Happy Loman

Test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

Happy Loman

Happy Loman, while apparently successful, is in reality a lonely man leading an empty and unfulfilling life driven by resentment.

Success?

On the surface, Happy appears to be successful.
He is in work and, as he tells Biff, has his “own apartment, a car, and plenty of women.”

Emptiness

However, Happy leads an empty life.
He considers his job a dead-end, being “one of two assistants to the assistant” and, in his own words, “All I can do is wait for the merchandise manager to die.”
Biff has security, but lacks status or fulfilment.

Womanising

Happy makes up for this emptiness by sleeping with the girlfriends and fiancées of his work colleagues.
His womanising is driven by a compulsive need to get the better of men who are more successful than him, confessing to Biff of most recent conquest that “he’s the third executive I’ve done that to”.

Reasons

Happy’s behaviour is fuelled by his resentment of others and his need “to come out number-one man”.
He admits to Biff that this makes him feel “lonely” but he learns or changes nothing about himself.
Tellingly, at the very end of the play, he leaves the stage alone.

Attitudes to women

Happy’s language also reveals his shallow attitudes towards women.
When discussing his “first time”, Happy exclaims “Boy, there was a pig!”, degrading and dehumanising his first conquest.
Later, while waiting in the restaurant in Act Two, Happy tells the waiter, “Strudel’s comin’”, reducing Miss Forsythe to something he can consume.

Happy's Relationships

Happy’s essential shallowness is revealed throughout the play and examined through his relationships to other characters.

Happy and Biff

Unlike Biff, Happy does not confront Willy about his illusions and, instead, is happy to play along with a lie if it keeps his father happy.
This is seen in the restaurant scene where Happy is keen to indulge Willy’s fantasies about Biff’s meeting with Bill Oliver while Biff tries to find a way of telling the truth...

Quotation

“WILLY: …So tell me, he gave you a warm welcome?
HAPPY: Sure, Pop, sure!
BIFF: [driven]: Well, it was kind of –”
- Happy keeps up the pretence rather than face reality.

Happy and Willy

Happy’s shallowness is also demonstrated by the way he treats his father.
Although Happy makes a show of wanting to be able to “retire Willy for life”, he cruelly abandons Willy in the restaurant on the day that he has lost his job.
His betrayal of Willy is all the more shocking for an audience who know the turmoil Willy is in: “No, that’s not my father. He’s just a guy.”

Lying to his mother

Despite Linda’s plea that “attention must be paid” to Willy, Happy deserts him and, when back home, lies to his mother about the “swell” time they all had.

Second son

It can also be argued that Happy suffers from being the second-born son as never seems to be given the attention that Willy and Linda give to Biff.
In the ‘memory’ scenes Happy is often represented as being on the sidelines while Biff takes centre-stage.
- E.g. Happy carrying Biff’s equipment before the Ebbets Field game.

Competitiveness

Willy and Linda both dismiss him at times throughout the play, Willy chiding Happy when Happy tells him of Biff ‘borrowing’ the football, to Linda ignoring him when he says he’s getting married.
Happy’s competitiveness may have roots in his need to compete for equal attention from his parents when his big brother was the bright “star”.

Inner-Conflict

Happy is clearly a very confused man, struggling with what he really wants or values. However unlike his brother he learns nothing from the events that unfold in the play.

Inner conflict

To some extent, Happy struggles with a similar conflict to Biff between the urge to work outdoors, relying on his own strength and skill, and the need to make a success of himself in the city.
He is initially “enthused” by Biff’s suggestion that they work out West together but the moment is short-lived.

Money

One moment he rejects office-work and admits to wanting to “just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store” and the next he is worried about money: “The only thing is – what can you make out there?”

Lessons

Happy learns nothing during the play.
While Biff gains self-knowledge and sees through Willy’s illusions, Happy determines to continue to follow them.

Language

His language in the Requiem is defiant, full of the imagery of battle and victory: “not licked”; “I’m gonna beat”; “come out number-one”; “fought”; “I’m gonna win it for him”.

Foreshadowing

The tone of Happy’s words is jarring, not reflecting the more sombre and reflective mood of Linda, Biff or Charley’s words.
Some in the audience may have the strong sense that Willy’s tragedy will be played out again in a new generation.