"The American Dream" in Arthur Millers Death Of A Salesman
The American Dream
"The American Dream" is that dream of a land in which life should be better, richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. American society is a curious thing. It has been praised, derided, ridiculed, and condemned throughout the years. In addition, over the years, people have flocked from foreign nations to come for diversity of America. They come with the hopes and dreams of the silver screens. However, many are faced with the brutal hardship, rather than the fairytale ending of a famous millionaire. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman examines the clashing of dreams against American Reality through the eyes of Happy, Biff, Linda, and Willy Loman.
Happy is the Loman's youngest son. He is also of low moral character. Happy has always been the "second son" and tries to be noticed by his parents by showing off. Hap tries to be on Will's good side and keep him happy, even if it means perpetuating the lies and illusions that Willy lives in. Happy loses himself to the unattainable American dream therefore forebodes his own failure through his delusions.
Biff was a star football player in high school with scholarships to two major universities. He flunked math his senior year and was not allowed to graduate. Biff
became a drifter for fifteen years. Willy wants dearly for Biff to become a business success, although Biff has an internal struggle between pleasing his father and doing what he feels is right. Through the illusions that Willy believes, he cannot see that Biff is a nobody and is not bound to be successful as defined by Willy. Eventually, Biff finally sees the truth and realizes that he ...
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Biff was a star football player in high school with scholarships to two major universities. He flunked math his senior year and was not allowed to graduate. Biff
became a drifter for fifteen years. Willy wants dearly for Biff to become a business success, although Biff has an internal struggle between pleasing his father and doing what he feels is right. Through the illusions that Willy believes, he cannot see that Biff is a nobody and is not bound to be successful as defined by Willy. Eventually, Biff finally sees the truth and realizes that he is a "dime a dozen" and "no greater leader of men.'
Linda is Willy's wife and is the arbiter of peace in the family. She is protective of Willy. She wants him to be happy even when the reality of the situation is bad. Linda knows that Willy has been trying to commit suicide but does not intervene because she does not want to embarrass him. She lets it continue because she is not one to cause trouble.
Willy Loman, the central figure in the play, occupies a position to which few characters in literature ascend. Willy serves as a point of reference in contexts outside of literature-invoked to describe anyone who is crushed by the immense forces of American capitalism. This habit suggests a certainty about the play is meaning that often forms around a widely acknowledged masterpiece despite its multitude of ambiguities. Death of a Salesman vividly portrays the destructive power of certain American tendencies, such as the equation of wealth with virtue and of possessions with self-worth. In his youth, he set up certain goals for himself that he was fated not to achieve, but cloaked himself with the illusion of success. He was convinced in his youth that selling was "the greatest career a man could have, by an encounter with a man who could go into any city, pick up the phone, and be remembered and loved by so many people. Willy firmly believes that "a person can have diamonds in America on the basis of being well liked. But the extent
of the play's ambition can quickly obscure the fact that it is also a story about one family and its individual members, culminating in the father's suicide. To argue, however, that Willy kills himself primarily because he realizes that the true nature of his world neglects the all-consuming power of his illusions, which retain their hold on him to the end. He is seduced by an American dream that is corrupted: he spends his life working to pay for a house, a car, and a refrigerator without suspecting that it's a game he cannot win. Even though he finally seems to understand the absurdity of owning something only when it is no longer of any use to him, he maintains his belief in the worth and worthiness of being well liked, as if the game were about something more than numbers. However, what makes Death of a Salesman more than an indictment of a system and gives Willy a truly tragic dimension in the intimidation that Willy suffers not just from the inhumanity of free enterprise, but also from his inability to reconcile the hopes he had for his life with the one he has actually lived.
As Miller excavates the various layers of Willy's life, we become aware of the hollowness of his dreams and the extent to which his illusions protect him from being overwhelmed by guilt and regret. He constantly laments his decision not to go with his brother, Ben, to Alaska, where he believes he would have had the kind of life he longs for throughout the play-away from the confinement of the city, having a more direct relationship with the natural world and being spiritually invigorated by the tangibility of his work's rewards. Just as Willy refuses to acknowledge the consequences of his not going with Ben, so he refuses to accept the consequences of his affair with the woman in
Boston. If Willy sees Biff as he truly is- as Biff himself finally does- Willy will have to admit to himself that Biff's discovery of the affair might have undermined the inflated self-image Willy encouraged in him. Perhaps it is the illusion of a continuous present- the essential condition of childhood that Willy cannot live without. Unable to bear the disparity between his dreams and the life he has wrought through his decisions and actions, Willy lives almost entirely within his imagination, where disappointment and loss are impossible because nothing is irrevocable.
In the end of the play, Hap cannot see reality. Like his father, he is destined to live a fruitless life trying for something that will not happen. "Willy Loman did not die in vain," he says,".... He had a good dream, the only dream a man can have is to come out number one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm going to win it for him." Biff also realizes at the end of the play the illusions that Willy lived on. Biff is destined to no greatness, but he no longer has to struggle to understand what he wants to do with his life. As his wife, Linda, stands over his grave repeating, "We're free", and her words become more enigmatic the more deeply we consider them. The family is free from financial stress, at least for now, thanks to Willy's insurance policy. Nevertheless, they are also free of Willy, and perhaps more aware of the harm he caused them. Broadly understood, Linda's proclamation prompts us to wonder about the nature of freedom. Even in the freeiest society, old age is not free as youth this may be the more tragic fact to which Willy cannot reconcile himself.
Willy has lost trying to live the American Dream and the play can be viewed as commentary about society. Willy was a man who was worked all his life by the
machinery of Democracy and Free Enterprise and was then spit mercilessly out, spent like a piece of fruit.
Lawencia Lester
1-9-2004
Eng 1102
Death of a Salesman
