Monday, January 25, 2016

What evidence do we get of Happy sharing some Willy's less attractive qualities? In particular, lying and exaggeration?

Happy is also a womanizer. Here it is in his own words:



...You’re gonna call me a bastard when I tell you this. That girl Charlotte I was with tonight is engaged to bemarried in five weeks.


BIFF: No kiddin’!


HAPPY: Sure, the guy’s in line for the vice-presidency of the store. I don’t know what gets into me, maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something, but I went and ruined her, and furthermore I can’t get rid of her. And he’s the third executive I’ve done that to. Isn’t that a crummy characteristic? And to top it all, I go to their weddings! (Indignantly,but laughing.) Like I’m not supposed to take bribes. Manufacturers offer me a hundred-dollar bill now and then to throw an order their way. You know how honest I am, but it’s like this girl, see. I hate myself for it. Because I don’t want the girl, and still, I take it and — I love it!



So, he knows what he is doing is base, but he does it anyway. He can't move up in his job, so he sleeps with executives' fiances. And he also manages to mention to Biff that he takes bribes.


Then, much later in the play, when Happy and Bilff are supposed to have this big dinner with their father, Happy seem far more interested in picking up women. He spots this lady, Miss Forsthythe and goes over to her. The first thing he says to her is a lie:




..excuse me, miss, do you mind? I sell champagne, and I’d like you to try my brand. Bring her a champagne, Stanley.



Then, when he introduces Biff to her, he lies and tells her that Biff is a quarterback for the New York Giants.


It's fitting and awful that Biff runs out of the restaurant and Happy follows him with the women they have picked up there, abandoning their cheating father who is babbling on the bathroom floor.. steeped in his memories of being caught with a woman by his favorite son.

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