Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller, is about the dysfunctional Lowman family. The family consists of salesman father Willy, homemaker mother Linda, son and sports star Biff, and youngest son and daddy’s boy Happy. It became apparent through the course of the story, that the “Men” of the story were actually boys. By analyzing the males of this story the reasons for their immaturities become clear.
Both characters realized that hard work is necessary to get what they want and that success is not a result of popularity. Bernard recognizes this much earlier in his life and becomes successful from an early age. This highlights how fathers play a crucial role in character development. Ironically Biff is similar to Willy, even though he refuses to admit it. Through this, Miller implies that all humans have inherited traits from their parents that cannot be denied.
The American dream, hereby, is what Willy believed that is the perfect dream to be lived and should be his life chasing dream. As a result, Willy was always judging himself and all people around him, in addition to his family, by their money gathering, as is ordered by capitalism. Hence the society in which Willy lives will not permit him to live the American Dream but rather than always remind him of his reality. Willy is captivated by gathering things. His aspirations for goods make him want stuff that he neither required nor could manage to pay for.
In the midst of all of this he finds a balance by focusing on what really matters. At the same time this keeps him focused on his main goal which is education. Education will be his family's way out of poverty. Through seeing his younger brother that is unemployed and will be having a child soon he looks beyond this and is genuinely proud of where he comes from. He realizes how strong his family is when he seems them fighting through poverty and making things.
Zeb 1 Adam Zeb Hajra Naeem English February 8, 2016 “Death of A Salesman” In the play “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, the character Willy Loman has flaws in his character that make him responsible for his own misfortune. Willy fails to realize his personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed deception of his life.
This “false” American Dream made him have issues in his life and didn’t have strong enough support to sustain in his life. He depended on his family to support him but they didn’t. As they always say, it comes down to family support when one struggling, but in this case, he didn’t get any support hence Willy’s
[To the boys]: You see what I been talking about? The greatest things can happen! (Act 1) Willy clings to Ben's material success as tangible evidence of his family's worth. He longs to measure up to the financial success of his brother. In many ways, Ben's success fuels Willy's misguided notion that riches are just around the corner” (Miller, 48).
Through Biff Loman, Miller illustrates the failure of the American dream through the paradoxical relationship between him and his father, Willy Loman, presenting the notion that the secret to true happiness and success lies outside of the confines of the typical American dream of wealth and materialism. Molded by his father’s unrealistic ambitions, it became near impossible for Biff to assimilate as a functioning member of the
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.
Even when his neighbour Charley offers him a job with a salary, Willy declines because he is too proud to work for Charley. He rather blames his failure on the superficiality of the business world and fixates himself on the idea that personality, not hard work, is the key to accomplishment. Perhaps, this is because Willy is living in a world where the pursuit of the American Dream is a predominant part of people’s lives, and the materialistic pressures of the superficial were beginning to permeate its actual values. Under this particular pressure, Willy has been fighting his entire life to achieve "the dream," but unfortunately, no one ever explains to him what its true values are or how to really make it. Therefore, Willy manages his life based on his overwhelming sense of pride and ambition, and in this way, Miller seems to criticize the idea of compromising happiness for success-- even though Willy truly believes that happiness is achieved through success.
One example is the high level of expectations Biff’s father has for him. Willy gloats about Biff being a star, “Look at this boy[Biff]. . .three universities are begging for him”(86;2). Biff’s ego boosts through the roof, which only sets him up for suffering more when he fails.
Getting out of the lower class becomes unattainable to him as he says, “I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor, and I was going to stay poor” (Bukowski, 2008, p.192). While he initially fantasised of becoming a stardom, he lowers his expectations and desires to be a dishwasher as he notes that he had no interest in anything and no way to escape (Bukowski, 2008, p.174). He is reduced to a shell of his dreamer self and believe to be a failure for the entire life. His thoughts of despair and desperations are seemed to be remedied by his escapism approach.
Tragedy can spread. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is the protagonist, however he not the only person in the play who’s story ends tragically. His view on life spreads to those close to him. Primarily, Willy teaches it to his children who look up to him while his wife simply attaches herself to him, rooting for him in blind support while really she should be waking him up to the cold and dark reality that is their life. Throughout the play, the Loman family evolves differently.
In his seminal work, Death of A Salesman, Arthur Miller portrays wretched conditions inflicting the lives of lower class people amid class-struggle in 1940s America. Miller sets the story during the great financial depression in the US , in between times after World War I and around World War II, though his characters hardly speak about the trauma of two World Wars. Miller earns an enormous success by putting an ordinary salesman as the protagonist in his play instead of putting a man of social nobility. In the play, Miller depicts his central character, Willy Loman as a destitute salesman struggling to rise up the social ladder in a capitalist society, who remains deluded by a 'dream of success ' and takes on a relentless pursuit of happiness that eventually brings his tragic demise. Though some critics speak in favor of the popular account of the cause of his death being his excessive obsession with so called the American dream and the 'capitalist oppression ' ; however, many still refuse to ascribe the cause of his death to capitalist oppression, which I will use synonymously with American dream here.
His willful hopefulness and exaggerated expectations betray him in the end by rendering him incapable of accepting himself or his children for who they are (Nadine). In this play, Willy would be a representation of failure to the American dream. Willy believes that personality, not hard work and innovation, is the key to success. Throughout time, Willy wants to make sure his boys are well-liked and popular. In the story Willy has said,” You and Hap and I, and I’ll show you all the towns.
