Willy's American Dream

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I

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

    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.

In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman’s life seems to be slowly deteriorating. It is clear that Willy’s predicament is of his own doing, and that his own foolish pride and ignorance lead to his downfall. Willy’s self-destruction involved the uniting of several aspects of his life and his lack of grasping reality in each, consisting of, his relationship with his wife, his relationship and manner in which he brought up his children, Biff and Happy, and lastly his inability to productively earn a living and in doing so, failure to achieve his “American Dream”.

Willy Loman caused the anxiety and suffering of numerous characters throughout the play with one of them being Biff Loman, Willy’s eldest son. For instance, “Willy: Biff Loman is… in no time,” (Miller 8). In the beginning of the play, Willy brings up the fact that Biff has been working on the farm making less than 35 dollars a week. Willy is struggling to discern why Biff has not become lucrative yet since he is attractive and a hard worker, which are both critical traits needed to succeed and achieve the American Dream according to Willy. Willy presumes that Biff is lost and doesn’t know how to succeed so he suggests the idea that Biff should become a salesman since Willy believes a salesman will cause anyone to become successful. Moreover,

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the author conveys the reader about how a person lives his life when he or she cannot live the “American Dream.” Willy Loman, the main character in the play is a confused and tragic character. He is a man who is struggling to hold onto what morality he has left in a changing society that no longer values the ideals he grew up to believe in. Even though the society he lives in can be blamed for much of his misfortune, he must also be the blame for his bad judgment, disloyalty and his foolish pride.

In the play “Death of a Salesman”, by Arthur Miller, the primary theme can be seen as a conflict between man and society. In which the ambition to achieve the “American Dream” controls the life of Willy Loman and the influences he has. When success is not reached, sends Willy’s mind on a mental ride.

Growing up in the busy historically rich area of Harlem, New York, Arthur Miller’s childhood was thriving with a mixture of influences, views and cultures that found their way into his mind and body through all five senses. His family was greatly respected in the community having owned an extremely successful women’s clothing manufacturing business. This amount of wealth and success led to a lavish lifestyle where Miller’s family had the opportunity to own a summer house in Far Rockaway ,Queens with a chauffeur. This situation ,however, ended pretty abruptly with the stock market crash 1929 forcing Miller and his family to lose almost everything they owned. In “The Death of a Salesman” the idea of success is constantly talked about or played

The play Death of a Salesman greatly portrays a specific ideology in regards to values, dreams, goals, and success in our consumer-driven society. It helps showcase the American dream that society tends to strive for even in the early 1900’s (the play is set in the 1940’s). That dream of being a successful business person or vendor. As well as the theory that image and physical attributes are most important to gaining fruition. Willy Loman plays a man in his sixties who has strived for this American dream for over 30 years but realistically has failed miserably on his goal in life – a wealthy salesman like his idol Dave Singleman (a fellow who could make a fortune selling without even leaving his hotel room). He spends his entire life in

Willy’s relationship with his sons was full of lies and mistakes. He truly believed he was raising his sons to strive and live the successful life that he never could. He was heartbroken when neither of his boys seemed to be living the life he wanted for them. Although Happy lived to make his father proud, Willy always worried about Biff success and future a little more. Ultimately willy chose suicide for his family to use his insurance money. Willy never saw his dreams and aspirations come to life, but he hopes that his son’s still have the opportunity to accomplish everything he couldn’t.

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

"Death of A Salesman," by Arthur Miller, is a play that tells the story of a traveling salesman, Willy Loman, who encounters frustration and failure as he reflects on and experiences his own life. Willy's quest for the American Dream leads to his failure because throughout his life, he pursues the illusion of the American Dream and not the reality of it. His mindset on perfection, his obsession with success, and his constant reminiscence of the past and foretelling of the future, all contribute to his defeat in the end.

Arthur Miller, A play writer in the twentieth century, wrote a play entitled Death of a salesman that won him the Pulitzer Price just a year after its release. In the play Miller expresses the life of a 60 year old salesman that undergoes through lack of success in his life and sees the same thing happening ,to his two grown sons now in their mid-thirties, as the American dream faded away being replaced by capitalism in the late 1940s. The play starts of by introducing Willy Loman, the protagonist, and tells the story of the final twenty four hours in Willy’s life all the way to his death and funeral. Between that time laps the audience is able to see Willies past thanks to his constant daydreams, along with his sons past and wife and

The play "Death of a Salesman", by Arthur Miller, follows the life of Willy Loman, a self-deluded salesman who lives in utter denial, always seeking the "American Dream," and constantly falling grossly short of his mark. The member’s of his immediate family, Linda, his wife, and his two sons, Biff and Happy, support his role. Of these supportive figures, Biff’s character holds the most importance, as Biff lies at the center of Willy’s internal conflicts and dreams, and Biff is the only one in the play who seems to achieve any growth.

In the play The Death of a Salesman, it is a play of how one dream can affect your whole look on life, that dream can either make your life or break it, it all depends on how you pursue it. It is a tragic play, the Loman family faces a lot of difficult circumstances due to all of the lying, betrayal and the one dream Willy is trying pursue for his family. Willy then confuses the difference between reality and illusion, he is so caught up in trying to reach the perfect life, which was the “American Dream”, that he lost track of himself and his own