.