Everyone wants to live the American Dream, the ideology that everyone living in the United States should have equal opportunity to achieve success if hard work is put in. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy tries to live the American Dream but can 't achieve it. He works as an unsuccessful salesman who always looks to his past mistakes and tries to live someone else 's life rather than his own. Instead of putting in hard work to achieve success, Willy thinks that popularity is all that 's needed to achieve the American Dream. As most of the play takes place in Willy 's past memories, different motifs always introduce Willy in a scene or when Biff steals Bill Oliver 's pen, which shows that Willy has raised Biff to become a person with little moral values because of Willy 's idea that success is based on popularity. Throughout the play, music and theft are used as motifs to show Willy 's failures. The flute is the first and last sound that is heard in the book. It 's used as auditory imagery to connect Willy to his vague memory of his father, a flute-maker and successful salesman. When Willy is young, his father abandons him. The flute is used to symbolize Willy 's father 's desertion of him, when Willy has had happier times in the past. In the very first line of the book, "A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon" (11). The flute is the "theme song" for Willy, which plays whenever one of Willy 's