Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller And Walter Younger

Walters idea of an “american dream” is to have everything. He wants his family to have the best of everything. Walter works hard everyday as a chauffeur for a rich white man. He has strong work ethics and works extremely hard. Mr. Younger wants to earn as much money as he can because he believes it will bring his family peacefulness and happiness. Mr. Younger’s main goal is to have money and he dreams up so many different ways to make money that he is sometimes overwhelms himself. He doesn’t want to think about reality and how things really are. He only concentrates on the future. Even though he knows in the back of

Through her character Walter Younger, Hansberry created a real example of Black America's struggle to reach the American Dream. Walter’s Dream was to invest in a liquor store. He was going to achieve this dream by asking his mother to take the check and invest in the liquor store. His dream was deferred because his mother already made a choice on making a down payment on a house. Walter says “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE LISTEN TO ME TODAY” (p.70). It shows that nobody wants to take the time to listen to what he thinks or wants to do.To him he’s trying to find a way to get the family out of poverty. Walter’s American Dream of getting out of the Chicago ghetto was also deferred because he isn’t making enough money on his own to invest into

. There are many obstacles in the way of Walter's dream of opening a liquor store, as he tries to explain to his wife, Ruth, about what he has to do, "Baby, don't nothing happen for you in this world ‘less you pay somebody off!"(Hansberry 33) Walter's determination to open the liquor store can be viewed as means to an end to his family's hardships.

No matter how hard they try, there are some people who cannot get ahead in life. Walter Lee Younger is a man who is frustrated with his current position in life, and every disappointment he has encountered thus far. Although he tries to be a loving man, sometimes he does not know how to show the idea of love, 'Sometimes...sometimes...I don't even know how to try' (Hansberry 89). His position in life can be regarded as symbolic of every black male struggling to provide for his family by any means necessary. Although Walter has a job, it seems inadequate for his survival. As a result, he has become frustrated and lacks good judgement. Throughout this play Walter searches

Walter asserting his manhood against his mother’s matriarchal dominance can be seen as the principal conflict in Hansberry’s work. Walter’s mother in settled in her traditional and old schools ways and views masculinity as a life-affirming Black tradition, whereas Walter equates manhood and masculinity with how much money one has and being his family’s sole provider. When Walter’s father died his mother received $10,000 in life insurance payments. She takes a portion of the money and uses it to purchase a house in a well-established suburban white neighborhood. In terms of the remaining money, Walter wanted to invest in a liquor store. After much persuading, Mama finally gives in and gives Walter the rest of the money. When the investment goes belly up Walter loses all the money. His attempt to establish his manhood ironically made him

“May I never wake up from the American dream.” Carrie Latet describes the most sought after dream: the dream of a house surrounded by a white picket fence, the dream people work their entire lives for, the dream people fight wars for: the American dream. However, America’s rise to industrialism in the 19th and 20th centuries replaced this dream with the desire to get rich fast. This change led people to believe that it is possible, common even, to obtain wealth rapidly; yet this is not the case. Sometimes, when an individual is unable to acquire such extreme wealth, he create a sense of false reality for himself, his common sense is blurred, and he sees opportunities where there are none. Characters Walter Lee Younger and Willy Loman are

Compare and contrast the ways in which the American Dream is presented through Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘ A Raisin in the Sun’ and Willy Lehman in Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of the Salesman’

Walter's frustration festers and his anger turns inward towards his family who, in Walters eyes, do not understand him. Walter's family members do understand him and they also want to amass material dreams, but Walter's family members know that it is going to take work to get there.

As Richard Wright tries to fight his way to the North, his American Dream is never a matter of money. Richard is looking for a place where racism is less prominent, and he will have more freedom. In Black Boy, Richard perfectly fits James Truslow Adam’s definition of the American Dream which he defined as, “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” Every action Richard takes is to get him one step closer to that land where life is better. Richard said, “I

Since the beginning of its time, America has set a global standard for offering chances at prosperity and career opportunities for qualified adults. Its people have been implicating the idea of the “American Dream” into its culture for many years and has become widely recognized by individuals all across the world. People pack up their lives and families to travel to American soil to try at a chance of a better life, and in doing so, they too venture on a path to achieving this so commonly understood “American Dream.” Arthur Miller, a well-known literary writer in America, seems to disagree with this national phenomena, offering a different view in his play Death of a Salesman. In this play, he demonstrates through the life of an average

(page 45-46)” In the first act alone, the audience is shown the great disparities between the American dream for a white man and the American dream for people of color. However, now with this insurance money from Big Walter’s death, there is a chance of someone their dream, the problem that the Younger’s face is which someone should get to use the money. Beneatha needs it for college to become a doctor, Walter needs it to invest in a liquor store so he can finally “be somebody.” But Mama wants to use that money to buy a house. She wants to leave their current rented apartment and she wants a nice house in the suburbs where she could have a garden and “with a yard where Travis could play in the summer. (page 44)” Mama believes that a change of scenery is what the family needs and that it will bring them back together. These three characters have the most conflicting wants for the

He is envious of the people in the establishment who can afford a higher standard of life, while he is stuck in a two room kitchen apartment, where they must share one bathroom with rest of the floormates. Walter hate seeing man around his age or even younger than him having such a lavish lifestyle because he believes that he would gotten the same type of opportunity if it was not for the color of his skin. Seeing his conversations with his mom, the readers can see that Walter feels that he is hopeless in the American

His opportunities are, of course, limited by the discrimination present in the era. The poem “Dream Deferred” includes the following: “We remember the job we never had, /Never could get, /And can’t have now Because we’re colored” (Hughes 689). These lines indicate that racism was a widespread problem in this time period. When Mama comments on Walter’s job as a chauffeur, he responds, “A job. Mama, a job? I open and close car doors all day long” (Hansberry 833). This response indicates his aspirations to achieve more meaningful tasks, such as becoming a businessman. Walter’s viewpoint on the outlook of his current job is one of disappointment, as he tells Mama, “The future, Mama. Hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me-a big, looming blank space-full of nothing.” (Hansberry 833). His point is that he believes he needs to explore other careers as there is no room for advancement in his current occupation. Walter’s family understands how he feels about his current situation, however they do nothing to help him improve it, “His sense of being trapped by his situation—class, race, job, prospects, education—transfers to his family, who become to him not fellow prisoners but complacent jailers.” (Weales 16). He is constantly being reminded of his limitations by his family members who believe that staying in his current line of work is what is best for the family, for finding a secure position was difficult for minorities in the time period. Walter’s motivation behind his decision is his desire to provide a better life for his family. After Mama rejects his idea to invest in a liquor store, Walter tells Mama, “Well you tell that to my boy tonight when you put him to sleep on the living-room couch. . .” (Hansberry 832). Walter’s angry remark to Mama proves his intentions are for this liquor store to enable him to allow Travis choose the

What is the correct definition of tragedy anyways? Many people would define tragedy as a disaster, but according to the book The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre by Martin Banham, the word tragedy is “a word whose meaning changes with time and place” (1002). In Medieval times, “tragedy came to mean the downfall of a person of high degree” (Banham 1002), but in recent times, the meaning of the word tragedy has many definitions. According to Banham, “realists refused to limit tragedy to privileged protagonists” (1002). Two famous tragic plays that I found to have a genre of tragedy are Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. In both of these plays, the downfall was not of a person of high degree but there was a

Death of a Salesman can be described as modern tragedy portraying the remaining days in the life of Willy Loman. This story is very complex, not only because of it’s use of past and present, but because of Willy’s lies that have continued to spiral out of control throughout his life. Arthur Miller puts a modern twist on Aristotle’s definition of ancient Greek tragedy when Willy Loman’s life story directly identifies the fatal flaw of the “American Dream”.