Arts &Humanities

Business in Fiction – Comparison Essay

In this paper we would have the chance to see the differences between

two famous stories, which are the Death of a Salesman and The Hudsucker

Proxy. These stories are very similar because both are mainly about a man who

doesn’t have anything and suddenly they became richer and powerful, which

gives to both men the confidence to feel superior to others. Here we are going to

see a brief summary of both stories, and also the similarities of these main

characters, which seems different but actually they are very similar. These will be

center on the social mobility of the stories. The social mobility is basically the

different social classes in which we are being developed. In these two stories,

class and implication are the main drama or important aspects.

The Death of a Salesman, is a story which is mainly focused on the

“American Dream”, Willy Loman is the protagonist of Death of a Salesman and

he aims to be the kind of American who looks for success and respect for others

through a single action, which is “to be a well-liked man” and to create this he

decided to do his own style values. Willy had done nothing wrong he just

believed that he was a perfect worker, he though that he was a perfect father and

husband, but he was just dreaming on how life is and how he wanted to be,
especially for his children. The psychological determinations causes in this book

could be by the father who was never there for the kids and the mom either.

The Hudsucker Proxy is a story that takes place mainly in the Hudsucker

Industry, which was in one of its best economic moments, but one day the

president of it commits suicide. So, Mussburger who is other member of this

association got an idea to get the company for him and the other associates, to

depress the stock price by putting a temporarily person in the President's seat

and when the stock falls low enough, Mussburger and others can buy it, but to do

this they will need to find someone who has not education to accept this. There is

when Norvell got in the industry with a job in the mailroom and the next day he

became the president of The Hudsucker Industry. As a surprise for many of the

members’ association Norville wasn’t as stupid as they thought because he had

this amazing idea for children, so he increase the profit of the company again. At

that time he became a different person, because he went from a low class to a

upper class in one day so he began to change the way he trait others and to feel

superior than others.

These two main characters of the stories, Norvell in The Hudsucker Proxy

and Willy in The Death of a Salesman are characters that have similarities in a

way because both of them where in a low-middle class and suddenly they went

up to the upper class or the y thought that they were there and began to feel

better than others. “ The attentions of others might be said to matter to us

principally because we are affected by a congenital uncertainty as to our own

value – as a result of which what others think of us comes to play a determining

role in how we are able to view ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by

the judgments of those we live among.”1 According to that we can say that Willy

was pretending to be someone that he wasn’t but because he used to care a lot

for what people think about him and his family, on the other hand Norvell wasn’t

pretending to be someone that he wasn’t he just had a really good job to the view

of everyone, the truth is that he doesn’t know that he is being used by other

people that actually don’t care about him. Norvell became corrupted because he

looses his moral base when he began to succeed, he was the most ethical

person in the company but with all the fame and position that he gains, he lost it.

At the beginnings of Norville he met a woman who was working in his company

as secretary, but he began to fall in love with her, after he has all these succeed

he started to hang out with people more at his class level, such as top models

who were recognized in the city. Norvell had the imagination to make a dream in

the real business world, on the other hand Willy had just the normal American

dream because in the book we can noticed that he did not have any special

talent that he could develop and be more rich but Norvell does. Willy was also

closed to any opportunity given, such as when his neighbor gave him the chance

to work with him, it was a really good opportunity to get a job and star again

being good in life but he did not want to. On the other hand Norvell was the kind

of guy that keep trying to get more opportunities to succeed in the business world

and in his personal life too, an example could be when we went to give the blue

1 Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, 2004. Pg. 15

letter and first he has the fire and he tried to put water on it but he couldn’t, so

then he try to stepped on it, but the fire did not stop so we could see that he was

an ambitious man that try to do what he wants to. Both stories have a ghost that

gets connected with the main characters. Willy’s ghost is Ben who is his brother

but he can’t communicate with him so Willy can’t receive instruction from his

brother to become rich or to have a better formation to his children. On the

Hudsucker Proxy the ghost was the president of the company which committed

suicide, and he helped Norvell on reading the blue letter that he was giving to

Mussburger the first day of work and they didn’t read, this letter said that he was

going to be the president of the industry. So in difference to Willy, Norvell does

had a helper ghost in his life.

As we could see in these comparisons, the main idea of it was to have a

social mobility comparison, which is mainly about the economic classes and the

behavior of the main character of the stories. Norvell and Willy have very

different personalities, but they have the same goal to be rich and have the

perfect life that everyone wants to have. We can see that Willy had more familiar

problems by which has to take care than Norvell that his problem is more in

personality because he is naïve so people take advantage on him from that and

he has to fix it, Willy has to talk more with his children and give the correct values

to make them a success kids with their own personality.

 Bibliography

- De Botton, A. Status Anxiety. (2004).

- Coen, E. & Coen, J. (producers/screenwriters/directors) The Hudsucker Proxy

(Motion pcture). United States: Warner Brothers Production.

- Miller, A. Death of a Salesman. (1949)