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The premises that the American Dream has been based upon show a pattern of relating heavily on the economic state of the country, as well as the individual who is trying to obtain the American Dream. Shortly before Death of a Salesman was performed in 1949, “James Adams referred to the American dream in the period of the Great Depression, when American identity was in crisis, and since then it has become a catch phrase in American public discourse, but its definition and significance are often taken for granted” (Ştiuliuc 2011 pg.364). Shortly before the cold war America’s identity was in question, consequently this presented the opportunity for the definition of the American Dream to be altered into materialistic ideals of success that only …show more content…
In fact, “I don’t want a change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted?”(Miller 1949 Act I) demonstrates Willy stubbornness and his ethnocentrism attitude towards the most harmless aspects of life such as a sandwich. However when he mentions Biff’s failures in his life, we then realize there may be an association between both Willy and Biff’s life. For instance, when Willy states, “I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time. My God! Remember how they used to follow him around in high school? When he smiled at one of them their faces lit up. When he walked down the street... “(Miller 1949 Act I) one can assume that Willy, being the career-driven man he his, couldn’t have actually observed how his, now thirty-four year old, son and his peers interacted. We can then infer that Willy is actually reminiscing events based upon his past. At this moment, we see that Willy is inadvertently acknowledging that his life as “the center of attention” is a thing of the past. To illustrate, from Willy Loman’s Secrets written by Lee Siegel, “His touching reminder to Howard that he, Willy, gave him his name only proves his softness and ineffectuality leads to his dismissal… Most of all, his humanness makes him turn toward the past in an effort to recapture the respect, the gratitude, the comradeship, the love that …show more content…
As revealed by Fred Ribkoff, “It is the confrontation with feelings of shame that enables Biff to find himself, separate his identity from that of his father, and empathize with his father. Moreover, it is the denial of such feeling that cripples Willy and the rest of the Loman family” (Ribkoff 2000 Pg.49). Willy’s midlife crisis was the epiphany Biff needed to realize that there was an identity beyond the one that society said he should have. In particular, “I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and I thought, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be . . . when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am” (Miller 1940 Act II)? Biff was consumed in his fathers ideas of success he begin making business decisions similar to
In a flashback Willy has, it is shown that Willy jokes about Charley’s son, Bernard, a “nerd” who helps Biff with his math so he doesn’t fail, by claiming that despite Bernard being smart, he will not get far in life because he is not as “liked: as Biff, who at the time was a football star. After Biff saw his father with is mistress, he began viewing his father more negatively, rejecting all of Willy’s future plans for him, calling him a “phony little fake”. Biff’s rejection of Willy’ future plans for him sends Willy into a downward spiral, making him more and more delusional. Ironically, Willy failed to sell his plans to his own son, when his main profession is selling products to people, as he is a
Willy’s refusal to face reality and accept responsibility shows that he is a coward. According to Gordon Hitchens, Willy "broke the first commandment of American business . . . [which is] to be a success" (Hitchens 81). He not only fails as a businessman, but also as a father. He feels especially let down by the bitter state of his relationship with his son, Biff. Nevertheless, instead of facing his dilemmas, Willy cowardly escapes to a fantasy world in which he relives happier times. Furthermore, Biff’s animosity toward his father stems from his discovery of Willy’s affair. When he was eighteen, Biff visited his father in Boston and found him with a female companion. After receiving this shock, Biff’s ambition and confidence, formerly supported by his father, dwindles. Bernard, Biff’s boyhood friend, notices this change and eventually asks Willy what happened in Boston to cause it. Willy becomes defensive and angry. He asks Bernard, "If a boy lays down is that my fault?" (Miller 1257). He refuses to accept responsibility...
The relationship between Biff and Willy is not good. Since Biff found that his father Willy was cheating to her mother he left the home. In the play The Death of a Salesman Willy Loman and Biff seems they don’t like each other. Although Willy love his son Biff. When Biff was young Willy was always there supporting Biff in everything and was very proud of him. And he was the son that Willy had attached him dreams upon. According to the statement “I am not the leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were anything but a hard working drummer who landed in the ash-can like all the rest of them”. Biff’s observation was that he sees his father as a failed to achieve, although he work hard to success. Willy loves Biff his oldest son since he was at school. In his mind he was thinking that Biff will become a successful man in life, but it didn’t happen’. Biff is a man who got the job but fail to keep his job. That makes Willy become frustrated. But Biff he tried to find himself. Here Biff compare his self and Willy’. Willy is the hard worker trying to achieve an American dream, and when he look at Ben his brother who achi...
Willy’s own paranoia about life stems mostly from his unacceptance of his older son, Biff, as seen when Willy is speaking to him, “Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!”(Loman 16). Willy imagined his son to be a huge success in the sales business but much to his obvious dislike that never happened. The main character continues to push his son to become what he envisions and refuses to embrace his son for who he really is. Willy’s familial relationships would be better if he surpasses his prideful stereotype of who he thinks his son, Biff, should live up to. Another example of Willy Loman’s unwillingness to change his ways is declining Charley’s offer to employ him, saying “I got a job, I told you that” (Loman 43).
It is stated by Standage that, “Sandage believes Willy Loman was a success. But the message of the play, he says, is that “if you level off, you have to give up. You might as well not live”” (Baird 25). This is quite ironic because all Willy does is push to be successful and he when he can’t he puts expects his son’s to follow through so he gives up. He constantly reminds them, “the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 67). This is also ironic because Willy is the man who creates personal interest in the business world, but when everyone passes away he is left with nothing but the past to remember. This false reality that Willy creates for Biff brings on the conflicts between the father and son duo due to the fact that Biff fails as a result of the way he was raised. So by the time Biff goes to interview for his first job he thinks that his success will come with no effort
Biff's epiphany, though crucial for him to start living a fulfilling life, was also the catalyst for his father's death. Despite the growing pains, Biff is now free to seek out who he really is and what he really wants. No longer will he feel obligated to follow in his father's footsteps because he now knows that he is his own man. He has overcome the animal instinct that change is bad and that sticking to the path set out for him is the only way.
The American dream is an ideal that most people are often left wanting. To be able to essentially rise from nothing and grow to be financially stable and live life in excess after a great deal of hard work. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the American dream is represented in different ways by the characters, though most of the plot centers around Willy’s failed aspirations for the American dream. Miller shows that the American Dream may not actually be reachable by everybody or that it may not even be a relevant dream for everybody in America.
The young Biff took his father’s words at face value since he placed Willy on a pedestal, thinking nothing could touch such a man. As a result, this is all Biff has ever known about what success is throughout his youth, where he should be aiming for more popularity and established contacts. This is also what Biff thinks he should strive for in his future, to be this type of person Willy frequently talks highly of. Even after a great number of years have passed in their estranged relationship, Willy’s words still ring true for Biff. He often thinks of the idea that “[he’s] not gettin’ anywhere! What the hell [is he] doing, playing around with horses… [he] oughta be makin’ [his] future” (11). He understands that his father will not approve of him as a farm hand since Willy judges a job’s grandeur based on the income the individual brings home. Even though he expresses that he enjoys working back in the West, he eventually returns home because deep inside he knows it does not fit into
He does not want to end up like his father; he is determined to break through the lies surrounding the Loman family in order to introduce some realism into his life. Biff's break through comes when he returns home with his father from `Frank's Chop House'. He realises that to reclaim his own identity he must expose his father's false illusions. Biff: " Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!"
Miller’s Willy shows many times that his idea of success goes no deeper than the superficial by teaching his sons the wrong path to a successful life. When Biff was in high school, Willy had already started to teach his son the false values in which he believed. When Willy found out Biff had stolen a football and was caught by his coach, who did not get angry, Willy responded by using the incident as an example of the importance of his philosophy.
Willy thinks that being well-liked and a hard worker will put you on top of the world and give you a wonderful life. After the exchange, Linda retires to bed and Willy begins talking to himself. He reminisces about his past as if he had nothing positive to look forward to. We are given a glimpse of this at a very early stage in the play, when he daydreams about a conversation that he had years ago with his two boys, Biff and Happy. In the daydream, one of the boys’ neighborhood friends named Bernard, a hardworking student who idolizes Biff, comes in and urges Biff to study for a test because he does not want him to fail. Willy tells Bernard, “Don’t be a pest” (Act 1), and explains to his boys that the key to success is not getting...
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.
In addition to that, the fact is pointed out by his own son, who turns out to be wiser than him. Unlike Willy, Biff finds out who he is, and that the American Dream is not for everyone. Work Cited:.. Miller, Arthur. The.
Willy has worked hard his entire life and ought to be retiring by now, living a life of luxury and closing deals with contractors on the phoneespecially since increasing episodes of depersonalization and flashback are impairing his ability to drive. Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed: he is fired from his jobwhich barely paid enough anywayby a man young enough to be his son and who, in fact, Willy himself named. Willy is now forced to rely on loans from his only real friend (and the word is used loosely at that), Charley, to make ends meet. None of Willy's old friends or previous customers remember him. Biff, his 34-year-old son, has been unable to 'find himself' as a result of his inability to settle down (caused by Willy drumming into him the need to 'make it big within two weeks'), and Happy, the younger son, lies shamelessly to make it look like he is a perfect Loman scion. In contrast, Charley (who, Willy tells his boys conspiratorially, is not well-liked), is now a successful businessman, and his son, Bernard, a former bespectacled bookworm, is now a brilliant lawyer. We are told how Willy had at least one affair while out on business trips, one particularly that was witnessed by Biff (which broke his faith in Willy). Finally, Willy is haunted by memories of his now-dead older brother,
In many ways Biff is similar to his father. In the beginning of the play we see that Biff shares many of the same ideas as Willy. He values being well-liked above everything else and sees little value in being smart or honest. One of Biff's main flaws is his tendency to steal. Early in the play we learn that he has stolen a football from the school locker. When Willy finds out about this, instead of disciplining Biff, he says that the coach will probably congratulate him on his initiative.