To what extent can the 1950s American Capitalist society, almost be entirely to blame for Willy Loman's final predicament?

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To what extent can the 1950s American Capitalist society, almost be entirely to blame for Willy Loman's ultimate predicament?

Capitalism: the continual encouragement of wants and desires. This definition utterly epitomises the mental psyche of our unwilling protagonist, Willy Loman. Thrust into a constant strive for materialistic and unnecessary items; so typical of an individual embroiled within the prevailing consumerist attitudes of American society.

Miller skilfully manipulates the character of Willy Loman into the embodiment of the archetypal white collar American, allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in the play and completely connect with Willy Loman.

Miller is desperately holding up a mirror to the society which surrounds him through his anti-hero, allowing the audience to gain a sudden realisation their dreams are indeed false, predominately that of the 'American Dream' which is just that: simply a dream. Willy Loman himself exasperatedly confers to his son 'Its the only dream you can have'. The dream is simply a twisted example of propaganda which is avidly encouraged as part of the shared value consensus of the middle class American suburbia and is therefore a status greatly admired and sought after. Willy falls foul of the system, relentlessly striving for a futile goal, his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity is ultimately his undoing.

One of Willy's symptoms of Harmatia is that he rejects his own family possibly self-consciously, or through the impulse to come together eventually drives the family apart. His general air of the classic eponymous salesman links to the destruction of his family as he instils his boys with delusional grandeur as he is far too upbeat and charismatic to seriously consider underlying problems within his family nucleus. Consequently, his utter blindness to the merits of the family combined with his often unsympathetic cold, unsociable attitude can attribute to his eventual sense of alienation within not only those close to him but within the monstrous system which surrounds him. Biff, his son, is therefore the most affected by his father's false encouragement and absenteeism. The lack of permanence which Willy displays and his introvert inconsistency merely shows how the Capitalist society is flawed in taking away the proper astute guidance which Biff craves and instead replaces this hunger with wanton prophetic fantasy, so typical of Willy's muddled and misguided mind. He infuses his most prominent and 'valued' ideal of being well liked desperately into Biff's consciousness. This false glorification of Biff by Willy is summed up by Biff's line 'You blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anyone! That's whose fault it is'.
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A combination of Capitalism and the core ideals of the typical salesman are predominately to blame for Willy Loman's misguided upbringing of Biff; it goes far beyond that of an individual level and is much more appropriate to blame the society which has moulded the norms and values of Willy. Granted, the system of Capitalism is, on the whole, a just mechanism of self empowerment allowing upward mobility and achievement. However, this will ultimately produce an underclass of individuals who are disenfranchised and have to use other means to obtain power and self-esteem. This point leads me on ...

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