He lies to gain status. His every deal is transactional. He exaggerates for effect. He is seduced by money, deluded about his importance and clearly going to leave his sons with a father complex.
Yet Willy Loman is no president. The ordinary guy at the centre of Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic might have fallen for a Trumpian myth about the self-made man – crushing competition, fighting for family, privileging the individual – but he is at the losing end of the equation. “The only thing you’ve got in this world is what you can sell,” his old neighbour admonishes, knowing this exhausted salesman has sold his last.
