Happiness In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

The eyes of the reader are opened wide after reading Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor and applying it to a text. There are many elements in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman that go unrecognized by the normal reader. Using the tactics presented by Foster, one can realize that there is much meaning and symbolism in Death of a Salesman. The overall theme in Death of a Salesman is the American Dream and how many people of the time period were desperate to achieve it.

Most choices made these days are based off of the opinion of others. Fads are followed by throngs of people who hate to feel outcasted. People show off what they do just to be seen by others in order to make their mark on this world, but how public is too public in today’s society? Arthur Miller’s book Death of a Salesman is a perfect example of how the power fame dictates your life and affects your perception of how public is too public. Using The Loman Family, Arthur Miller dichotomizes their different personalities to show the varying negative and positive effects the greed of fame takes on a person.

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

People have different identities because they all make their own over the course of their lives. Identity development is the outcome of different experiences and situations people encounter throughout their lives. Views, beliefs, activities, and conflicts have an impact on how individuals form their identities. People go through life trying to recognize their character traits, the act of which leads them to their identities, but over time can lose the identities they have through society, through a marriage, or through one’s own self. Willy Loman, a delusional salesman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman; Minnie Wright, an unhappy and lonely housewife, in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles; and Oedipus, a king with excessive pride and

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, Miller probes the dream of Willy Lowman while making a statement about the dreams of American society. This essay will explore how each character of the play contributes to Willy's dream, success, and failure.

Unrealistically Cynical Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a tragic play giving details of the Loman family’s life. The father of the family, Willy Loman, strives to fulfill the idea of the American Dream despite the many struggles that are thrown at him and his family. Miller does a fantastic job of portraying the ups and downs of the family, including details of their day-to-day lives as well as their “out of the norm” experiences. Some have said that Miller’s writing is cynical and unrealistic, but is it really? The Loman family went through times of debt, had arguments, and experienced death, in my opinion, that does not seem very cynical or unrealistic at all.

Another flaw Wily shows signs of is pride. Willy’s pride is what dissuades other people from helping him. Stubbornness is not the best personality to have for the main character. Many characters before Wily live or die because of their overwhelming sense of self-importance. Pride can lead to situations where the characters cannot get out of a problem without the intervention of other characters. Most of the time other characters ask whether they should help the prideful person. In service of their overwhelming pride, the character turns down their request because the person thinks he or she can handle the problem by themselves. More importantly, the prideful character does not want to admit that he or she was wrong in the first place. These

Thomas Edison, an American inventor and businessman, says, "There is no substitute for hard work." In other words, Thomas Edison believes individuals cannot cheat the process of success to get to the top, they must work for it. In the play, "Death of a Salesman," the author, Arthur Miller, uses the narrative techniques of imagery, motifs, and symbolism to show how success and social acceptance can be deceptive for Willy Loman and his family. Willy Loman is a troubled, self-defrauding travelling salesman. He genuinely believes in the American Dream of easy success and prosperous wealth, but he cannot achieve it. Neither can his sons fulfill their dreams which Willy feels is a reflection on himself and his parenting skills and the values he

As though to recreate the connection in life, literature often shows the relationship between past events and a character’s present actions and values. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy is haunted by memories of his older brother, father, and salesman Dave Singleman. Willy’s character and values are constantly influenced by the memory of the three men, compounding upon his deliria throughout the play. Willy considers these men the epitome of success, thus explaining his dependency on all three. Miller’s view on society, men, and the success of the American Dream are portrayed through Willy’s interactions with the men. The American Dream is synonymous with the phrase “the world is your oyster,” but Miller uses Death of a Salesman to criticize the American Dream through Willy Loman and his interplay between the past and present.

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.

In his play, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller employs many symbols to illustrate the themes of success and failure.  They include the rubber hose, the tape recorder, and the seeds for the garden.  These symbols represent Willy's final, desperate attempts to be successful and the failure he cannot escape.

It is known that in literature, a tragedy is one of the most popular genres. It always combines some story which discusses human sufferings with a certain sense of audience fulfillment. The roots of the tragedy are related to ancient Greece. A Greek tragedy is a sad story, which represents a character with a tragic flaw leading to his downfall. In addition, in traditional tragedy, the main character falls from high authority and often it is predetermined by fate, while the audience experiences catharsis (Irving 247). Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is considered to be a tragedy because this literary work has some of the main characteristics of the tragedy genre. In this play, the main character Willy Loman possesses such traits and behaviors that lead to his downfall, and the audience experiences catharsis. Willy Loman as a real tragic hero comes to the decision to commit suicide because of serious financial problems of his family (Moseley). This play has already been criticized by a number of literary critics who represented different opinions on the plot of the book. The major goal of this paper is to critically evaluate the play Death of a Salesman written by the well-known American writer Arthur Miller, paying special attention to the play’s characteristics of a tragedy.

The play, Death of a Salesman, was written by Arthur Miller in the year 1949 and was one of his first plays published. This play, Death of a Salesman, can be portrayed in many different ways. Death of a Salesman is a look at the “inside of a man’s head” as a result of Willy always talking to voices he is hearing, all of the emotions and inner thoughts of the characters, and Willy’s flashbacks of what happened in his life.

Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman is wrought with symbolism from the opening scene. Many symbols illustrate the themes of success and failure. They include the apartment buildings, the rubber hose, Willy’s brother Ben, the tape recorder, and the seeds for the garden. These symbols represent Willy’s attempts to be successful and his impending failure.

Throughout literature and film, common themes have appeared and stand out once seen by a viewer and reader. Because of these themes being so prominent, they have shaped culture and society into what it is today. One of the most important and well-known theme is friendship. A bond as strong as friendship is shown to be able to conquer anything. Literature shows the ups and downs of friendships time and time again, and in most cases, towards the end, those relationships have changed characters’ lives causing people to relate to it. However with any relationship, the downs in friendships can always reach rock bottom at some points. Authors use friendships to create archetypes about different sets of characters. Because of this companion archetype, people are able to find different ways to fulfill those empty spaces in their very own lives.