Willy's American Dream

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is the well-developed protagonist of the story. Willy struggles throughout the story with daydreams and delusions that he confuses with reality. These delusions have a huge effect on the story and greatly impact Willy’s life. Willy has a difficult time keeping his bills paid with his job as a traveling salesman. He works long hours and drives long distances for very little success. His delusions cause him to believe that his work is successful when it is far from it. “Willy is self-deluded, believing wholeheartedly in the American Dream of success and wealth. When he fails to achieve this, he commits suicide—yet until the end he never stopped believing in this American Dream” (Sickels).

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman we see the negative effect of having an absent parent. The main character Willy Loman is a salesman who constantly struggles with trying to be what he considers “successful,” and “well liked.” He has two sons Biff and Happy and is married to Linda. Willy also struggles between illusion and reality; he has trouble defining and distinguishing the past from the present. Between his financial struggles and not feeling like he accomplished anything, he commits suicide. Throughout Willy’s life he was constantly abandoned, by both his father and his brother at very young age. Since Willy has no reference to look up to, he is somewhat left to figure things out on his own. In Willy’s mind, everything he

Former American Lawyer and politician Robert Ingersoll once said, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.” Ingersoll states that all actions have the same general result, people do not get rewarded nor punished, but instead they suffer from any plausible repercussions of these actions. As Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller tries to pursue his own american dream, he leaves behind a series of consequences due to the decisions he makes throughout the novel. Willy creates an unrealistic american dream for himself, which causes the family to struggle with him and his worthless belief of himself.

The American Dream is the belief that if you work hard you will gain success and wealth in life. In Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller, the idea of the American dream is shown through the main character Willy Loman. Willy has a flawed perception of success and the American Dream. His desire for wealth and popularity is what eventually leads to his downfall. His obsession with his image and his desire to be someone he wasn’t overtime drives him crazy and leads to his death.

The term success is a word that many strive to achieve during their lifetime . The term can withhold different definitions based upon the individual and how they would particularly consider a person successful, whether it's through having the appreciation and love from family, possessing an immense amount of money, or even having a great deal of respect from their community. The role of succes in Death of a Salesman plays not only as one of the vital themes however , Arthur Miller uses, “success” to allow readers to better understand the complexity of his characters. The endeavour to earn success causes the readers to view the true hardships and consequences behind fulfilling , “The American Dream”.In the Death of a Salesman, we are introduced to the protagonist Willy Loman who urgently searches for his success, desperate to prove his worthiness of the title.We also take a glimpse of two other important characters. Willy’s sons Billy and Happy Loman who struggle to come to terms with their father’s failures and there separate ideas of true success. As we are first introduced to Willy we learn that in the past, he was indeed a successful salesman whose family had a intimate connection ,despite the fact he was simultaneously committing adultery. Fast forward 15 years and Loman's character is depicted as an unassertive, self-decepted, individual with a slowly failing business as a sales representative.Loman throughout the play has trouble with accepting the failure of his, “ American Dream” and often hallucinates his reality. His wife Linda, encourages these hallucinations in order to allow her husband to continue to live with certainty of who he is as person. This gradually causes Loman to be blinded by the superficial reality of what makes an individual ultimately successful. He uses this as an opportunity to blame other bystanders for his current non success in reality. “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And the one on the other side… How can they whip cheese? (Act 1,17)”, here is an example of his arrogance he uses as an excuse for his ongoing failure rather than him simply owning up to his broad

After evaluating Willy's characteristics it frightens me a little realizing my personal goals and motives are not too different from his. When I speak about Willy (even on my one pager) unintentionally I give him sympathy for his actions only because my daily lifestyle is similar to his. I do not believe I am the only student on campus who takes challenging classes, go to college, get a job and achieve the "American Dream", since society has also outlined this path in order to achieve success (similar to Willy's path as a salesman). Although I do realize Willy is losing his self-identity by embedding himself to his goals causing other problems such as complicated family relationships. As the audience, we hope Willy will

Now to answer the questions how mistakenly Willy viewed the American Dream, what were his goals and his reaction when he was fired? We need to use the critical literary theory concerning Marxist notions, which in turn study the inequalities and points to main cause of capitalist governments. According to David Lehman in his article “Capitalism” publish in Harvard Review, his view about capitalist society “management has it better than labor and if this goes on long enough, the inconsistency between rich and poor has widen and keep on widening”. In capitalist countries, wealthy people have the financial factor to create enterprises, businesses and provide jobs opportunities with unequal benefits and low wages that would only be beneficial to

“In order for succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.(Bill Cosby) Willy believes that a man can walk into a career and get rich quick; that it would always be so easy to be successful. Not once did Willy notice he was truly not doing well in life, his desire for success was so much greater than his fear, yet he just could not be truly successful. He is under the impression that he is “living the american dream” and frankly, everyone knows he is not. The pride that man has for oneself over shadows the true clear picture and ultimately shadows in his head that he is in fact a

In the play Death of a Salesman, the author Arthur Miller presents a tragic story of the Lo-man's family about how an unrealistic or incorrect American Dream can lead to a tragic ending of not only one person, but also the entire family. Willy's son Biff says of his father in the req-uiem of the book "He had all the wrong dreams. All, all wrong". Willy's pride and comparison with the successful people around him blinds him from being satisfied with the tangible things that he already has, which leads him to the wrong American Dream by forcing his unrealistically successful salesman dream onto his sons that goes beyond what they can achieve within their abilities.

Arthur Miller was arguably one of the greatest American playwrights in modern history. Born in New York City, Miller started as a middle-class American who worked several jobs after high school. While attending the University of Michigan, Miller began writing plays, with The Man Who Had All the Luck being his first Broadway production. Inspired by the Greeks, Miller wrote with conscience, clarity, and compassion. As a tragedian Miller often created characters who wrestled with power conflicts, personal and social responsibility, the repercussions of past actions, and the twin poles of guilt and hope.

Progress and wealth comes at a heavy price, yet to many Americans this price is worth paying, as long as they can achieve the American Dream. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the protagonist’s attachment to the past makes it difficult for him to keep up with rising consumerism and materialism that is significantly drastic from his own times. Nonetheless, Willy Loman relies on his past connections to enable him to move forward in his career. For instance, he approaches his boss Howard, relying on his long standing loyalty to Howard’s father, in hopes of receiving a promotion from Howard. Instead of showing sympathy, Howard is indifferent and refuses to take Willy seriously, viewing him as an old, tired man who is irrelevant in his job;

In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman", the protagonist Willy Loman sets out to pursue the American Dream only to find complete failure. With hard work and devotion, Willy believes that he will one day be a success in a booming economy. As one critic states, Willy's character is of a common man. He is not anything special, nor ever was. He chose to follow the American dream and he chose to lead the life it gave him (Death of a Salesman: The Culture Of Willy Loman). Willy dies an unsuccessful person, with the realization that everything he had worked for was not achieved.

In Arthur Miller’s critical play “Death of a Salesman,” Miller constructs the play's storyline through the psychological actions of Willy Loman. In addition, Miller incorporates massive literary techniques such as symbolism, irony, and juxtaposition to reveal the truth behind Willy’s disoriented past. Although Willy hopes to gain the marvelous American Dream, his tragic life, and death, prevents Willy from bringing his family into grace. Furthermore, Willy’s contradictory, angry, and obsessive behavior drastically affects Biff, Happy, and Linda Loman emotionally and physically throughout the dramatic play of “Death of a Salesman.”

In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, a man named Willy Loman struggles with the changing American dynamic and his impending mental deterioration. Loman is a sixty-three year old salesman during the late 1940’s. He is the father of two sons, Biff and Happy, and the husband to Linda Loman. During this time period, Americans were still adjusting to the post-war era where two generations of American ideas clashed, the traditional and modern American Dream. The old, traditional dream included working one’s way up to success through popularity and wealth. The new American Dream does not focus on jobs such as a salesman but sees low skill jobs, like a carpenter, as successful and making one accomplished in life. Willy Loman’s forthcoming mental

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman tells the tale of Willy Loman, a man who falls from the top of the capitalism system in a resonant crash. Being controlled by his fears of the future, and stuck in his memories of the past, Willy fully contributes to his self-victimization by putting little blame on his own mistakes. Although Willy is perceived as selfish, it is important to see that he is misguided. His character is one of a common man, he has never been anything special, but he chose to follow the American Dream and continue the “destiny” it gave him. However, in my reading of the play, I feel it was not an unlucky destiny that pushed Willy to damage his own life and the lives of his family,