Compare and contrast Willy Loman from Miller's Death of a Salesman and Troy Maxson from Wilson's Fences.

I think that Willy and Troy are very similar to one
another.  One point of similarity between them is the pressure they feel from the
outside world.  Willy's fundamental force of being in the world is the desire to "be
somebody."  His need to translate his efforts and what he does into material success in
order to appropriate what he considers to be "the American Dream" is something that is
an indelible part of his personality and characterization.  Troy experiences the same
types of pressure in terms of his desire to make money and reflect money as a form of
success.  One significant difference here is that Troy is more concerned with critiquing
the social configuration that surrounds him.  He raises the issues of class and race in
how Black men try to endure and succeed in such a setting.  Willy does not make any sort
of external critiques.  If anything, he is more convinced that the system of what
defines "the American Dream" is correct and all those who speak out against it are
wrong.

Another similarity between both men is how they
interact with their families.  Willy is blinded by his own desire to be successful, to a
point where he cannot see the emotional damage he is doing to his own family.  He
believes himself to be a "more loving father and husband" in his flashbacks and his own
conception of self.  However, this is not something that he can bring himself to admit
outside of these moments.  He is not able to bridge the gulf between his own vision of
self and the reality that he presents.  Troy is similar in that he takes on the role of
provider to his family.  However, where Troy is different is that he harbors no such
illusion of his own emotional quotient.  He is quite open about the fact that he does
not fully interact on an emotional level with anyone to a substantive level.  He is
caged by his own "emotional fences," and while he might lack the affect to be able to
articulate it, he understands this reality.  This is something that Willy does not
do.

A significant difference between both characters is
their view of death.  Willy embraces it as a way to "make something" of himself in terms
of his life insurance policy with the money left to his family.  For sake of "being
something," Willy is able to embrace death.  Troy is not able to do this.  Troy's fear
of death, his desire to keep it away, to do battle with it, to build a fence to wall
himself off from it, is where he is very much different from Willy.  The finality of
death and the fact that in its face, so much has to be reconciled is something that Troy
cannot face. It is here where he and Willy feature significant divergence from one
another.