Unethical Dreams in Arthur Miller’s "Death of a Salesman" and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gasby"

In the search for the American dream many things can be lost, this is reflected in the novel The Great Gatsby and the movie Death of a Salesman. Both of these works demonstrate the lengths that some people will go to in order to achieve the stereotypical life of a rich, successful and powerful American, which is often referred to as the American dream. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller illustrates how the character Willy will stop at nothing to achieve the American dream, despite the tremendous costs. Willy is unable to achieve his goal, however, due to his stubbornness. The aspects of the novel The Great Gatsby about the pursuit of the American dream parallel Death of a Salesman, Jay

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

As the play progresses, one begins to feel sorry for Willy and his problem, but at the same time angry and frustrated with him for his foolish pride. With this trait, it prevented him from accepting a job from Charlie, something that could have saved his life. Also, it is with this false pride that has been sparking the family flame for years, the fact that the Loman name was well known and well-liked. The family lie that was amongst themselves is revealed during the climax of the play. One example is the way in which Willy led Biff to believe that he is a salesman for Oliver, which at the end left Biff disappointed. The reason for this estimation of the truth may be because of Willy’s idea that he has not raised Biff and Happy the right way.

When Linda refers to Willy as a "little boat looking for a harbor," another wind blows against Linda, pushing her to act with pity (1247). To her, he is nothing more than a small, helpless old man. She blames the business for forgetting Willy in his old age, and passing him over like an orange peel. Toward the end of Act I, Linda presents a sorry image of Willy, describing his past greatness as a salesman and ending with a sad description of treachery. She tells her sons that Willy is "exhausted" from driving 1400 miles without earning a penny, and that his reward from the ones he loved the most, his sons, is spite and rejection (1237). The picture she paints of her husband is on filled with pity and sorrow.

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:

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, a major theme and source of conflict is the Loman family's lack of morality.  This is particularly evident in the father, Willy Loman.  Willy has created a world of questionable morality for himself and his family.  In this world, he and his sons are men of greatness that "have what it takes" to make it in the competitive world of business.  In reality, Willy’s son Biff is a drifter and a thief, his son Hap is continually seducing women with lies, while Willy does not treat his wife with respect and lies to everyone.

The American Dream is a worldwide known idiom and it emphasizes an ideal of a successful and happy lifestyle which is oftentimes symbolized by the phrase “from rags-to-riches”. It originated out of the ideal of equality, freedom and opportunity that is held to every American. In the last couple of decades the main idea of the American Dream has shifted to becoming a dream in which materialistic values are of a higher importance and status. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 during the “Jazz Age”. Jay Gatsby is a parvenu who worked himself his way up. He is the main character and he has a quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan and he has a need for

Biff said when realizing the type of house he grew up in. Everyone in the Loman household was unsatisfied, the family left unstable. The top of the causes for the problems in the Loman household lead to Willy. Growing up Willy never had a true support system. His father left him at a early age. And his brother went to Africa. With all this abandonment in life, Willy learns to live on the dependency of being well approved of by others, and following a dream he saw as the “American Dream”. This dream led Willy into more failure than it did success. Willy never knew when to look at reality or chase a dream. When it came to a point in life when he realized he could no longer achieve this American Dream, he tried to live it through his sons. He never held his kids accountable for their faults because they were “well liked” Willy sees how much people like you as an equivalence to a human's success in life. Linda once said, “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.” Willy filled all his actual doings in life, with dreams and visions of a successful him or of anything to make the pain of his actual life

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.

As a result of these lies, as the months past, his debt grew bigger because he had to get loans to cover up his lie. To the damage of his son’s moral, Biff knew about his father’s deceit to his mother and therefore saw dishonesty as a good thing. In the footsteps of his father, Biff went ahead to lie to his mother that he was ready to sire a family with a woman. He only lied to please Linda, his mother just as his father did. Willy should have taught his sons that dishonesty was against social norms and ethically incorrect and unacceptable.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about the American Dream. In the Great Gatsby, the dream is that one can acquire happiness through wealth and power. To get his happiness Jay attempts to reacquire the love of his lost sweet heart, Daisy. The main problem with Jay's dream is that Daisy is married. Gatsby's personal dream symbolizes the larger American Dream 'The pursuit of happiness'.

Willy also obtains an idea that image is equal to success. This is known to be his hubris; excessive pride. He takes pride in material objects “Riding on a smile and a shoe shine… personality wins the day” shows how he puts his faith into his personal appearance, and how he appears to smile on the outside but fails to admit that he isn’t on the inside. He thinks personality can be judged on what he says, but forgets that it ‘shines’ through when he speaks. “I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out”. The stockings can be seen as a representative of Loman’s unfaithfulness as a husband as the sight of them brings back memories of when Biff caught him cheating on Linda and found out the Willy had given ‘the woman’ the expensive stockings he was supposed to give his wife as a gift. Willy Loman’s reasoning behind doing this may be because he didn’t want to come across as ‘low’ to his mistress, so by giving her expensive stockings out of the blue it

            Willy is the aging salesman whose imagination is much larger than his sales ability. Willy's wife, Linda, stands by her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy follow in their father's fallacy of life. Willy's brother, Ben is the only member of the Loman family with the clear vision necessary to succeed. Charlie and his son Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared

Willy’s relationship with Biff and Happy also becomes strained throughout their lives. Since Biff was the older son and football star he made his father proud, and Happy was left without the praise that he needed and deserved, as he was always second best. Biff also was the one who caught his father having an affair with a woman in Boston, causing friction between himself and Willy. More importantly, Biff is extremely disturbed by his father's later behavior, including participating in imaginary conversations and reacting to his memories as though they were happening in the present. Willy's job also falls apart from the beginning of the play towards the end. Willy had been making enough money to support his family, but his unwillingness to learn new sales techniques or utilize modern technology resulted in lackluster sales and the loss of his job. Willy’s house had a mortgage until his death, implying that the family was not even secure in their own home. Finally, the family car, a symbol of pride within the Loman household, was destroyed when Willy committed suicide. This was the last example of Willy's destruction of all that was once important to him. Willy Loman, in this regard, follows Aristotle's suggestion that the tragic hero has "...a change of fortune... from prosperity to misfortune...." (Aristotle,1303)