Consequences Of A Superficial Dream : Will Loman

In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s character, Willy Loman, is desperately trying to achieve the unattainable American Dream. Throughout the play, Willy encounters many challenges that have derailed his course and his perseverance drives him and his family insane.

In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman’s life seems to be slowly deteriorating. It is clear that Willy’s predicament is of his own doing, and that his own foolish pride and ignorance lead to his downfall. Willy’s self-destruction involved the uniting of several aspects of his life and his lack of grasping reality in each, consisting of, his relationship with his wife, his relationship and manner in which he brought up his children, Biff and Happy, and lastly his inability to productively earn a living and in doing so, failure to achieve his “American Dream”.

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the author conveys the reader about how a person lives his life when he or she cannot live the “American Dream.” Willy Loman, the main character in the play is a confused and tragic character. He is a man who is struggling to hold onto what morality he has left in a changing society that no longer values the ideals he grew up to believe in. Even though the society he lives in can be blamed for much of his misfortune, he must also be the blame for his bad judgment, disloyalty and his foolish pride.

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is the well-developed protagonist of the story. Willy struggles throughout the story with daydreams and delusions that he confuses with reality. These delusions have a huge effect on the story and greatly impact Willy’s life. Willy has a difficult time keeping his bills paid with his job as a traveling salesman. He works long hours and drives long distances for very little success. His delusions cause him to believe that his work is successful when it is far from it. “Willy is self-deluded, believing wholeheartedly in the American Dream of success and wealth. When he fails to achieve this, he commits suicide—yet until the end he never stopped believing in this American Dream” (Sickels).

The play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, takes issue with those in America who place too much stress upon material gain, at the expense of other, more admirable human values. Miller uses flashbacks to provide exposition, to foreshadow the upcoming tragedy, and most importantly to reveal character traits. An analysis of the main character, Willy Loman, illustrates the underlying theme that the concern over material success breaks down the bonds between men that form the basis of a smooth-functioning society.

Throughout the whole play the only thing Willy Loman would act upon being his need to fulfill what he thought the “American Dream” was in society. He based his whole life around the concept that being successful only comes if you’re well liked by everyone: (Quote). In a way that is true, due to the fact that people who are well liked tended to have it easier in life. Willy wants to influence his family’s lives with his strong belief. Therefore,

In the play, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller establishes Charley, a humble and successful salesman as the foil to Willy Loman, a prideful and arrogant man. Charley is the perfect character to help depict Willy’s flaws. Although the two contrast with each other, their characteristics help maintain a balance between them. Willy Loman lives in his own world, where he believes that in order to be successful, one must be well liked with a great appearance. “The man who makes an appearance…is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 1568). These are obvious words from Willy which proves that he does not believe in hard work. He instills within both of his children that looks and personality are all that matters. The characteristics of Willy allow us to grasp the idea that he lives within a false reality. He is a man living within a child’s fantasy based off of the life of Dave Singleman. The very words he spoke against his neighbor Charley and his son, Bernard, are the very words that prove him wrong.

“Death of a Salesman “ by Arthur Miller is interpreted differently by many people.  In the critical review titled “Family Values in Death of a Salesman” by Steve R. Centola, he characterizes Death of the Salesman as am a modern tragedy. He draws more focus on the family core values and self-exert.  In his analysis, he states that as the humans try to be competitive, they have dehumanized the American dream and have turned it into an urban nightmare. He claims that the author simply tells a story of a dying man who wants to justify the purpose of his life before he meets his death. He states that the consequences of his choices are a challenge he has to overcome to attain what he needs. Centola points out that through the realization of what Willy Loman values, it is easy to discover the reason for the conflict between him and Biff. He refers to Death of a Salesman as a tragedy of a human struggle that is rooted in the metaphysical and also based on the social and psychological concerns. He also asserts that by discussing the values of Willy Loman, readers will be able to identify the reasons behind Willy’s agenda to perform suicide.

Willy Loman is a senile salesman who lives a dull life with a depleting career. He has an estranged relationship with his family and believes in the American Dream of effortless success and affluence, but in no way accomplishes it. Feeling like the aim of life is to be favored by others and gaining a materialistic fortune, Willy lives in a world of delusion where

Willy Loman, the central character in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, is a man whose fall from the top of the capitalistic totem pole results in a resounding crash, both literally and metaphorically. As a man immersed in the memories of the past and controlled by his fears of the future, Willy Loman views himself as a victim of bad luck, bearing little blame for his interminable pitfalls. However, it was not an ill-fated destiny that drove Willy to devastate his own life as well as the lives of those he loved; it was his distorted set of values.

Willy Loman is the main character of the play, Death of a Salesman. He has been an unsuccessful traveling salesman for the Wagner Company most of his life. The protagonist has lived his life trying to pursue one thing, the American Dream, and as an outcome he lives in a fantasy world he has created and spends his whole life lying to not only himself but his family too, about his success with being well liked, a salesman and a husband/father. “America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down the streets of New England….’cause one thing, boys: I have friends.” (Miller Act I: 31) one of Lomans biggest delusions is that he is well liked in everytown he visits, this branches from his

The lives of the Loman’s from beginning to end seems troubling, the play is centered on trying to be successful or trying to be happy, and the sacrifice which must be made of one to achieve the other. The environment that these characters live in encourages them to pursue the American dream, which can be said to devalue happiness through the pursuit of material success. Death of A Salesman written by Arthur Miller has several themes that run through the play, one of the most obvious is the constant striving for success. Willy Loman put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. Willy, Biff, and Happy are chasing the American dream instead of examining themselves

In Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, Willy Loman acts as a tragic figure and as an instrument of the suffering of those around him, namely his family, because of his unreasonable expectations for himself and his family, his inability to acknowledge his weaknesses, and his dishonesty towards his family. Willy Loman acts as a tragic figure mainly because of the unreasonable expectations he sets for himself. Specifically, Loman believes that the only way to be successful is to be liked: “Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people” (Act 2)? However, Willy Loman is relatively unheard of in the business world, so despite making ends meet for his family, he sees himself as having failed. These expectations are placed on the shoulders of Willy Loman’s two sons as well, and in the case of Biff Loman, it blinded Willy from seeing the reality of the situation: “

In Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman was an older man who had spent his whole life as a traveling salesman. Willy was a man who believed that in order for a person to be successful, the person only has to be well liked. If a person is well liked, then nothing else really matters. Willy had recently received a cancellation of his salary, and was working on commission alone, which was not making ends meet. Every where Willy turned there were financial issues that could not be solved. Willy also began to have problems with his sanity. After several years of poor sales, and after requesting a local job, Willy was fired. At that point, Willy was devastated. Suddenly Willy realized what he needed to do to make thing right in his eyes. Willy said, "You work all your life and you end up worth more dead than alive", so he decided to commit suicide. By dying, the insurance would pay twenty thousand dollars

In the Death of a Salesman, the main character and father, Willy Loman, struggles to prove his self-worth as a businessman his entire life. All he cares for are his burning internal desires to be the best salesman Boston has ever seen. The start of his passion was the work of his father as “he went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he's rich!” No words impacted Willy’s life more than this line alone.