Change.

    I recently finished reading a play, “Death of a Salesman,” about a month ago for my English class. It was a pretty exciting story, as it delves into a common man’s complex issues, such as conflict of dreams and failure. Willy, the play’s main character, is a magnified representation of these problems, seen especially throughout the story itself. I have already written a couple of blog posts about him. As I kept analyzing Willy's character further and further, it reminded me of Walter Younger's temperament from the "Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry. This parallel is primarily seen during the beginning of the play when Walter was the most disillusioned. 

Throughout the plays, the characters Willy Loman and Walter Younger go through comparable financial situations, familial problems, and false ideas; however, each ends up in a very diverse position at the end because of their contrasting ability to change themself. 

As I mentioned before, Willy and Walter have some things in common with each other. For example, both their individual stories start with each character having a fundamental desire to earn money to support their families. Both are extremely unsatisfied with their positions in society. Willy wants a job where he can work from one place instead of traveling to clients. Walter wants to open his liquor store and stop working as a chauffeur. In an article that Hansberry herself wrote, she explains that they share the same focus: that something is obstructing their progress financially that they feel they should accomplish, without really examining the nature of their end goals. 

    In Willy’s perspective, a person needs to be well-liked to go further in life, so he puts all of his cards on his son, Biff, to succeed in the method that Willy wants him to. For Walter, it’s opening a liquor store with Walter’s money, which he expects to magically thrive by just owning it, even though there is no evidence in the play that he has ever owned a business before. In this case, neither of them really considers the implications of achieving their dream, which conflicts with their family’s happiness and future. Willy essentially forces Biff to lead a life with the same false ideas that Willy does and allows Biff to get away with stealing, just to achieve what Willy wants to get in life. As a result, Biff’s personality is stunted forever as he grows into a kleptomaniac, unable to hold any job for too long. Blinded like Willy, Walter selfishly invests his portion and his sister’s portion of the insurance money, which was supposed to go to her medical school education, to a very shady person to build a liquor store. It’s revealed after a couple of days that the deceptive person ran away with all of the ‘invested’ money (Who would’ve thought you can get scammed if you give money to a person you barely know!?). 

Through all of their circumstances and actions, one can clearly tell how each character resembles each other. Despite all of this, Willy stays in a state of delusion, ultimately taking his own life still chasing his desires, whereas Walter regains his pride and goes through a period of growth. It’s this stark difference that caught my attention. What made them diverge into such opposite paths? When I looked into it further, Willy lacks one key thing that Walter has: the ability to change.

    I know that being adaptable is essential, but is it so influential that the lack of it leads to situations like Willy's demise? Frankly, yes. Ok, maybe it's not that drastic, but it can still have a considerable impact on not only yourself but the people around you as well. Since it's such an important subject, I knew that I had to research more about change itself, not only for myself but also for anyone who also reads this blog post. For this reason, I think that it's crucial to examine the two characters, Walter and Willy, to see what exactly led to them being on the opposite ends of the changeability spectrum.

    Let us resume now by looking into other feelings that have had an enormous impact on each character: shame and guilt. There was an extremely pivotal scene in Willy's life, which was his affair with the woman. In an article by Fred Ribkoff, he talks more about the tremendous effects this event has on Willy and his constant denial state. Ribkoff also mentions that Willy cannot come to terms with this event and the fact that his son had caught him in the act. This leads him to sully the relationships around him, especially the ones with his wife, because he frequently has to deal with the fact that he cheated. He is not able to adapt to the situation and even admit that he had done something wrong. If a person is trying to get over a particular mistake, they must first acknowledge that what they did was wrong and then strive to make amends or just live with it. In this case, Willy knows deep down that he was wrong to cheat with another person just to get ahead in his work, but he never admits to that to himself. 

    A comparable scenario that got Walter full of guilt was when he betrayed his mother's and sister's trust by falsely investing the insurance money. However, Walter comes to terms with his own shame over the mistake and actually acknowledges it. Plus, he shows some remorse and tries to make things right in his own way, but it still doesn't work out. Yet, it indicates that Walter can change to surpass his mistakes by taking the first steps in the long road of growth. Such development gives him a basis to understand other people's sentiments a little better and fix his relationships. This is something that Willy was never able to achieve during his tumultuous life.

    As a science person, I thought it would be fun to connect a couple of psychological papers about change with Willy and Walter. The first paper I looked into was written by Swedish researchers Dr. Lena Forsell and Dr. Jan A. Astrom, analyzing resistance to change from many different lenses and relates to past studies. They mention being resistant is characterized as not being open to new experiences but by displaying insecurities and extreme mood swings. 

    These two descriptions fit Willy so well, as he is too insecure about his position in life and the fact that his sons (actually more like only Biff) aren't in the place that Willy envisions them to be. In addition, Willy jumps from different emotions rather quickly, mostly as he lives through his delusions before his suicide. Actually, even Walter has the same insecurities as Willy but doesn't have as extreme mood swings as Willy does. This could be attributed to the idea that Walter was somewhat resistant earlier in the story. But, Walter does breakthrough this trait as he overcomes his insecurities and stands up for his family against Mr. Lindner, the white man trying to bribe the Younger family to not move into their neighborhood. Walter evolves as a person throughout the story, while Willy remains pretty stagnant. 

    The researchers also investigated the connection between change and the attachment theory, which delves into the realm of childhood attachment to parents. They assert that children who have had minimal contact with their caregivers, like parents, don't feel obligated to explore new environments, developing an early version of opposition, which just gets worse as time goes on. In his childhood, Willy's father reportedly left him to go to Alaska when he was two, then his brother also left when Willy was seventeen. Not much is said about his mother, but it's clear that his father and brother's absence created this internal shell, developing his ideal image of success and stubbornness. 

    On the other hand, Walter had both his mother and father frequently present for his early and late adolescence. This could explain Walter's increased aptitude to change and to explore new avenues and his ability to form meaningful relationships, especially when comparing Walter to Willy. 

    In the paper's discussion section, Forsell and Astrom mention how fear is the issue's crux. In Willy's case, his lack of adaptability could stem from the fear of failure and his belief that his methods are the best and only way to achieve his aspirations. This fixation leads him to alienate those around him as he adopts a mindset of my way or the highway, to the extent where he thought that suicide was the best decision at the time. Walter’s character is pretty similar to Willy's at the beginning of his arc due to his similar fear of failure and lack of financial stability. As he turns down the money that Mr. Lindner offers, Walter overcomes this fear and, in turn, his resistance to change.

    Another interesting thing I noticed in this article was the analysis of body language with personality; specifically, the part where the researchers describe, "downward angling of the head and infrequency of hand movements are expressions of resistance to change"(Forsell, Astrom). That description reminds me heavily of Willy's stature in one of the covers of the play.

    

I also came across another study by Dr. Zhou and Dr. Lin, where they investigated the role of social support between adaptability and life satisfaction. These researchers defined social support as "information from others expressing concern, love, respect, or value" (Zhou, Lin). This was actually a legit survey. They told a group of 99 freshman undergraduate students from a Chinese university to take tests determining their aptitude to adapt and to record their current level of happiness and information about their family and friends over a semester. They ended up finding a correlation between all of these items. As the students' social support increases, so does their capacity to adapt and their overall satisfaction with life.

    This relationship is impressive, as it translates well with the two people we are comparing. Willy has a low number of people who can have some social interactions, like his wife, two sons, and his one friend Charley. To make matters worse, it seems that he only regularly interacts with his wife, as his two sons don't live with him, and he only goes to his friend to ask for money. This lowers his social interactions with family and friends to the minimum, kind of a loner. Not to mention that his life satisfaction has hit rock bottom. All of these factors contribute to Willy's lack of adaptability, as the study suggests.

    In contrast, Walter is surrounded by many more people who have a more consistent role in his life, like his mother, sister, wife, son, and friends like Bobo and Willy Harris. During the beginning of the play, Walter had low life satisfaction yet high social support, adding up to moderate adaptability. As Walter went through some more life-changing moments, he had the foundation to be built up to be more adaptable through his relatively higher social support. 

    Also, you have to mention Walter's and Willy's receptiveness to each of their family and friends. Being the oldest in his family, Willy is used to giving orders and guiding his wife and sons without giving much consideration to what they think. This mentality decreases social support effectiveness, as Willy cannot accept their concern or love, but only respect. Conversely, Walter somewhat heeds the advice of the people around him, especially from his mother, who still can guide him through life's problems. This elevates the effectiveness of the social support that Walter receives, bolstering his ability to adapt even more.

    All in all, we went through a lengthy but informative journey about two very complex and realistic characters. They go through pretty comparable situations and mistakes, which leave them with guilt and shame. However, one can deal with it, and the other gets swallowed by it. They also have similar aspirations and desires, often conflicting with their family. However, one can change, and one isn't able to. This fundamental difference leads their lives in such opposite ways. Through further analysis, we do find out that Willy is a product of his own environment, lacking many necessities that Walter was able to attain, leading him down that path of resistance to change. But, Willy can't be exempt from all blame due to just his environment, as he commits some not-so-smart decisions and never confronts the effects that come with it. On top of that, he doesn't listen to the people around him, resorting to only listen to himself. Walter could look around him and consider the people around him, even if it was too late, giving Walter motivation to change himself further.  At the end of the day, Willy is the poster child of resistance to change, demonstrating the countless harms that accompany it. Simultaneously, Walter is the embodiment of change, serving to inspire the common person to keep changing themselves for the better.