Importance Of The American Dream In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

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.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman offers a distinct commentary on the American Dream, best explored in the death of its protagonist, Willy Loman. Almost immediately before Willy and his wife Laura are to make their final payment on their twenty-five year mortgage and take full ownership of their house, Willy, crazed and desperate, commits suicide. As his family mourns and praises him, Willy’s eldest son, Biff, bemoans, “He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong…He never knew who he was” (Miller 111). This occurrence sheds light on the truth Miller hoped to convey: The American Dream – what should be equated with home, family, and happiness – may all too often be corrupted into something much more superficial. It may be warped into the

The American Dream ~ for many, it is the unlocked door that leads to happiness.  It is the hope for a future filled with success and fortune.  Although most people have a similar idea of what the American Dream is, they may have different ideas on how to achieve it.  For Willy Loman, a struggling salesman, achieving this dream would be a major accomplishment.  Unfortunately, his unusual ideas of how this dream can be achieved prevent him from reaching his goal.

Many workers today go through a low time or a struggle and give up. Today’s workers do not necessarily commit suicide when they are in a low point but they do things such as quitting the job or relying on government assistance. Willy strives to achieve the American dream and he eventually realizes that he has failed and gives up on life. This dream is a belief in America and that all things are possible if you work hard enough (Criticism of ' the American Dream' in 'Death of a Salesman'). Arthur Miller uses this story to expose the problems with pursuit of such a dream: “What Miller attacks, then, is not the American Dream of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, but the dream as interpreted and pursued by those for whom ambition replaces human need and the trinkets of what Miller called the ‘new American Empire in the making’ are taken as tokens of true value” (Bigsby). “Death of a Salesman” creates a challenge to the American Dream and shows that an American should live a prosperous and plentiful life instead of get lost and die tragically (Criticism of ' the American Dream' in 'Death of a Salesman'). Gradually throughout the play, Willy gets farther and farther away from achieving his idea of the American Dream. His income slowly decreases to nothing: “as a salesman, Willy stages a performance for buyers, for his sons, for the father who deserted him, the brother he admired. Gradually, he loses his audience, first the buyers, then his son, then his boss” (Bigsby). His problem is that he completely surrenders to the American Dream and by the team he realizes his mistake, he has nothing to fall back on (Panesar). If Willy would have embraced his natural talent for manual labor and his family’s love for the countryside, the Lomans could have a totally different lifestyle (Panesar). Towards the end of the play, Willy became overwhelmed

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

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.

Willy Loman had accomplished the historical American Dream but because of his ambition he did not realize it. When Willy was deciding to go with his brother to look for his father he met Dave Singleman. Dave was an ¨eighty four year old salesman who had drummed merchandise in thirty-one states and who could now simply go into his hotel room, call the buyers, and make his living in his green velvet slippers¨ (Stanton 131).This view of a tranquil and successful career made him reconsider his decision and instead of going to Alaska he chose to be a salesman. It seems that Willy saw a “father figure” in Dave, so he followed the same path, hoping he would have the same future and the same success in the field (Stanton 133). After thirty five years of his career he saw he hasn’t accomplished the success that he wanted. He devoted his life into a career as a salesman knowing that he was good with his hands, but ¨he possessed too much snobbery to admit that his own destiny was in a simple career as a carpenter¨ (“Death of a Salesman”). For Willy the difference between a white collar job and a blue collar job meant a lot, but he didn’t do much to gain a white collar one and he stayed with his old job. His career as a salesman did give him and his family the normal success people would want. Willy wanted more, and since he saw he didn’t accomplished it, he taught his kids into his

The term, “American Dream,” came from American historian James Truslow Adams who first used the term in his published book, “The Epic of America.” According to Adam himself, he believes that the American Dream is the “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” (Amadeo). The term has been used differently in today’s society and recalls it as maturing, getting married with the love of your life, having a beautiful home, and positioning in a good paying job to provide for your kids. Others say that the dream is to have a better life and do what you love. Either way, it all boggles down to just being happy. The “American Dream” became widely

The Atlantic and Aspen Institute conducted a survey with Penn Schoen Berland to study how people viewed the American Dream in 2015. “72% said they are living the American Dream or expect to in their lifetime, 85% are happy with their lives overall, 72% are happy with their jobs, 86% are optimistic about the future, and 67% feel financially secure” (Feloni). One of the most memorable explanations of the American Dream was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. for human equality. That said, the American Dream can be symbolized however the protagonist portrays and interprets it. Everyone’s opinion is a reality in their own eyes. This is factual in Arthur Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman”, and Booker T. Washington’s speech, “The Atlanta Exposition.” The theme of both works uses a pathos approach to depict the obstacles they had to overcome in order to reach what they defined as the “American Dream.” The protagonists shared similarities as it relates to social acceptance, but their stories part different motifs of business success, monetary value, human equality, and compromise in an antagonist American Dream.

The struggle for financial security and success has always been prominent in the American culture. The idea of the American dream captures the hearts of so many, yet leaves almost all of them enslaved in the endless economic struggle to achieve high status, wealth, and a house with a white picket fence. In Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, we see how difficult it is for Willy Loman and his sons to achieve this so called American dream. In Lorraine Hansberry's, A Raisin in the Sun, she examines an African-American family's struggle to break out of the poverty that is preventing them from achieving some sort of financial stability, or in other words the American dream. Both plays explore the desire for wealth, driving forces that

Over time the American Dream has been changed fundamentally with the introduction of new ideology and values. Death of a Salesman illustrates how Willy Loman has been shaped by society. It conveys the impact of this ideology on his children, raising them to believe in quantifiable values being benchmarks of success. Throughout the play his mental health takes a downward spiral as he encounters various failures in his life and his sons’. This can be attributed to the conflict between the shifting values of the time. The values of hard work and individualism are no longer important. Miller utilizes Willy Loman’s inability to succeed and address his own failures to convey the corruption of the American Dream with values such as capitalism, personal attractiveness, and entitlement to success.

Published in 1949, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a tragic commentary on the hollowness and futility of the American Dream. This paper will explore Willy’s obsession with achieving material wealth and prosperity and how his yearning for the American Dream ultimately caused him to deny reality and lead the breakup of his family. Ultimately, Miller’s message is not that the American Dream is by necessity a harmful social construct, but simply that it has been misinterpreted and perverted to rob individuals of their autonomy and create inevitable dissatisfaction.

Success: Accomplishing Your Dream Completing the "American Dream" is a controversial issue. The American Dream can be defined as having a nice car, maybe two or three of them, having a beautiful, healthy family, making an impact on the world, or even just having extra spending money when the bills are paid. In the play "Death Of A Salesman," by Arthur Miller, the "American Dream" deals with prosperity, status, and being immortalized.

Willy Loman is a man on a mission. His purpose in life is to achieve a false sense of the "American Dream," but is this what Willy Loman really wants? In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller analyzes the American Dream by portraying to us a few days in the life of a washed up salesman named Willy Loman. The American Dream is a definite goal of many people, meaning something different to everyone. Willy's version is different from most people though; his is based more on being well-liked and achieving monetary successes rather than achieving something that will make him happy. Willy never becomes part of the "American Dream" because he never follows his true dreams and

In today’s society the term “American Dream” is perceived as being successful and usually that’s associated with being rich or financially sound. People follow this idea their entire life and usually never stop to think if they are happy on this road to success. Most will live through thick and thin with this idealization of the “American Dream” usually leading to unhappiness, depression and even suicide. The individual is confused by society’s portrayal of the individuals who have supposedly reached the nirvana of the “American Dream”. In the play “Death of a Salesman” Willy thinks that if a person has the right personality and he is well liked it’s easy to achieve success rather than hard work and innovation. This is seen when Willy is