that one's "rightful position" (as powerful and beloved king or as successful salesman and family man) is a temporary illusion that must sooner or later come crashing down around one's ears. In other words, Oedipus was always a mock king, because he killed his father and wed his mother and set in motion the wheels which would eventually grind him to dust. The foundation was rotten from the start. The same holds for Willy: he never really possessed the American Dream, as much as he might have deluded himself otherwise at the height of his professional success and apparent success as husband and father. Willy discovers that the American Dream is a dog-eat-dog materialistic nightmare that leaves him ruined. With respect to his family, Willy was never a success, cheating on his wife and hated and pitied by his sons. Biff sees the greatest part of Willy's tragedy: "The man didn't know who he was" (Miller 1546).
Both Willy and Oedipus are ignorant of essential facts about themselves and their lives, and their ignorance of such facts leads to disaster for both. Oedipus does not know that he has killed his father and married his mother. Willy does not know that he is a failure, that he has been slaving for others in a system which does not care about him and is in the process of discarding him for younger salesmen. He is in denial about his situation, about his betrayal of his wife, about what his sons actually think of him.
Sophocles writes in an era which believed that the gods mysteriously ran human lives. Oedipus had no way of knowing he had killed his father and married his mother---until it was too late and disaster was assured. Miller is writing in a era in which capitalism---buying and selling---propels society and everybody in it. It would seem that both Oedipus and Willy, then, are helpless to alter their fates.
Willy is a pitiful character, a victim of a system he never understood. The same can be said of Oedipus. Both ...