Unsatisfaction

    Recently I have been talking a lot about the Death of a Salesman, and rightfully so. There’s just so much in that story that is worth mentioning and analyzing, that it keeps me coming back to it. As I keep reading other books like Siddharta by Herman Hesse, I keep finding similarities between these stories with others. Specifically, the beginning of these stories always starts off in the same way. The main character is often unhappy with either their position in life or with what they are doing. Willy is not satisfied with his job, or with the position of his kids. Such feelings push the characters to make huge changes to themselves or their situations to try to attain their goal in the way that they see fit. Willy constantly tries to push Biff to get a job or make his own business, while trying to get a job in New York.

    Even though the situations are not the exact same, many other stories also go down this path. As I mentioned before, I lately have been reading the book Siddhartha, which delves into the idea of achieving enlightenment. The main character, who the book is named after, is unsatisfied with his father’s teachings, as he believes that this is not the way to achieve enlightenment. Knowing that his thirst for continuous knowledge will never be quenched with his father, he decides to move to another discipline. 

    Likewise, Luke at the beginning of the movie, Star Wars VI: A New Hope, feels unfulfilled with his life as a simple moisture farmer. He knows that he needs to move away from his parental figures, and wants to achieve other things. Due to this desire, he is unable to fully focus on his responsibilities at home, leading him to lose one of his newly acquired droids. In the search of this droid, he meets his mentor Obi-Won Kenobi, who leads him on a fulfilling adventure.  

    In all of these stories, the main characters all share the same thirst for some new experience that will advance each of their goals. This emotion is the catalyst and motivation that starts off their long and arduous journey, able to end in many different ways. If this dissatisfaction wasn’t present, each character would have no incentive to try to change anything in their lives, leading to a boring story with no progression. Luke would have stayed a moisture farmer for the rest of his life; Siddartha would have been respected but unenlightened. That’s why this constant feeling is always present in all stories.