Death Of A Salesman Literary Lens Essay

Resilience in Death of the Salesman using Literary Lenses Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman consists of several themes which include the American dream. Throughout the play it is shown that there are many literary lenses that relate to the major themes which are gender lenses, biographical/historical lens and psychological lens. The American dream focuses majority on a promise or assurance that a person can be anything or achieve anything if they focus on it. Throughout the play it shows the successes and failures associated with achieving the American dream, mainly focusing on the reality of achieving these set goals. Willy Loman is a resilient character for “his idea” of what the American dream looks like. Resilience is defined by the

When perceiving Death of a Salesman with a gender lens, Willy and Linda’s relationship throughout the play becomes very noticeable. A direct quote from the play that helps understand their relationship is “Let me help you take off your shoes; untie your shoestrings, take off your cufflinks; what you want to eat boo, let me feed you.” (Miller ?) This quotation shows that Linda is the definition of a “good wife” even if her husband treats her horribly. Linda looks after her husband's emotional needs first before hers and she will always strive to make him happy even if she is not. Even with all the things that she does for him he still cheated on her with some women for comfort when he could have leaned on his wife who was his biggest supporter. The gender roles in this play are not equal and this is shown multiple times throughout the play. This relates back to resilience because Linda is shown as resilient because she keeps supporting her husband's delusions. Though they are husband and wife it seems that it is more of a master and a servant relationship and not an equal

Willy Loman was a troubled man who didn't have respect for his wife and degraded his children every chance he got when it came to their failures, especially with his son Biff. He only cared about achieving the American dream which he did not succeed because of all his problems that stood in his way. His constant obsession with achieving the American dream only made his family distance themselves from him more only due to the fact that he believed that achieving this would lead him to happiness and success. This also leads to the other major theme which is resilience. Willy came from a poor socioeconomic background and he is making all the efforts to pull himself out of his current situation through whatever he can do in hopes for something better that will make him feel like he's achieved his