Salesman American Dream

The classic “American Dream” is having a successful, equal, and comfortable lifestyle with a good paying job. If one has money, has what they need to survive, and are equal in society, they can live a happy life or “American Dream”. Many characters in the play, Death of a Salesman, have their version of the “Dream”. One particular has their version but takes it way too far. This character never really achieves the “dream” because he physically never there to see it. His loved ones are left hurt and the same people he failed to spend more time with. He got too caught in the “dream” of being wealthy and forgot what was really important, his family. Willy Loman is the father of two sons named Happy and Biff and he has a loving wife named Linda.

However, he starts to lose his mind a bit because he’s too obsessed about being the perfect salesman. “WILLY: [with pity and resolve]: I’ll see him in the morning; I’ll have a nice talk with him. I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time”,(Act 1,Scene 1). He is so sure that their family can be successful in business and even says he would find Biff a job in selling. Biff is actually an outdoors man and doesn’t feel he can be happy being a salesman and Willy is stuck in the illusion that he was meant to be a salesman. WILLY: What’s the mystery? The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!” (Act 1, Scene 1). Willy thinks success is easy because his brother Ben had it easy. Ben influenced his brother Willy about being successful when he walked into the

Willy died when he committed suicide, so his family could get the insurance money because he felt he would never be successful. He heard Biff tell him that he loved him and he felt happy but thought the only way his family could be happy was if they had enough money to live comfortably. He didn’t realize that his family needing him around was more important to them then the amount of money he brought home. “WILLY: You wait, kid, before it’s all over we’re going to get a little place out in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens…LINDA: You’ll do it yet, dear”, (Act 2). Willy has a feeling that his selling won’t do well, so in order to avoid the fact that he is failing at being a salesman. He is trying to find another way in which they could be successful but they never end up doing it. “BIFF: He walked away. I saw him for one minute. I got so mad I could’ve torn the walls down! How the hell did I ever get the idea I was a salesman there? I even believed myself that I’d been a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and—I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been. We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years. I was a shipping clerk” (Act 2). Biff realizes that he’s not cut out to be a salesman and was pretending he could be. His real “American Dream” was to work as a shipping clerk and not have to wear a suit. “BIFF: He had the wrong