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Essay Comparing Willy Loman And A Raisin In The Sun

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Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun Individuals change their way of attitude, thoughts, beliefs, or perception to fit in with the group they want to belong whose approval they desire or individual expect something in return such as needing that what was promised did not happen. In both Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the authors display the unrealistic dreams of the tragic characters, Willy Loman and Walter Lee Young, to convey the idea that idealized goals only lead to tragic consequences through the human cost of conformity and unfilled expectation. In Death of Salesman, Willy Loman reflects on his incompetence to communicate effectively, comparing himself to Charley. Willy began …show more content…

He’s a man of few words, and they respect him” (Miller 37). Willy’s musing reveals his insecurities and frustration about his communication skills with others. He is self-aware that he talks too much and contrasts himself with his friend, Charley, who is taciturn. This quote reveals Willy’s desire to be seen as authoritative and respected like Charley, but his inability to control his babbling, which undermines his self-image as a successful salesman. The author utilizes this contrast to show Willy’s goal of business requires him to be serious, but he can not help that because he is chatty. Throughout the novel, Arthur Miller continues to show Willy Loman trying to impress groups of businessmen by being bright and funny. In the novel, Miller reflects on the discernable invincibility of an impressive and well-liked man and underscores the struggle for recognition in Willy Loman’s world. Willy reveals his thoughts when he talks to Charley after he got fired, “I’ve always tried to think otherwise, I guess. I always felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing-” (Miller 97). This statement sums up a common belief in Willy’s society, where charisma and popularity are equally important with success and immunity from

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In this he is being rude and disrespectful to Ruth by assuming that she doesn’t care about him, their son, or the way they live anymore. Both characters in the stories fail to become rich and known. In the Death of a Salesman Willy didn’t make a lot of money with his job. In one part of the play he is talking to Charley, he is a different person who is offering Willy a job. In the text it

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Instead, Tack chases the path that makes him more accepted and this prevents him from uncovering his hidden potential. Similarly, in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” Willy Loman desires this same approval and acceptance. Willy, having grown up without a father figure, is extremely doubtful of his parenting and admits that, “[he is] afraid [he is] not teaching [Biff and Happy] the right [values]” (Miller 52). Due to his own insecurity in his parenting ability, Willy turns to Ben for approval and asks him “how [he] should teach [Biff and Happy]” (Miller 52). By continually looking for Ben’s approval, Willy limits his abilities and fails to be an adequate parent for Happy and Biff.

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“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. ¬¬¬¬Both Charley and Willy work as salesmen, however Charley represents what Willy desired to become – successful.

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The Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun both portrays the difficulties that two different families faced. The family in the first play was your typical white family while in the second play they were your typical African American family. Although the two plays have many similarities in the characters, there are also many differences between them. The mothers of the two stories were both similar but also different in many ways.

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Lorraine Hansberry and Arthur Miller are both remarkable authors who wrote similar plays. They both wrote about the same main idea which is the American dream. Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, which follows the life of a poor family and a son who wants to do anything he can to get out of poverty. Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, a play about a man’s journey to achieve the American dream. Both plays have main characters that are so driven by money alone.

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In “Death of a Salesman” Charley, Willy Loman’s neighbor, seems to be one of the only characters who is emotionally and financially stable and sure of his life and the choices he has made. Charley serves as a foil for Willy, especially in this passage, in which Charley comes to Willy’s house at night seeing as Willy is also having trouble sleeping. His intentions are to lend some comfort to his neighbor and distract him with a game of cards. Charley (later revealed outside this excerpt) is Willy’s only friend and Willy borrows money from him a lot. He is aware of Willy’s failure and though he is not particularly fond of Willy’s erratic and defensive behavior.

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Charlotte wilson Mr. Jacobs American Literature Honors March 25th, 2023 The Demise of the Working Class Through the Idea of Reminiscence A common theme between the two plays, The Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun, written by playwrights Arthur Miller and Lorraine Hansberry utilizes the literary device of reminiscence, specifically to show how the characters are unsatisfied with the life they have, leading them to escape their emotions through the reminiscence of their imagination to exemplify the working class greed leading to an ultimate downfall within 1950s American society. Willy Loman, the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, faces many obstacles in his pursuit of success which ultimately leads him to become unhinged and reminiscent

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Willy tries to make himself feel better by lying to himself. Although Willy’s death is unfortunate, if one closely examines his pride, bad temper, and his lies, one can see that these flaws will eventually bring him to his demise. Throughout the play, Willy demonstrates his sense of pride while talking to his family and friends. In this quote one can

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It focus on Walter how the theme related to him. In the play Death of a Salesman theme was Willy fantasy going wild and when Lindy walked in Willy fantasy world ended. In the play it explain both characters similarities between Walter and Willy are hard worker provided for their family. Between Death of a Salesman and a Raisin in the Sun they have different plot scenes throughout the play, in a Raisin in the Sun have their up and downs in play but in Death of a Salesman have down fall in the end.

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This hurt him in many ways because it prevented him from seeing the truth about himself, which would end up isolating him from his family. In the play, Willy’s own son told him that he was nothing special, and he was just an average man; Willy angrily replied, “I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Lowman,” (Miller 105). This moment explains the problems with Willy’s obsession of appearing perfect, because he pushed away his family who is trying to tell him the truth over a lie he told himself years ago. Since he refuse to acknowledge the truth, Willy begins to reminisce his ‘glory’ days and as a result felt he had nothing left to give towards the end of his life.

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In the play the play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, the protagonist Willy Loman lives a great majority of his life in vain. In the waning pages of the play and his life, his jealous of Charley becomes clear. He spent a lifetime filling himself and his children full of hot air, and as a result none of them knew how to handle life. Biff and Happy were considered to be failures, but Charley’s son, Bernard, grew to be acclaimed on an national level after a childhood of degrading. Willy’s envy becomes apparent on page 92, where he says to Bernard, “What -- what’s the secret?

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Willy Loman has filled that role relatively adequately his whole life, though in his old age he is less successful than he was in his prime, and is eventually fired. Before losing his job he is shown to be insecure about his ability as a salesman, but employs false confidence to overcompensate and hide it. This exemplifies the classic stereotype of men as stoic, which has become a staple of masculinity, contrasting the role of women, who must allow themselves to be emotional in order to be conducive to social reproduction. It is evident from this bravado that Willy has understands the link between success in the workplace and masculinity, and has internalized the idea that he must achieve them in order to be a worthwhile person. Of course, we later learn that he has decided his attempts to do so were failures, as his commits suicide in the final act of the

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He talks about these traits as being most important in order to achieve success in America. Miller implements this quote into the play in order to show what Willy’s version of the dream is. Willy also thinks there is a key or a formula to success, as when he sees Uncle Ben, he asks “Oh, Ben, how did you do it? What is the answer?”. (Miller, ).

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In the play, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller suggests that one’s mindset has a significant impact on the amount of success people have in the world. Miller is able to communicate this by using assertions, symbolism, and inductions.     The main character of Miller’s play, Willy,  is seen as a very arrogant man who is full of character. While this arrogance allows Willy to continuously work hard at his job, it also blindsides him into believing that being nice is all that it takes to be successful. Charley, tries to point this out to Willy by alluding to J.P Morgan “in a Turkish bath he’d look like a butcher.

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He is a salesman, and to make him even more unremarkable, Miller never even mentions what Willy sells. What makes this unremarkable “common man” a tragic hero however, is his tragic flaw: delusion. Willy is a failure by his own definition, and as much as he doesn’t want to, he can’t help but constantly question everything about himself, and to cover this up he distorts the reality he experiences and lies to himself. Through these distortions and lies we can see the problems that Willy finds within himself, and we can see the suffering that has come to Willy through his dysfunctional world-views and

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