Discussion Topic
Willy's reaction to Charley's job offer
Summary:
Willy reacts to Charley's job offer with pride and frustration. Despite his financial struggles, Willy refuses the offer because he feels it would undermine his dignity and self-worth. He is unable to accept help from Charley, whom he envies, and this refusal highlights Willy's deep-seated pride and his struggle with accepting his own failures.
Why does Willy reject Charley's job offer?
Willy has had a competitive relationship with Charley ever since they have been neighbors. This has been for a long time, long enough for Biff and Happy to think of their father's friend as Uncle Charley. The card games between Willy and Charley symbolize their competitiveness. Charley has obviously been much more successful over the years. He can give Willy fifty dollars every week without expecting to get repaid. But Willy insists that the money is only a loan which he will positively pay back. He does not want to admit to Charley or to himself that Charley has beaten him in the game of life. If he were to go to work for Charley, this would be the same as an admission of defeat.
Then when Willy has to realize that Charley's son Bernard has been vastly more successful than his own son Biff, it would be utterly impossible...
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for Willy to accept Charley as his boss, someone who would assign him to a territory and keep giving him orders. Willy's refusal to concede defeat symbolizes the way capitalism makes everyone compete, whereas it would be more sensible for everyone to cooperate.
Essentially, it is Willy's inflated and unrealistic pride that keeps him from accepting Charley's generous and very sensible job offer. When Willy is having his big argument with Biff towards the end of the play, he says, "I'm not a dime a dozen. I'm Willy Loman." That is both comical and pathetic. He certainly is Willy Loman—a nobody, a loser, a "hard-working drummer who ended up in the ash can," as Biff calls him.
Willy seems to have no choice but suicide. He can't handle the New England
territory. His boss won't assign him to a territory close to home. He can't
bring himself to go to work for Charley. He can't keep borrowing fifty dollars
a week from Charley indefinitely, because the total debt would mount so high
that he could no longer pretend to himself that he would be able to pay it
back. Neither of his sons can earn enough to support him and his wife, and he
is probably too proud to accept money from them anyway.
In Act 2 of Death Of a Salesman Willy Loman is offered a job by his neighbor, Charley. Charley and his son Bernard are the antithesis of Willy and Biff. Willy, always proud, pushy and with delusions of grandeur, expected only the utmost from Biff, and always put down his neighbor and his child in favor of Biff being a big, football player and he a salesman.
However, it turns out that it was Willy who came down in his luck, Biff ended up being a loser, and it was Charley's support of his son (not him being pushy) that turned their relationship successful. Bernard ended up being a lawyer, and Charley a successful man who was even able to offer a job for Willy.
Willy rejected because of his own ego. His situation was bad enough for him to even borrow money from Charley instead of working for him. It would have been an even deeper humiliation and blow to his self esteem.
Essentially, he rejects the job out of pride. Willy is too proud, and is confused as to why Charley is successful in the first place, since Willy does not really respect Charley has a businessman.
Willy is not really arrogant, but his sense of pride is too strong to allow him to accept a job from Charley. However, he's not too proud to accept 'loans' of $50 a week from Charley.