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Dream Vs Reality In Death Of A Salesman

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Recommended: Briefly comment on the character of willy loman

Great fortune. Freedom. Happiness. Passion. No worries. A dream is what people look forward to every day. Dreams allow one to achieve a goal, such as to have a family, and being able to provide for them. Dreams are necessary for setting a goal for the reality of our future, making a better life. In Death of a Salesman, Willy, a father and husband is living in a dream that he is able to provide for his family, and has a successful life. He is living the exact opposite. Biff is the favorite son to Willy, lost and not sure how to become successful, struggling to find himself. In his play, Arthur Miller portrays to his audience, that sometimes dreaming can be a hindrance to one 's life, by asking the question: At what point does someone live a …show more content…

Reality, suggesting that it is likely for someone to follow a dream so intensely, that it blinds their reality. This is shown especially when the audience sees that Willy gets fired because he was tired, and there was no more room for him, and starts talking to Charley: Charley: “Howard fired you?” Willy: “That snotnose. Imagine that? I named him Howard”(97). Instead of accepting the reason Howard fired him, Willy thought that because he named him, Howard supposedly owed him something. Willy has the dream that if you can do one good deed for another, they automatically owe you. Willy seems to be jealous of Charley because he doesn’t understand how he can be successful when, in his eyes, he isn’t living the right dream, but seems to still go to him when he needs money. He also is refusing to see his reality, hoping that he will still be keeping his job, by refusing the job Charley offered him: Charley: “Why don 't you want to work for me?” Willy: I’ve got a job”(96). Even though shortly after got done telling Charley how he lost his job, he was still refusing to take his offer. This is showing how a dream is a release for Willy, to forget about his stresses of getting fired. Rather than accepting these facts, he ignores them by refusing Charley’s offer. He continues living this false reality which only causes him more stress, because he’s unaware of what’s really going

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Willy's logical inconsistencies brings confusion towards the audience itself toward the start of the play; in any case, they soon turn into a characteristic of himself. Willy's conflicting conduct is the after effect of his powerlessness to acknowledge reality and his propensity to control or re-make the past trying to get away from the present. For instance, Willy can't leave himself to the way that Biff never again regards him on account of Willy's affair with another woman. As opposed to concede that their relationship is irreparable, Willy retreats to a past time when Biff appreciated and regarded him. As the play goes on, Willy disassociates himself more from the present as his issues turn out to be excessively too much, making them impossible to manage.

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Charley’s humility leads to his success, and the contrast of these two characters highlights Willy’s arrogance and impracticality. Charley is humble, realistic, and knowledgeable. His self-confidence allows him to live a happy life without needing to boast. In contrast, Willy constantly brags about his life to boost his self-image. Furthermore, he criticizes others to feel better about himself which comes as a result of his jealousy and insecurity.

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He wanted to be successful so badly, that when he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. When Willy was younger, he had great connections in the areas he would sell. The people respected him and he took great pride in the fact that his name held value with those people. However, as he aged, so did the people he used to sell to. When he isn’t able to make the amount of sales he used to, he doesn’t know

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We learn that Willy is a salesman, who is has only had minor success. Willy blames this on the fact that he is not well liked. In the beginning of the play Willy has had a car accident and his wife Linda wants him to ask his boss if he can work only in New York instead of having to travel. When we see Willy in a flashback he appears to be happy and affectionate with his sons, who seem to return the affection.

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Willy is a victim of the seductive but misleading attraction of the American Dream, which drives him to pursue success and adulation at any cost. However, the fact that his job is going nowhere and that his goals aren't being met leads to feelings of hopelessness and disappointment. On the other hand, Hardy's soldier in "The Man He Killed" goes through an analogous struggle within himself. In spite of the fact that he is obligated to the military and has been conditioned by the experience of war, the humanistic side of him emerges when he thinks back on the life of the guy he killed and imagines him as a friend in a different setting. This internal conflict that both characters go through helps to humanize them, making them more approachable to the reader while also highlighting the personal strain that arises from societal and occupational

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If Willy had altered his dreams and tried to actually work for them then he would have been satisfied and

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WILLY: I got a job, I told you that. [After a slight pause] What the hell are you offering me a job for? CHARLEY: Don’t get insulted. WILLY:

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She would rather cater to Willy’s unrealistic daydream, or tolerate his temper and arrogance, than face the possibility of losing

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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.

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Ana Oceguera 12. 19. 16 AP English Death of a Salesman Character Compare and Contrast     In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the audience follows the dynamic between the members of the Loman family. The father of the family, Willy Loman is a self-deluded traveling salesman whose dreams of success do not match his reality. Prompted by his frustration due to the discrepancy between his unrealistically ambitious expectations and his reality, we watch as his mental health takes a turn for the worse,  and his story eventually ends in suicide.

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A dream can be defined as a strong desired goal or purpose that a person has. Many people have a dream that they want to accomplish in life, but never get the chance to do it. People are either too busy with work, a family, or they do not have the money to start their dream. Today people see others accomplish their dreams all the time on TV shows like The Voice, Master Chef, and American Idol. The novel Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck shows that during the Great Depression dreams were desired, but very hard to attain.

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What does it mean to dream? Well, I believe dreams will always remain a mystery of phenomenons that science will never be able to explain. However, we can interpret our dreams in many different aspects. Philosophers, such as Alan Watts, interpret dreams in an interesting way, such as it being an adventure (The Dream of Life). From this, I’d like to think of dreams as adventures for our minds; we’re subconsciously wandering to a new adventure every time we decide to rest our eyes.

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In doing so, they show the audience how each and everyone of them was slightly to blame for Willy’s tragic fate. Of Willy’s two sons, Happy is still infatuated with Willy’s dream. As he says, it’s the dream of being number one. Willy was never number one, nor did he ever really get close to being number one. In fact, for someone in Willy’s position this goal was quite impossible.

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This shows how willy can not admit his failure to his family. The main character Willy doesn’t want to show how deeply down he had fallen and is starting to lose hope on his

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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.

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