The Importance of Being Mediocre

"Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!" Biff's outburst near the end of Act 2 of Death of a Salesman brings to the forefront one important theme from the play that until then had been lurking in shadowy subtext: characters' acceptance of their own mediocrity. It is a small thing, the acceptance of being average, but it permeates almost everything that Willy and his sons attempt over the course of the play. Willy sees himself as the embodyment of the American Dream, and does everything in his power to make this vision a reality. He realies on his own hard work and intuition to fufill his dreams of wealth but lacks the talent to accomplish them. Throughout the story, Willy attempts to escape what he is: a mediocre traveling salesman. There is nothing terribly wrong with this, but it is his denial of this fact that creates many of the problems that later destroy him. Willy lives in a false reality that he has fashioned for himself, and he causes problems when he drags his sons into this ideal. Biff worships Willy for much of his childhood, and naturally draws on him for inspiration. It is not suprising therefore, that when Willy builds Biff up during high school, Biff winds up believing some of the praise, to his own detriment. It takes Biff almost until the end of the play to realize the fundemental truth about himself that Willy simply cannot comprehend: that he is just like everyone else. This theme resonated with me simply because I could understand Willy's position. We are all raised to believe that we have the potential for greatness, and after a while we start to believe it. And yet, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of us end up working boring jobs and living mediocre lives. We all try to make excuses for our shortcomings, but sometimes in life we fail simply because we aren't good enough. This is an incredibly scary thought, and one that is very difficult to accept. At the end of the play, Willy Loman is forced to accept the fact that he is not special, and unable to live the American Dream because of it, and it destroys him.