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Death Of A Salesman And The American Dream Essay

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Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman focuses on the American Dream, and how Willy Loman goes about trying to figure his out. Willie is a salesman who is down on his luck. Nothing has been going right for him and his wife knows this more than anyone. He "bought into" the belief in the American Dream, and he has not had much success since. Willy could have been successful, but many things went wrong in his attempt to gain his dream. He raised his sons to believe in the same false American Dream as he had. Neither of his sons turned out to be successful in life and towards the end of the novel they figure out that Willy is to blame.

Arthur Miller provides us with a character who is both pathetic and tragic. Willy Loman spent most of his life …show more content…

The “American Dream” is “the belief that through the pioneer virtues of hard work, perseverance, ingenuity, and fortitude, one might find happiness through wealth”. This is the center of our lives as Americans; we all want to accomplish it one way or another. The concept of the American Dream shown in the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is believed by Harold Clurman to be divided into two meanings; the historical dream and the business success dream. In our society today the American Dream is being able to own a house, work a well paid job, and over time have a family of you own. With this in mind some people 's dreams differ, sometimes having the biggest house or highest paying job isn 't what one might want. Willy was able to acquire a nice home, but was seriously lacking in the family and job department. Willy did have a family but then constant complaining and fighting with his kids made it unbearable to live as a family. In regards to his family communication with biff and having open talks with his wife would insure a better living environment. Willy also tried hard to obtain a great job that had the ability to provide for his family, but after he became older it was harder and harder to keep his same skill and friendliness that it takes to be a

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