Biff and Happy

Will Landschulz
Am. Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

In this part, we are introduced to the Loman family: Willy, a travelling salesman over 60, his wife, Linda, and his two boys, Biff and Happy.  Biff has returned from a farmhand job in Texas and hasn't managed to pin down a stable job yet.  Happy currently works for a retail store in their hometown of New York.  Biff seems depressed at his inability to nail down a job, and especially at how this decreases him in the eyes of Willy.  Also, I can't shake the feeling that he doesn't tell Happy (and by extension, the audience) everything about his past, those "twenty or thirty jobs" he's had.  The implication is that he quit the jobs, either from a frustration over the corporate ladder, or from a realization that whichever job he's in will get him nowhere.  But after baring his feelings to the audience, he suddenly changes the subject to Happy.  Happy is seemingly (well. . . ) happy and contented, with a 9-5 job and a "future."  Is he, in fact, happy?  The answer is a resounding NO.  Sure, he's got a future, a job with nowhere to go but up, but the only way to get farther up the economic ladder is for his boss, the merchandise manager, to die so that Happy can take his place.  Happy likes the merchandise manager, considers him a friend, and is thus trapped between the loyalty of friends and the constant push upwards on the economic ladder.  One of the things that Happy notes about his boss is the fact that he builds one house, then after about two months, builds another one and moves into that one.  The troubling thing, for the audience at least, is that Happy notes that he'd probably do the same.  So on one hand you have a person who can't pin down a job and won't tell us anything about that.  On the other, you have someone who is conflicted over wanting their boss to die so they can take his place.  I don't really think that either of them would be good narrators, and I'm not sure we're supposed to like them.  Pity them, yes, but not like.