America is one of the few countries in the world where the dreams of all are set high on a pedestal. In America, people fall in love with the dream that if a worker strives enough, they can work their way from the bottom to the pinnacle of success. However, in order to reach their pinnacle of success, people tend to make sacrifices that can be detrimental to their well-being. Studies suggest that one must have social interactions in order to exist as a normal human being. Mankind was not created to live alone, but to depend on others. People sacrifice strong social bonds by socially isolating themselves to achieve success. In order to achieve the most and maintain a focus, a worker will become ensconced in their work and the American dream Willy was often very lonely because he had to drive hundreds of miles to cities to sell to strangers who had no idea who he was. Studies have shown that human beings need social interactions. If people do not have social interactions, the effects are as much physical as they are emotional. James House PHD, Director of Survey Research Center and Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, conducted experiments to test if there is an association between social isolation and mortality on both general populations and people with established morbidity. In his essay “Social Isolation Kills, but How and Why?” House states, “social isolation has been shown repeatedly to prospectively predict mortality…The magnitude of risk associated with social isolation is comparable with that of cigarette smoking and other major biomedical and psychosocial risk factors” (House 273). Social isolation combined with the underlying innate desire to be successful that the majority of people feel they need to fulfill can potentially pose high risks to Willy’s well-being. In fact, Jib Fowles, author and professor of communication at the University of Houston, used studies of Harvard psychologist Henry Murray to develop a list of fifteen basic appeals in advertising that target the subconscious desires of Americans. The second highest need in this list of fifteen basic appeals is the need for affiliation. Willy With scholarships to three universities they’re gonna flunk him?...Don’t be a pest, Bernard!” (Miller 30). Then when Bernard left, Willy taught his sons that being well-liked is more important than grades by telling them “Bernard is not well liked, is he?...Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him…Be liked and you will never want” (Miller 33). However, this ideology is not what it takes to be successful in all areas of life as Bernard went on to be a lawyer and Biff was unable to graduate his senior year, lost his university scholarships, and became a farmhand because he flunked math. Willy believes in the need for affiliation because he is a salesman, and when one is a salesman, they must sell not only goods but also their charismatic personality in order to be successful. While this is understood for a salesman, this desire transformed because Willy lost his rationality in isolation. His sons worry about him when they come home and say, “He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes…Somethings–happening to him. He–talks to himself” (Miller 20-21). Willy’s irrational behavior was due to the isolation in which his wife defends Willy saying, “And what goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles home without`
Willy’s father, a “very great” and “wildhearted man,” made a living traveling and selling flutes, making “more in a week than a man like [Willy] could make in a lifetime” (Miller 34). Even though Willy barely knew his dad, he built him up in his head as an amazing person and role model, striving to be as “well liked” as him (Miller 34). Willy also idealizes his brother, Ben, as evidenced by his constant one-way conversations with him.... ... middle of paper ...
At the beginning of the play it is evident that he cannot determine the realities of life, and so he repeatedly contradicts himself to establish that his conclusion is correct and opinion accepted. These numerous contradictions demonstrate that Willy is perturbed of the possibility that negative judgements may come from others. Willy strongly believes that “personality always wins” and tells his sons that they should “be liked and (they) will never want”. In one of Willy’s flashbacks he recalls the time when his sons and him were outside cleaning their Chevy. Willy informs Biff and Happy the success of his business trips and how everyone residing in Boston adores him. He mentions that due to the admiration of people he does not even have to wait in lines. He ultimately teaches his sons that being liked by others is the way to fulfilling one’s life and removing your worries. These ideals, that one does not need to work for success, demonstrate Willy’s deluded belief of achieving a prosperous life from the admiration and acceptance of others. This ultimately proves to be a false ideology during his funeral, when an insufficient amount of people arrive. Willy constantly attempts to obtain other’s acceptance through his false tales that depict him as a strong, successful man. In the past, he attempts to lie to his wife, Linda, about the amount of wealth he has attained during his
...at the American culture places economic success at the pinnacle of social desirability, without listing legitimate ways for attaining the desired goal (Merton 672-682). Today, the American Dream no longer reflects the dream Adams had, but instead, the idea that one can only call themselves truly successful if they have become rich, regardless of the way they got there. The American Dream does not guarantee happiness, but rather the pursuit of it, but with the media strongly persuading people that money guarantees happiness, people are encouraged to do whatever it takes, even it means disregarding their morals, so that they achieve ‘success.’ The inability to achieve this goal often leads people to destructive, and ultimately life-threatening criminal behavior as their feelings of anxiety and frustration over this vision of the “American Dream” get the best of them.
In spite of the fact that he only shows up for a few key conversations, his philosophy and ideas drive Willy, Linda, Biff, and Happy in many aspects of their lives. Willy continues to search for fame and fortune, Biff and Happy still to try to impress him, and Linda supports Willy’s and Ben’s ideals, even when her husband becomes delusional and her children become stuck in an endless cycle of disappointment. By the end they escape these issues, but it’s important to acknowledge where they went wrong in the process of getting to that point. Often times, the most important thing to remember is that one person shouldn’t govern what someone does with their life, and that the search for one’s own individuality is the most important goal of all. Sometimes the best way to escape the jungle is to not enter it at
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...
The purpose of Philip Slater’s book The Pursuit of Loneliness is to “reach some understanding of the forces which are unraveling our society” for his readers (xxii). It is a common conception that America is the best country, an idea which is substantiated by economic figures. However, Americans are not happy. According to Slater, “all societies frustrate certain human needs and satiate others (because) humanity and any particular society’s idea of what humanity should be is never very exact” (2). In America, the gap between reality and perception is growing farther and farther apart, at human expense. Americans work their entire lives for the future, in the pursuit of economic security, which ultimately leads to continued unhappiness in the present. American culture “struggles more and more violently to maintain itself, (but) is less and less able to hide its fundamental antipathy towards human life and human satisfaction” (122). Slater’s book teaches people about the existence of the “wide gap between the fantasies Americans live by and the realities they live in,” in the hopes that this will inspire people to react in positive ways (xxiii).
America has always seen as the symbolic ideal country of prosperity and equality. This is the reason why people come to America hoping to become successful, but in matter of fact we all have an equal plan field to be successful is not entirely true. For there are social boundaries that keep use limited based upon our own status. Whether we are born of a low class or of a high class the possibility of economic mobility in a sense are predetermined by two factors of social class and success together they both affecting one’s another opportunity of success. In order to achieve success, we must know that it is made up of two main concepts and they are fortune and position.
“Social” networks and loneliness are two very unlike things to be discussed simultaneously... The two are complete opposite of one another: “social” is associated to relating to one’s society, loneliness can be defined as “a complex and unpleasant emotional response to a feeling of isolation” (Ye and Lin 166). While loneliness can mean solitude, it also includes feelings of isolation and disconnection to other people (Ye and Lin 166). John Cacioppo is labeled as the world’s leading expert on loneliness. He proposed a thought provoking analogy: a car can be used to pick up friends, but one chooses to ride alone. Did the car make the person lonely? (Marche 68). Absolutely not. The car is simply a tool in the person’s everyday life. This relates
Willy grew up believing that being “well-liked” was important to becoming a success. He envisioned Biff, the once great high school athlete, becoming a success for the wrong reasons. In contrast, we see Willy’s friend Charley who lived the real American Dream as a successful man in the business world. Through Charley we see the rewards to chasing this dream, such as the access to more money, and being able to have a flexible enough job to offer Willy a spot. On the other hand, the Loman family was not lucky enough to have any type of reward from the hunt for this success. Through this play, we see how the American Dream drove Willy Lohman and the family crazy and obsessed with a false fantasy. Arthur Miller shows us that the American Dream is valid, but those who hope to substitute popularity and lucky breaks for hard work are likely to
Perhaps it is due to the abandonment by his father that Willy Loman experienced at a very young age, or the subsequent abandonment, a few years later of his older brother Ben, that underlies the reason Willy so desperately seeks to be loved and accepted. He continually makes reference to being “well liked” as being of the utmost importance. Physical appearance, worldly admiration, and the opinion of others are more important to Willy than the relationship he has with his own family. These and several other references throughout “Death of a Salesman” portray the troubled relationship between Willy and his two sons, Biff and Happy.
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...
The first component of the American dream, in Willy’s eyes, is a successful career. Always the dreamer, he attempts to make his mark as a salesman because “selling [is] the greatest career a man [can] want” (1492; Act 2). But when he falls short of his goals, he blames the superficiality of the business world, as evidenced in his thoughts about Bernard. Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you’re going to be five times ahead of him. That’s a good idea.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
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,