Death of a Salesman Compared to the Great Gatsby Essay

People from all around the world have dreamed of coming to America and building a successful life for themselves. The "American Dream" is the idea that, through hard work and perseverance, the sky is the limit in terms of financial success and a reliable future. While everyone has a different interpretation of the "American Dream," some people use it as an excuse to justify their own greed and selfish desires. Two respected works of modern American literature, The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, give us insight into how the individual interpretation and pursuit of the "American Dream" can produce tragic

In both, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the main characters Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman manifest themselves in their illusions of success and popularity and are unable to face their bitter realities. Within both texts, this idea of false perceived success is portrayed. First, the character Gatsby creates an illusion of success by lying about his source of wealth. He does not want anyone to realize that he is not actually successful and has relied on illegal business in order to achieve the idea of wealth in the American Dream. This is evident when Tom Buchanan investigates Gatsby’s mysterious wealth and says:

Gatsby is reaching out toward the “green light,” this never-ending dream of hopelessness. We see these unsteady ideas of the unrealistic life Gatsby is trying to grasp that would eventually lead

The American Dream is a sought after idea sold to Americans and immigrants alike. It promises the opportunity to create a better future for oneself. So long as said individual works hard it promises a happy ending. Arthur Miller reveals the reality of the American Dream in his play Death of a Salesman through the life of Willy Loman and his family. Willy represents the primary target audience as a working class man providing for his family. His pride causes him to be two steps behind in his life-long quest to achieve the American Dream and his family inherit his failures in their own individual quests.

Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman are both American men in pursuit of the American Dream which is, to acquire wealth, success, and prestige. This quest for money drives modern-day America, but behind our perpetual urge to consume and possess lays a grim motive. It is human awareness of mortality and the subsequent desire to prove we are special and somehow resistant to death that fuels the longing for wealth and possessions. The belief in money and materialism have come to be the primary goal for individuals during this time. Even though we know everyone will eventually die, we strive to attain enough money and objects so that we might be the exception, or at least,

The American dream originated when immigrants came to America searching for new opportunities and a better life. In the early 1900’s all people could do is dream; however, those dreams gave many different meanings to the phrase “American dream”, and for the most part, wealth and hard work play a very large role in the pursuit of “the dream”. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, and Arthur Miller’s drama, Death of a Salesman, both protagonists, Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, are convinced that the way to achieve a better life is by living the “American dream”. However, the dream does not end up successfully for these two characters. In fact, their ideals and hopes of rising to success cause their American dream to take a turn into

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald published what is considered to be his most popular novel, The Great Gatsby. Almost thirty years later, Arthur Miller released his play Death of a Salesman in 1949. One of the greatest similarities between these seemingly different works is how their authors portray the American Dream. The American dream, according to author and historian James Truslow Adams, is “…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” In Death of a Salesman and The Great Gatsby, Miller and Fitzgerald create a critic of the American Dream through the protagonist’s dreams, lies, and their fascination with the past, factors that led to their demise, and then use their protagonists to create a critic on modern day American society.

Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, and Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, both tell the stories of men in the costly pursuit of the American dream. As a result of several conflicts, both external and internal, both characters experience an extinction of the one thing that they have set their sights on.... The American Dream.

What is your idea of the American Dream? A good job? A family? A nice house? The American Dream means many different things to many different people. The American Dream is represented in these three novels through the ideas of hard work, overcoming obstacles through intelligence and resources, and that a dream cannot be possible if you miss your opportunity. The American Dream is the perfect life in which you have everything you could ever want in your hands. Unfortunately, not all achieve this dream. It requires hard work, intelligence, using your resources, or catching your opportunities when they arise. All of these ideas are represented in “Of Mice and Men”, “Death of a Salesman”, and “The Great Gatsby”.

"Dreams are the touchstones of our characters." This famous quote by Henry David Thoreau represents how the dreams of an individual define his or her life, whether it be in their characteristics or in their lifestyle choices. This statement is prevalent in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman as well as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Both the novel and play express this ideal through the use of theme and characterization. Specifically, both depict the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’, with its inevitable failure in each literary work.

Within these two stories, The Great Gatsby and The Death of a Salesman, there are numerous similarities and differences amongst the protagonist characters in the stories: Jay Gatsby, a well-off, aristocratic man who throws immense parties in order to satisfy his desires of finding the girl and Willy, a father who has flashbacks that distort his vision of the truth and his vision to success. The “American Dream” is the “dream” that all Americans are granted the same chance to attain their life goals whether is it success, a perfect family, or wealth through hard work, willpower, grit and initiative. These two men though, have dissimilar American Dreams. Willy’s dream is financial success for himself in addition to his children; on the other

After reading "The Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller and "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is clear that there are associations that can be made between the two novels. There are many ways in which the life of Willy Loman compares or contrasts with the life of Jay Gatsby. The most obvious and simplest comparison is their pursuit of the American Dream which leads to their ultimate downfall. Although, Willy and Gatsby contrast in the way they pursue the American dream, their stories are very similar because they show us that following this dream one 's entire life will eventually lead to one 's downfall.

Everyone has a dream of their desired future, they dream of the one thing that makes them happy that they do not have now. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman and Gatsby are characters dominated by an American dream that destroyed them. Their dream comes from a fantasy past. These dreams were made outside from who they truly are. Gatsby tried to repeat his past, while Willy attempted to create a new past. The lack of control over their goals and dreams lead to their downfall at the end. The two novels show the various points of the American dream; either to pursuit of happiness, or to pursuit of material wealth.

Death most certainly affects the person dying, but it also affects their surrounding loved ones. My grandfather’s death affected different individuals in my family differently. For instance, my younger siblings and cousins cried while they watched my grandfather struggle to sleep, while I “stayed strong” until my final goodbye. Twas the night before he died (January 1st), and no one was in the room except his body (in a coma) and I.

What’s the American Dream you ask? The American Dream can be different to anyone. We mostly hear about people wanting to get married, or have a car, a child, a decent job and even a beautiful house. Fitzgerald, the wrister of the Great Gatsby and Arthur, the writer of Death of a Salesman both portrayed The American Dream. In the Great Gatsby, Gatsby is a rich man that only wanted a few things in life such as, money, love and being noticed. Arthur Miller was a man who is a traveling salesman and he sees himself as a valuable salesman. Gatsbys American Dream was to have money and Daisys love. Arthur believed that hard work and innovation is the key to The American Dream. He wants to be well liked and popular just like