Willy Loman's American Dream In Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller

“The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (33). In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller uses foil characters to elucidate Willy’s flaws that ultimately prevent him and his family from succeeding. The contrast between Charley and Willy and Bernard and Biff serves to highlight how Willy’s obsession with achieving his version of the American Dream impacts both his life and his children’s. His poor values are passed on to his children producing even more failures.

Oedipus the King, also known by the title Oedipus Rex, is a tragedy written by Sophocles where the main character is a tragic hero. One of the salient ideas in the play was that of blindness to reality; Teiresias, the man who is literally blind, is able to see the horror right in front of him, but Oedipus, with both eyes at work, is not able to see the truth at all until the end of the play. This blindness is seen in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Fences by August Wilson, where the main characters Willy and Troy are not able to see the change that time has wreaked upon their worlds. Willy is a failed salesman with high hopes for his sons, and Troy is a garbage collector whose dream was to become a professional baseball player. In both of these books, the main characters possess a metaphorical blindness to reality that results in the permanent detriment of

In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, there is a constant theme of pride shown throughout. Pride is constantly brought up in various ways in the play and impacts the plotline greatly. Pride is a main point in two scenes in Act One; when Willy borrows money from Charley and won’t tell Linda and when Willy tells Biff to loan $15,000 instead of $10,000.

Willie Loman is an ordinary man who embodies traditional American values of success. He has reached the age where he can no longer compete successfully in his chosen career of a traveling salesman. Willie’s desire for the american dream, despite his lack of ability to be a successful salesman, sacrifices his chance at happiness. After facing the reality of his job termination he begins to assess the value of his past. Willie’s son, Biff, returns to visit his parents and Willie is reminded of his desire for his son to achieve traditional success. Willie believes his son is capable of achieving the american dream because he is attractive and well-liked and Willie believes that those qualities are more important than hard work. To Willie, charisma

the value of life and stubborn to pursuit the dream. He and all Americans believe that their

Tragedy refers to the continuation of unfortunate events that develops over a period of time. Making the characters involved in these events experience painful moments and emotion. A tragedy is a situation when the unexpected happened. to result to adverse effect which makes individuals develops emotional feelings that affect their

For example, Willy’s tendency to blow his son’s football game out of proportion and brag about it gives a sense that he is self-centered. At the beginning of the play Willy states “The way Biff used to simonize that car? The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it” (8). Notably here, Willy tries to make the model T his family owned seem to be the greatest car in the world. This occurs constantly throughout the play with Willy misrepresenting anything, which causes the people around Willy to dislike him, further alienating Willy and leading him to fall further into depression. Similarly Willy’s decision to lie is also responsible for his death.

Willie has spent his whole life trying to attain success and the love of those around him. He does this so that he will be remembered when he is gone like other salesmen around him such as Dave Singleman who had hundreds of buyers and salesmen at his funeral (Miller, 81). Through his pursuit of this idea he starts to push the same dream upon his kids, especially his son, Biff and becomes obsessed with the idea. Willie ultimately fails by not only Biff not living up to his expectations but when he dies, no one except his family and a few friends attend his funeral (Miller, 137). Though Willie was driven enough to attain the expectations he had in life, they were very unrealistic in a sense due to his position in life. Willie failed to realize that he was just a salesman and truly believed he was more than that which is really a beautiful yet dangerous thing that eventually led to his

In my own words, I would define tragedy as being an event that happened unexpectedly which causes a negative change in an individual or affecting the entire family as a whole regarding how big the tragedy was. According to my definition, Death of a Salesman can be considered as a

[Hook] In the play, Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller, insecurity portrays an important role throughout the play towards the character Willy and his demeanor towards his own family members, neighbors, and acquaintance. Because of Willy’s depressive, frantic-like state he shows different levels of insecurity and how much pride he has in order to sustain or cover for his insecurity by being dishonest, well liked, his teachings, delusional, and leads to his suicide at the end of the play.

The play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is known by many Americans as an epitaph for the American dream. It is about the life of Willy Loman, an aging and failing salesman, chasing after his ambitions to become the most popular and successful individual in his field of work. Surprisingly, the story set behind the curtains also mirrors the lives of many modern Americans today. The play, performed in the 1940s, dealt with how people’s expectations for perfection were insubstantial and impractical, and how these expectations bred dissatisfaction and doubt. Unfortunately, this mentality still persists in the current American society. Similar to the skewed ambitions of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Americans are still in an insatiable pursuit of

Often individuals are prevented from achieving satisfaction due to a fundamental flaw in their character. In the case of Willy Loman, this flaw is his excessive pride and ambition. For the majority of his life, Willy has been primarily influenced by his brother Ben’s success. This has caused him to develop a sense of ambition that is both unrestrained and idealistic. Over the course of his lifetime, both Willy and his sons fall short of the impossible standards of this dream. Willy conducts his whole life based on the belief that any man who is good-looking, charismatic, and “well-liked” deserves success and will naturally achieve it (1.30). He attempts to make his mark by working as a salesman because, according to him, “selling [is] the greatest

Willy’s desire to grasp wealth by the hands led to his downfall and immediate failure which he failed to run from. He stopped caring about what he could achieve and only focused on what he wanted to achieve. In Death of a Salesman, Willy grudgingly accepted his situation by contemplating, “After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up more worth than alive” (Miller 98). Surprisingly, Willy managed to stay on top of his insurance premiums even though he worked a no-paying job. The money of the insurance premiums would go directly to his family in the case of his death. Willy had a chance in improving his self-worth but refused the job, deluding himself into thinking he lived a better life than what he

Throughout the play, Willy is constantly trying to convince himself and others that he is a good salesman. He does this knowing that he is not a good salesman. He is looked at as being a complete disappointment to his loved ones.

In, the affliction of “Death of a Salesman” the American Dream is interpreted in different ways. Willy Loman fails to achieve the American Dream considering to be successful the attributes that are needed are superficial needs. For, his false visions it is lived throughout his sons. Which variates Charley and Bernard’s vision of the American Dream since they are hard working and vigor to the success they have achieved. Refutation, unsupportive and unloyal, lied to hard workers to believe the impossible.