Plenty of Room for Mafia Ties

The following is an excerpt of a 5 July 2014 email exchange between Will and Art.

Art:

Why does Will want to "assert the family name"?  

Is it a situation like The Wild Duck in which Hjalmar's dad was convicted of a crime that brought shame to the family name (whereas Old Werle, that perv, goes free)? Plus, Will changes the family name! 

from Ingmar Bergman's 1972 production of The Wild Duck

Names and renaming are important in this story, but I don't see the sufficient motive for Will Witkowski other than the usual desire to be famous idea. This might be an area to shore up somewhat. In The Wild Duck, Hjalmar was going to reveal his great invention (or his "life lie" as Relling puts it) and bring honor back to his family name--he wasn't just desiring fame for the usual reason. 

I really think this story has some connections to The Wild Duck, by the way. I'm afraid to say I identify far too much with Hjalmar--such a simultaneously pitiful and unlikeable character!

Will:

I just see asserting the family name as being tied to the American Dream.   

Polish people aren't known for wanting much more than a decent factory job out of America, but Stan is one of those guys who has to evangelize the gospel of the self-made man.  Supposedly my family in the old world were an unimpressive lot: a few prostitutes here and there even, but mostly guys who didn't want to be cannon fodder in the Russian Army.   

I'm not trying to compare the plight of Polish immigrants to the plight of African Americans, but I think of the black doctor in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter who is constantly infuriated that the black people dream what he believes are such feeble dreams. That's Stan. Will totally shares his dad's worldview and feels compelled to do better than the previous generation..a key part of the dream. And he wants to be self-made as well, which means making it in the music business instead of cement, even though he's good at cement. 

The other part of the dream is branding. Everything is about branding. Of course, Art is pretty representative of the majority of Poles, who in my experience tend not to be particularly materialistic or power hungry. I don't think we necessarily need some Old World ghost in the closet: the emptiness of the closet would be both a source of shame and the freedom of a tabula rasa for Stan. And a landscape of cabbage, hard work, forced military service for the Russians, and poverty accepted with happy songs, dances, and ritual prayers would make him hungry for modern affluence in the New World. 

Of course, if you are okay with it, there's plenty of room for him to build mafia ties.