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Comment on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Discuss death of the salesman as american dream
Discuss death of the salesman as american dream
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There is something magical and sometimes overpowering to the majority of mankind: It is the thing that allows people to live in mansion's with helipad's as well as underground society forced to live in the many tunnels and passageways under New York City and to beg for their meals. Although this is definitely the extreme that I have described. It is sometimes indescribably cruel and other times very gracious. This thing that I write about is the American system. In Arthur Miller's moving and powerful play, "Death of a Salesman", Miller uses many character to contrast the difference between success and failure within the system. Willy is the dreamy salesman whose imagination is much larger than his sales ability, while Linda is Willy's wife who stands by her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy are the two blind mice who follows in there father's fallacy of life, while Ben is the only member of the Loman family with that special something needed to achieve. Charlie and his son Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared to the Lomans.
The play romanticizes the rural-agrarian dream but does not make it genuinely available to Willy. Miller seems to use this dream merely to give himself an opportunity for sentimentality. The play is ambiguous in its attitude toward the business-success dream, but does not certainly condemn it. It is legitimate to ask where Miller is going. And the answer is that he has written a confused play because he has been unwilling or unable to commit himself to a firm position with respect to American culture. Miller prepares us for stock response-relief in escape to the West and the farm; firm satisfaction in the condemnation of the tawdry business ethic.1and then denies us the fulfillment of our expectations. The play makes, finally, no judgment on America, although Miller seems always on the verge of one, of telling us that America is a nightmare, a cause of and a home for tragedy. But Willy is not a tragic hero; he is a foolish and ineffectual man for whom we feel pity. We cannot equate his failure with America's (Eisinger .0 p. 174. Indeed, there is a lot of room for failure as well as great success in America. The system is not the one to blame. Willy can only blame himself for not becoming what he wanted to be.
Miller’s use of personification and symbolism in the book shows the situational irony that surrounds Willy. This highlights the overall message of blind faith towards the American Dream. The major case of irony in the book is Willy’s blind faith in the American Dream. This belief is that if one is well-liked, they will become successful. The truth is actually completely opposite. The real belief is that if one works hard, with no regard to how well liked they are, they will be successful. This relationship is shown between Willy and his neighbor Charley. While Willy believes likability is the only way to success, Charley works hard and does not care how people think of him. Through his hard work, Charley started his own business, and is now very successful. Willy, however, ends up getti...
A white picket fence surrounds the tangible icons of the American Dreams in the middle 1900's: a mortgage, an automobile, a kitchen appliance paid for on the monthly - installment - plan, and a silver trophy representative of high school football triumph. A pathetic tale examining the consequences of man's harmartias, Arthur Miller's "Death of A Salesman" satisfies many, but not all, of the essential elements of a tragedy. Reality peels away the thin layers of Willy Loman's American Dream; a dream built on a lifetime of poor choices and false values.
The toxicity of success is portrayed through famous literary works such as The Great Gatsby and The Death of a Salesman, while dealing with an overarching theme of American success. F. Scott Fitzgerald beautifully portrays a wealthy upper class society in The Great Gatsby, which has extreme corruption, hidden by it’s allure, while much of this upper class is pompous and selfish, as well as being so heavily judgemental that is it difficult to be accepted by these people. Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman uses the narcissistic Willy Loman to shine light on the capitalist, middle class America, who’s life revolves around superficial success, which represents the overall flaw in the capitalist system: proclivity; this leads
In post-Depression America, the United States endured internal battles in political ideologies between capitalists and Marxists, which is the focus of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. According to Helge Normann Nilsen, author of “From Honors At Dawn to Death of a Salesman: Marxism and the Early Plays of Arthur Miller,” the Great Depression had a profound impact in forming the political identity of Arthur Miller: “The Great Depression created in him a lasting and traumatic impression of the devastating power of economic forces in the shaping of peoples’ lives” (146). This lasting effect on Miller is embodied in the character of Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman whose life collapses from the strain of his competition for wealth, demonstrated by Nilsen as she claims the fault lies in the “Impairment of [Willy’s] conscience and sanity by intolerable economic pressures” (155). Because of his focus on material success, which Marxists view as a critical flaw in capitalism, Willy loses his sanity battling the corruption within himself and the American free market system. I believe, however, that while Miller embraced and promoted Marxist values and that the messages in Death of a Salesman are directed at capitalists, Miller was not condemning all aspects of capitalism. Although his portrayal of Willy may seem politically biased, Miller’s portrayal of Charley as a generous and kind man contradicts the notion that Death of a Salesman is purely Marxist propaganda. Miller, therefore, was not denouncing capitalism, but calling instead for reforms within the existing system.
In brief, it is apparent that Willy’s own actions led to not only his own demise, but his children’s as well. The salesman tragically misinterpreted the American Dream for only the superficial qualities of beauty, likeability and prosperity. Perhaps if Willy had been more focused on the truth of a person’s character, rather than purely physical aspects, his family’s struggles and his own suicide could have been avoided. On the whole, Arthur Miller’s play is evidence that the search for any dream or goal is not as easy and the end result may seem. The only way to realize the objective without any despair is the opposite of Willy Loman’s methods: genuineness, perseverance and humility.
Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, portrays the cost of selling oneself to the American Dream. Willy Loman, the central character, is madly determined to achieve affluence that he overlooks the value of his family and himself in the process. He instills in his sons, Biff and Happy Loman, that being charismatic will hand them a prosperous lifestyle. Happy trusts in his father’s ideology while Biff’s beliefs contradict them. Biff deems that success is a product of happiness and contentment, not a paycheck. Out of all the sociological theories, social conflict best emphasizes the author’s perspective of how conflict, through class and family, can deteriorate the American dream. By analyzing the play’s themes- social class and family- through the sociological perspectives: structural-functional, social conflict, and symbolic interactionist, we can predict what drives these characters to behave and perceive things the way they do.
The American dream described in the play can be achievable, but Willy’s ways of achieving that American dream leads him to a failure. According to an article published by the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, the play builds the idea of American dream that it is harmful and immoral as long as it is based on selfishness and greediness. However, the dream us described realistic when it is achieved on values that ar...
Arthur Miller provides us with a character who is both pathetic and tragic. Willy Loman spent his life chasing a false dream. His failure to live the "true" American Dream was what brought about his own downfall.**
...y he is so obsessed with trying to attain it. He is the product of his own illusions and of a society that believe that with hard work everything is possible. The reader can understand that Willy’s skewed perspective of the “American Dream” is due to his distortion of his life and the dream that he thinks he lives in everyday.
Is it right to blame society when the stronghold of trust in the American Dream diminishes or dies? The critical point in Death of a Salesman was the mission for this dream. Miller depicts this in his character Willy Loman and his deceived mission of this dream. Arthur Miller's outline of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman was created in post bellum America. Around then, the thinking was more than essentially a declaration; it was a lifestyle. In attempts to further the onlooker's understanding of the story, one must portray the American Dream. After World War II, the United States thrived and flourished monetarily. The possibility of achievement was the establishment of the American Dream. The possibility of a free market framework was reborn and by living in a capitalistic free market, everyone in America had an open door to get rich and be productive. To put it fundamentally, the American Dream was portrayed as "an American flawless of a playful and powerful life which all may want: the American Dream addresses a reaffirmation of standard American hope. Arthur Miller makes the spectator grasp the dream is a lie, in light of the way that it is not for everybody. In the play, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is an impeccable outline of somebody who is attempting to search for this dream. “Death” in the title insinuates Willy's authentic destruction. The play is tormented with conspiring and refusal of reality and self-image, in which don't permit Willy Loman to accomplish independent satisfaction. Willy Loman's life is far from merry and successful.
For that reason, it is not only Willy’s own fault that he fails; it is also the society he lives in that makes him fail.
Willy is a salesman. Willy believes that success comes from being well liked and popular and has tried desperately to instill his notions to his two boys Happy and Biff, Willy's biggest aspirations in life. His wife Linda is extremely supportive and is Willy's only connection to reality. While raising his boys and trying to instill his "American Dream", he fails to teach them any sense of morality, leading them down to what he feels is the wrong path. At one point, he defended Biff for stealing just because he was an amazing football player.
Throughout the play, Arthur Miller uses characters’ inner tension and also tension with each other in order to shed light on capitalism’s misleading promises and devastating consequences for believing its promises. For many of the characters, believing in an imperfect system leads to many undesirable consequences, like disillusionment and suicide. For those that don’t throw themselves willy-nilly into the promises of capitalism and the American Dream, there is the chance of living a successful and fulfilling life. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a great example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s misleading nature.
The pursuit of the American Dream has been a long sought ambitions of many. Generally speaking the American Dream is the ability to become prosperous, successful and to be financially free. In “The Death of a Salesmen” by Arthur Miller Willy Lomans’ character has his own perception of the American Dreams. Likewise, “The Death of the Salesman” challenges Willy’s perception of the American Dream. Throughout the play the dialogue and actions of the Willy character illustrate desperate pursuit of the American Dream.
Willy lived everyday of his life trying to become successful, well-off salesman. His self-image that he portrayed to others was a lie and he was even able to deceive himself with it. He traveled around the country selling his merchandise and maybe when he was younger, he was able to sell a lot and everyone like him, but Willy was still stuck with this image in his head and it was the image he let everyone else know about. In truth, Willy was a senile salesman who was no longer able to work doing what he's done for a lifetime. When he reaches the point where he can no longer handle working, he doesn't realize it, he puts his life in danger as well a others just because he's pig-headed and doesn't understand that he has to give up on his dream. He complains about a lot of things that occur in everyday life, and usually he's the cause of the problems. When he has to pay for the repair bills on the fridge, he bitches a lot and bad mouths Charley for buying the one he should of bought. The car having to be repaired is only because he crashes it because he doesn't pay attention and/or is trying to commit suicide. Willy should have settled with what he had and made the best of things. He shouldn't have tied to compete with everyone and just made the best decision for him using intelligence and practicality. Many of Willy's problems were self-inflicted, the reason they were self-inflicted was because he wanted to live the American dream. If he had changed his standards or just have been content with his life, his life problems would have been limited in amount and proportion.