Willy Loman's American Dream

Willy Loman and His American Dream When people think of the American Dream, they think of the promise of opportunity, success, and prosperity no matter the class you are born into. In Death of a Salesman, Willy’s idea of the American Dream spawns off of the dream of business success through salesmanship. Harold Clurman, a drama critic of The Nation, describes salesmanship as a fraudulent, post WWI version of the American Dream; “Instead of the ideals of hard work and courage, we have salesmanship.” (Clurman. 213). While raising his children, Willy instills the idea that success will be handed to them simply for being well liked. In the play, Willy Loman’s commitment to providing his family with his idea of the ‘American Dream’ shows how

Willy had the mindset that “…the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do… It’s who you know and the smile on your face.” which he passed down to his son, Biff (Miller. 86). This ideal that he placed on his son was not the American Dream, rather his own version- which became known as the Salesmanship Dream. He prepared his son for being a salesman, but Biff wasn’t interested in being a salesman. Due to this, Biff states that “(he) never got anywhere because (Willy) blew (him) so full of hot air (he) could never stand taking orders from anybody” (Miller. 131). Willy’s pursuit to set Biff up for the perfect life ended up destroying the things essential for him to keep a job and ultimately caused resentment between him and Willy. His life was stolen from him through these expectation and ideals he grew up hearing, and when he realized that’s not who he was- he’s not a salesman made for the office- the resentment grew and ultimately destroyed the family and led to Willy’s suicide. In contrary, Happy grew up trying to impress Willy; he became what Willy always wanted from Biff, and ultimately lost himself in the image he put up to satisfy his