The American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman What is the American dream? I decided to ask a few people as to what they thought it was. One person told me that the American dream was to be rich. Another person told me it was having a perfect family situation. The last person believed the American dream was to be able to do absolutely nothing. Whether it is a family working together towards one common goal, or a single woman working her way up the ladder, in a sense it is all the same dream. Regardless of the goal one works towards, it all comes down to success. Success includes getting ahead at work and school, and the goal of attaining wealth, power, and prestige. Without success why would anyone want to do anything? You would think that success is free to every American, but it is not. Success is afforded or denied to a person if they qualify. In Death of a Salesman, I believe Willy Loman was not successful in anything he did because he lived in his own world. A big indicator to one's success is their performance on the job. If a person is doing well, generally, they are successful. In the beginning of the play Willy Loman comments on how he was "vital to New England". This is a great example of how Willy's distortion compromised his obtainment of success. In all reality he was not "vital to New England", but a hindrance to his company. This is one reason why Willy Loman never obtained the American Dream. Another indicator to success is wealth. Although you cannot attribute happiness to wealth, you can buy things and live comfortably, which a lot of people believe is the epitome of the American dream. On Willy's last trip he made a commission of $70. But they owed money on a refrigerator fan belt and a carburetor for the car, which totaled $120. All these things were already breaking. Willy was constantly in a race with the junkyard; he was constantly frustrated that he couldn't use anything after they were all paid for. The last indicator to success is prestige. If you think about one person that you know is successful, I bet they have prestige. Willy Loman is lacking in this department as well. Willy believes that he is well liked by a lot of people when in fact he is not. His entire life had been lived according to ideas about personal attractiveness and being well liked. He never questioned these values and never realized that he lived in a world of illusions and dreams. I think the American dream is alive and well. However, I might suggest, that for some the odds are nearly impossible to overcome as with Willy Loman. There are a lot of people out there that have to work three times as hard to receive the kind of things others take for granted. And there are those that may work just as hard as hard as any, but are destined to never get as far as the ceiling that America has put on them.
Willy never accomplished his dream of becoming a first-rate salesmen. Even his funeral which he had hoped would be filled with people coming from far and wide was a handful away from being empty. The book is titled Death of a Salesman which is literal as well as a parallel to his career that died. Not only is the outcome the same in his career as in his life, but so is the method. Willy Loman killed himself, but he also killed his career. Throughout the story it is mentioned that Willy was a skilled builder, “He was so wonderful with his hands”(138) not only was he talented, but “he was a happy man with a batch of cement”(138). His family make it clear that Willy would have been more suited for a job in construction than sales. Willy chose the wrong career, and it is not society's fault that he chose a life he was not suited to
Willy Loman’s obsession with success blurs out the true picture around him. Both of his sons will never be able to achieve he lays out for them. As a result, he has an inner denial with the reality that his sons will not amount to success. Willy Loman prevents both, his sons and himself to progress due to his chains towards success. In addition, the quote “Man is born free, and everywhere he is on chains.”- Jean- Jacques Rousseau describes Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Willy Loman is born a free man until he starts to become chained to the idea of success. Ben Loman, his brother, represents the idea of success as he struck luck in Alaska and created a fortune. That as a result causes Willy Loman to work relentlessly to achieve he same level of fortune. That starts the downward spiral of Willy Loman as a character. On the whole, Willy Loman’s hunt for success and refusal to progress are the chains in his
On simply the business side of things, Willy Loman is a tragic figure. He spent thirty-four years in the same firm building his career, yet in the end, he is sent on the road when he would be much better off on the floor. When he confronts his boss, Howard, Willy is at first
The life of Mr. Loman is one of loneliness, and lies. An online source emphasizes about Willy, “Willy convinces himself that he is successful, well- liked, and that his sons are destined for greatness.” Willy’s mind is consumed with being popular, and having material wealth. The results of Willy’s internal problems resulted with his children that could not be stable in any aspect of their lives, his failing marriage, and him struggling throughout all of his adulthood. Edward states (an online source), “Willy spent his life pursuing the wrong dreams for him. The wrong dream slowly possessed his life.” And also states, “Willy appears to have been obsessed with his goal of being known as a great salesman rather than with actually being a great salesman.” Willy is constantly under attack with thoughts of his past, to the point he has such vivid flashbacks that he will openly be talking to him, but thinking is he talking to people of the past. An online source states, “Unable to cope with reality, he entirely abandons it through his vivid fantasies and ultimately through suicide.” Willy is aware of his mistakes, but spends his time looking forward to the ‘perfect’ future he has planned, but never changes his ways to achieve his goals. Mr. and Mrs. Loman realize how different and happy Willy is when he is working outside with his hands. Both characters recognize
Miller has written an ambiguous play - unwilling to commit himself to a firm position with respect to tawdry business ethic and the ?industrialized? American dream. Miller alludes to an earlier version of the American dream - escape to the West and the farm, but he then denies us the fulfillment of our expectations. The play makes no judgment on America, although Miller seems always on the verge of one. But Willy is not a tragic hero; he is a foolish and ineffectual man for whom we feel pity. We cannot equate Willy?s failure to realize his dream with the failure of the American dream. 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.
Willy Loman’s character is capable of making errors. He believes he is a very successful salesman and well liked. He also thinks that the company likes what he is doing. He once said, “I’m the New England man. I am vital in New England” (Miller pg. 32) Because of his false belief about his success Howard fired him. After he got fired charley offered him a job, but he refuses to accept, because he is too proud and jealous to work for Charley. His actions were wrong because at no time was a successful salesman. He is not a powerful character. Willy lives in his fantasies where he is the man. Who goes out to another place and comes out rich, he is love by everyone and admired by his family. In real life, he is lazy and does not live up to his own ideals. “As Aristotle explains, a tragic hero must be one of noble character and must fall from power and happiness.”(Www.ccd.rightchoice.org/lit115/poetics.html) but Willy neither has a noble characteristic nor does he fall from power because he does not have a position of power.
Willy Loman is a firm believer in the "American Dream:" the notion that any man can rise from humble beginnings to greatness. His particular slant on this ideal is that a man succeeds by selling his charisma, that to be well liked is the most important asset a man can have. He made a living at this for 30 years, but as he enters the reclining years of his life, people have stopped smiling back and he can no longer sell the firm's goods to support himself. His ambition was one of greatness, to work hard and to be a member of the firm; and if he could not succeed in this respect, that he should at least be well-liked and be able to sell until the day of his death: When his friends would flock from all over the country to pay their respects.
Willy Loman stands in, so to speak, for every American male who defined himself as a man, husband and father with respect to his success in the workplace and his capacity for grabbing a share of the material American dream. Willy Loman is a man who has deluded himself and has judged himself more harshly than his wife or his son. His tragedy is that he comes to an understanding of this delusion too late to make any changes in his life. Whether or not we as readers or as members of the audience agree with his judgment is irrelevant. It is Willy's own failure that is important in this play.
The roots of prosperity in America can be found by a dream of starting at the bottom and working your way to the top. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman works his entire life to achieve the prosperity gained from the American Dream, but there are many versions of this dream including being important socially, politically, and economically. Willy's version of the dream involves him getting rich and well-known. He tries to obtain this by working for a company for a long time and through his kids, but this all fails when he kills himself after realizing that he and his kids are failures and the dream was unworthy.
For Willy and Linda, life's accomplishments and sources of pleasure are simple. This statement gives an excellent judgment of their lives because they lead very average lives for the time, and any depth is ignored on their part. This little scene exemplifies this point by showing a focus in their lives, being the mortgage on the house. For twenty-five years Willy and Linda have been working to pay off their mortgage, and once they do that, they will attain a sense of freedom, or the "American Dream". That dream, especially pertinent at that time of growth in the United States, presents a perfect representation of their goal. This goal is clearly outlined by dollar signs and a sense of ownership, two key points to personal success.
Willy Loman truly believes that physical appearance and popularity are the keys to success - hard work is not necessary. Because of Willy’s naive ideas, he is unable to reach his goal of achieving the American Dream.
Willy Loman's definition of success pertained to being popular and holding high authority within the business and corporate world. Often lost within his memories the reader gets a glimpse of Willy's meaning of the "American Dream." The audience first witnesses this as he speaks with Biff and Happy about their friend Bernard:
Death of a Salesman is centered around one man trying to reach the American dream and taking his family along for the ride. The Loman's lives from beginning to end is a troubling story based on trying to become successful, or at least happy. Throughout their lives they encounter many problems and the end result is a tragic death caused by stupidity and the need to succeed. During his life Willy Loman caused his wife great pain by living a life not realizing what he could and couldn't do. Linda lived sad and pathetic days supporting Willy's unreachable goals. Being brought up in this world caused his children to lose their identity and put their futures in jeopardy.
integrate, but this can also lead to a loss in jobs, as the amount of
The benchmark that willy set as success: materialism, if he is well known or loved leads to him living a life of false impression and a tragic death. Willy Loman the central character appears in Howard Wagner’s office in act 2 and poses the question “is there anything better then being a salesman?” He smirks “Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four” the age of eighty-four he said “into twenty or thirty different cities, pick up a phone, and be loved and remembered by so many different people?” Willy fails to see the real meaning of life-happiness and satisfactio...