Death Of A Salesman Analytical Essay

1091 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of the Character of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman”, portrays the cost of selling oneself to the American dream. The main character, Willy Loman, is madly determined to achieve affluence which causes him to become mentally ill and suicidal. 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 that of his father and brother. He deems that success is a product of happiness and contentment, not a paycheck. Through the lens of Psychoanalytical theory, we able to recognize the fears and desires that drive each character, which epitomizes the impact of buying into the unfulfilling American Dream. Willy Loman, the salesman of the title, overlooks the rewarding treasures within his life because he focuses his attention on reaching the peak of success. His unconsciousness reminds him of his oblivious and careless actions in the form of flashbacks. Through these hallucinations, we learn about Willy’s past which depicts either the wrong decisions he has made or the poor influences he underwent. For instance, one of Willy’s flashbacks is about his deceased …show more content…

Akin to his father, Happy grew up as the neglected younger brother which causes his current dilapidate state. In one of Willy’s flashbacks, Happy and Biff help Willy wash his car. However, Willy is more interested in the football Biff stole which represents his corrupt belief in Biff’s budding success. It is clear that Willy favors Biff over Happy which is attributable to the lack of potential Happy displays. Now, as an assistant to an assistant department store manager, Happy is jumping through hoops to collect the attention from his father that he didn’t receive as a child. However, he, like Willy, is not following his true aspiration in order to gain recognition from his idol

Show More
Related

  • Death of a Salesman Essay

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller was first presented in 1949 and has been studied and reproduced countless times since. The plot revolves around a salesman named Willy Loman and his family. Willy is 63 years old, and on the decline. His career as a traveling salesman is going badly, and during the play he is let go. Willy’s flashbacks to a better past take up much of the past, and are brought on by the return of Biff, Willy’s favorite son, who comes to visit from out west. Biff is 34 and Willy’s favorite son, but Willy’s high expectations him cause many issues for both of them. The overall tone of the play is sobering as we watch the family (especially Willy) fall apart because of various reasons, including the way they treat each other.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis: Death of a Salesman

    1706 Words  | 4 Pages

    "After all the highways, and the trains, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive," (Miller, 98). This quote was spoken by the main character of the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman: Willy Loman. This tragedy takes place in Connecticut during the late 1940s. It is the story of a salesman, Willy Loman, and his family’s struggles with the American Dream, betrayal, and abandonment. Willy Loman is a failing salesman recently demoted to commission and unable to pay his bills. He is married to a woman by the name of Linda and has two sons, Biff and Happy. Throughout this play Willy is plagued incessantly with his and his son’s inability to succeed in life. Willy believes that any “well-liked” and “personally attractive man” should be able to rise to the top of the business world. However, despite his strong attempts at raising perfect sons and being the perfect salesman, his attempts were futile. Willy’s only consistent supporter has been his wife Linda. Although Willy continually treats her unfairly and does not pay attention to her, she displays an unceasing almost obsessive loyalty towards her husband: Even when that loyalty was not returned. This family’s discord is centered on the broken relationship between Biff and Willy. This rift began after Biff failed math class senior year and found his father cheating on Linda. This confrontation marks the start of Biff’s “failures” in Willy’s eyes and Biff’s estrangement of Willy’s lofty goals for him. This estrangement is just one of many abandonments Willy suffered throughout his tragic life. These abandonments only made Willy cling faster to his desire to mold his family into the American Dream. They began with the departure of his father leaving him and...

    Read More

  • Willy's Misconception of Himself in “Death of a Salesman”

    620 Words  | 2 Pages

    The play, “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, presents Willy Loman, as a salesman, who fails to earn a living and slowly loses his mind. Willy continuously seeks the past to find out where he went wrong. During his years in life, Willy wanted his two sons, Biff and Happy to become someone they’re not; Willy wanted them to become a salesman like him. However, because of his obsession in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, he created a life full of lies for himself and his sons. In the end because of “his misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness” leads to his downfall and the end of his life (Death of a Salesman).”

    Read More

  • Death of a Salesman: The Flaws and Failures of Willy Loman

    556 Words  | 2 Pages

    Willy Loman is a 60 year old senile salesman who desperately wants to be a successful salesman; however, his ideas about the ways in which one goes about achieving this are very much misguided, just as his morals are. He believes that popularity and good looks are the key to achieving the American dream, rather than hard work and dedication. He not only lives his entire life by this code, but instills his delusional beliefs in his two sons Biff and Happy. As a result, his sons experience similar failures in their adult lives. Willy led a life of illusion, lies and regret which not only ruined his life, but gad a negative impact on the lives of family as well.

    Read More

  • The Importance of A Dream in Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    He believes that he is well-liked and respected by everyone, which is not true. Willy's pride leads to his downfall, as he cannot accept that he is not successful and that his dream is unattainable. Finally, the illusion of Willy's life that resulted from him dreaming the wrong dream ends up in his tragic suicide and the destruction of his family. Willy's dream creates an illusion of a perfect life, which is not true.

    Read More

  • Willy Lowman’s Tragic Misinterpretation of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Social Class And Family In Death Of A Salesman

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Willy Loman

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    Furthermore, Willy’s refusal of Charlie’s help indicates his refusal to accept himself failing. Through dismissing other’s successes and thinking other’s are lesser, Willy develops a false sense of his true

    Read More

  • Death Of A Salesman American Dream Essay

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    An American dream is a dream that can only be achieved by passion and hard work towards your goals. People are chasing their dreams of better future for themselves and their children. The author Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman has displayed a struggle of a common man to achieve the American dream. Willy Loman the protagonist of the play has spent his whole life in chasing the American dream. He was a successful salesman who has got old and unable to travel for his work, and no one at work gives him importance anymore. He is unhappy with his sons Happy and Biff because both of them are not successful in their lives. Moreover, Biff and Happy are also not happy with their father Willy because they don’t want to live a life that Willy wants them to live. The heated discussions of Willy and his older son Biff affect the family and the family starts to fall apart. However, Willy is unable to achieve the American dream and does not want to face the reality that his decisions for himself and his family have lead him to be a failure in the society. In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the protagonist Willy Loman spends his whole life to achieve the American Dream by his own perception and denies facing the reality, just like nowadays people are selling themselves and attempting to find success in life.

    Read More

  • Willy Loman's American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman focuses on the American Dream, or at least Willie Loman’s version of it. *Willie is a salesman who is down on his luck. He "bought into" the belief in the American Dream, and much of the hardship in his life was a result. *Many people believe in the American Dream and its role in shaping people’s success. Willy could have been successful, but something went wrong. He raised his sons to believe in the American Dream, and neither of them turned out to be successful either.

    Read More

  • Death Of A Salesman Essay

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Author Miller displays themes like man versus society, the American dream, and conflict between father and family by portraying false characteristics in order to avoid reality. The main protagonist from “Death of a Salesman” develops a false image of a father figure and successful business man in the working industry in order to serve as an example for his sons. A man with expectations desires for his sons to mimic his steps in the business world by achieving financial success with the house mortgage and life insurance. The American dream during the late 1940’s after World War II was an important time period where people managed to be productive in the business industry. Moreover, the role of consumerism haves appliances in which influences

    Read More

  • The Collapse of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller,

    2029 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

    456 Words  | 1 Pages

    Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.

    Read More

  • Failure of the American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Death Of A Salesman American Dream Essay

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    One major theme in Death of a Salesman is the pursuit of the American dream. Playwright Arthur Miller details main character Willy Loman’s misguided quest of this dream. Death of a Salesman was written in postwar America, when the idea of the American Dream was a way of life. The United States was flourishing economically, and the idea of wealth was the base of the American Dream. Capitalism was alive and well, and by living in a capitalist society, everyone in America was supposed to have a chance to become rich and successful. Miller makes the reader realize this dream is a falsehood, because it doesn’t always work for everyone as planned. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a prime example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s effects.

    Read More

More about Death Of A Salesman Analytical Essay

Open Document