Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

He criticizes himself constantly for these things, and even calls himself “fat” and “very foolish to look at” (Miller 2123). Willy instilled these values into Biff, because he thought they would guarantee success. Never wanting to accept his failure and trying to not disappoint his family, “Willy fashions the ideological armor he uses to disguise and deny his true psychological state, and that of his family, in order to escape what such a self-awareness would force upon him.” (Tyson) . B... ... middle of paper ... ...ence Center. Web.

All thought the play we get to witness Willy’s brain unravel and his tragic character flaws that all seem to stem from being abandoned by his father and brother. This abandonment leaves Willy with an extreme need for approval and direction but he’s also riddled with fears and insecurities. This fear ruins his character, making him an emotionally desperate and needy man who feels that the only way you can ever be successful in life is if you’re “well liked”. Which is heartbreaking because it becomes apparent throughout that he is not really liked or successful at all but living out fantasy scenarios to soothe the pain. His brother was the man he admired the most but throughout the play Ben is revealed as being a mean, nasty man who believe that being rich is the only sign of success even thought he stumbled upon his wealth thought pure luck.

However, Willy helps the audience have an insight to the corrupted view of the American dream that is based on materialism, popularity, likability, and attractiveness. The American dream that Willy is challenging was originall... ... middle of paper ... ...on what our founding fathers based it on: hard-work, support, success, and freedom of choice. Works Cited Cardullo, Robert James. “Selling in American Drama, 1946-49: Miller’s Death of a Salesman, O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, and Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.” The Explicator 66.1 (2007). Academic OneFile.

The play Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is a tragedy because it’s hero, Willy Loman, is a tragic figure that faces a superior source, being the American dream and the struggle for success. Loman also excites pity in the reader because of his defeat and his inability to become a success or teach his children how to make their lives successful. Miller defines a flaw as “an inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what one conceives to be a challenge to one’s dignity…” Loman fulfills many of the requirements of being a tragic hero. Willy is not “flawless” in his actions, which by Miller’s standards make him a tragic hero. It is not wrong for Willy to have flaws and it does not make him a weaker man but a tragic figure.

Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is a play that illustrated the realistic life of being an American and the vulnerability of an American Dream. It is a play that blended realism and expressionism in order to demonstrate the struggles and failures of Willy Loman. It showed Willy’s illusion of an American Dream, and the harsh reality shattering his dream into pieces. The play displayed Willy’s dreamlike inner world and the cruel realities of the external world. However, it is the interactions of realism and expressionism that makes the life of Willy evermore impacting.

23 Apr. 2014. http://shmpoo.com/death-of-a-salesman/respect-reputation-quotes-2.html "SparkNotes: Death of a Salesman: important quotations Explained ." SparkNotes . N.p., n.d. Web.

Arthur Miller is a famous author who has the capability to attract the peculiar feelings of every reader who enjoys reading plays and wishes to feel the author’s illustration power. The play Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller in the Aristotelian sense is a tragedy based off of pity and fear. The play is a critique of the capitalist American dream. It is commonly known as one of the first tragedies of Modern American society. Death of a Salesman is based on the foundations, values and moral principles of the American society by applying the American Dream.

Christien Poole English Death of a Salesman essay Death of A Salesman, Miller’s most famous work, addresses the painful conflicts within one family, but it also tackles larger issues regarding American national values. The play examines the cost of blind faith in the American Dream. In this respect, it offers a postwar American reading of personal tragedy in the tradition of Sophocles’ Oedipus Cycle. Miller charges America with selling a false myth constructed around a capitalist materialism nurtured by the postwar economy, a materialism that obscured the personal truth and moral vision of the original American Dream described by the country’s founders. There are many main characters in Death of a Salesman which consist of Willy Lowman, Biff Lowman, Happy Lowman, and Linda Lowman.

Winnie Zhong 2/13/2014 English 10 Dr. Lupardo Death of a Salesman Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller in 1949, is a play attempts to identify and validate the “tragic flaw” of a common man. It is a tragedy describing the consequences arose between a family’s American dream and the reality of their lives. Willy Loman, the main character, is bought into an extreme obsession of the American Dream or the success in becoming a “well liked” salesman. However, after having done everything in order to achieve and live the dream, Willy Loman fails to receive the success promised by it. Throughout the play, the most important reason causing Willy’s failure in achieving his goal seems to be his own inability to recognize the unpleasant reality while continually living in a slanted fantasy that his mind has created.

His false dreams and skewed sense of reality led him to believe that following his true passion, carpentry, was not a conventional way of life. Willy’s true passion for carpentry and not sales can be evidenced in the quote, “There’s more Willy in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made” (Miller, 22). Willy mainly constructed his fantasy as a means of coping with his personal failures, for he had the “wrong dreams. All, all wrong” (Miller ?). In Willy’s deluded state, he lied to his family, regularly lying to them of his success at work.