Living a successful life means having stability and security. Death of a Salesman also exposed the brutality of capitalism that all classes of men in society suffered. Hard work, persistence and work ethic are what he is lacking which makes him a failure as well. Hire Writer. Death of a Salesman American Dream.
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One of the main themes in the play Death of a Salesman is the American Dream. The philosophy of the American Dream originated in the early twentieth century when many immigrants came to America in search of economic opportunities and a better death of a salesman american dream essay. The protagonist, Willy thinks that to achieve the American Dream, one needs to be likeable and have a good personality. In reality, the keys to success in America are hard work and diligence. Willy however, fails to see this, thus leading him up to fail in his business endeavors. The American Dream is characterized by the materialistic and idealistic values of society. To fulfill the American Dream, one has to live a perfect life as a hardworking and successful citizen. Unfortunately, for Willy, he falls short of his goals at being a success in his career as a salesman.
Willy blames the superficiality of the business world. This is seen in his thoughts about Bernard:. Because the man, who makes an appearance in the business world, creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Willy has ingrained his distorted views in his sons as well. His sons are Biff and Happy. Because of these thoughts and views being fed to his sons, this ultimately condemned them to failure as well. Happy thinks that just because he is stronger than death of a salesman american dream essay who give him orders, he should be the one to give the orders. His father taught him that that was the way to success, and it is obviously failing for Happy.
The same goes for Biff. Just because he has the dashing smile, good looks and people like him — that does not mean that he will be a success in the business world. Hard work, persistence and work ethic are what he is lacking which makes him a failure as well. Willy does not see it that way though. This, unfortunately, does not help them in life. It is hard to understand why she allows this deception to rise to the level that it does. The love Linda holds for Willy is persistent. She sees herself as his protector. Linda allows Willy to laps into his illusions so he can have that feeling of contentment. But in her love for her husband she is ironically can also be seen as his destroyer. Linda in her admiration for Willy also accepts his dream, which turns out fatal. She allows him to kill himself, never letting on that she knows about the attempted suicides.
Like his father, they are both impractical. Biff has the consequences of disillusionment to deal with, and Willy the illusions themselves. Still looking for his purpose in life, Biff persists, due to Willy. Biff, death of a salesman american dream essay, paralyzed by reality comes to the realization that in fact there death of a salesman american dream essay more to life than being well liked and football. Now after searching, Biff comes to terms with exactly who and what he is:. I saw the things I love in this world… and I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Willy also soon finds out that his life was not the perfect life he has conjured up in his head.
Willy realizes that in fact he has lived his life in vain. He has come to the conclusion that he has never achieved nor succeeded but remained a shadow of his ambition. It is this sudden insight that urges him into a fantasy, afraid to face the future. The play emphasizes the path not taken may have been the right one. Willy holds this assumption as the inability to see death of a salesman american dream essay and what he is which leads to the tragic ending. Stanton, Suicide is the answer Willy comes up with. Willy believes that the American dream is only attainable for the popular and attractive few. He does not believe he belongs to this elite group. It is unfortunate that Willy never sees the error of his ways.
To the very end he is a firm believer in the ideology that the attractive and well spoken finish first. This is the very thing that destroys him, because he now finds out, in his own mind, he is not on top. Scanlan, In believing that Willy only has his personality and appearance to sell himself, Willy is death of a salesman american dream essay as heroic. Even after he fails as a salesman, Will feels compelled to persist, because a salesman only way of survival is to dream. A salesman is got to dream boy. It comes with the territory. Charley knows that the job of a salesman is hard, death of a salesman american dream essay, and that after much time and failure, his smile and his shoeshine fade.
Jacobson, The death of Willy at the end of the play is a death caused by the flaws of the American dream, the one that killed Willy is the one that says that some people will work hard all their life and end up with nothing, and this is what happened to Willy. It is lose, lose situation. Willy made the American dream his culture, and the American dream made Willy its victim. The American system offers an opportunity to all people to live their American Dream; some might actually blame the system for their troubles when actually it is their own fault. Helterman, there is no quick or easy way through life, as achieving your goals involves countless time of hard work and dedication to reaching your dreams.
The system is mostly understood by unfortunate people born into hard lives and they seem to truly understand how the system works and succeeds through hard work. We can learn from Willy Loman that we all have the urge to attain our own American Dreams, but we must live in reality, work hard, death of a salesman american dream essay, and be persistent in our efforts to attain them. So, Miller is one of the playwrights who show American Dream is just an ideology that people can pursue and do its requirements, it is not an magician that enables the ones who have blind faith to become rich and successful. All the Loman men desperately strive to achieve success in areas which would never make them totally happy. Willy Loman shows a need to have excellence in all aspects of his life.
Willy exaggerates his figures in this particular part of the play to fulfill his self given role as a successful salesman. Lawrence, The hopes and dreams of the members in the Loman family are all generally similar. Male members of the Loman family wish to become successful in their jobs and live a comfortable lifestyle. He is again disillusioning himself. This statement implies that Biff thought his father had chosen a career that was very unsuited to him. It entails that Willy had set his self-expectations too high and would have only been able to be a mediocre salesman his whole life. In the play, Happy, like his death of a salesman american dream essay is also disillusioned by the life they pretended to lead instead of the harsh reality that they actually exist in.
Shockley, Dreams are important in the play as they seem to be the world that Willy Loman is now living in. His life has become so unbearable for him. Miller is trying to say that a society which solely bases itself on hopes and ambitions that are beyond the reach of the vast majority of its members is using them. He is trying to say that the American Dream is a way of getting the lower members of society to work hard their entire life, striving for a dream that is promised to them but always seems to be just out of their reach. Miller is saying that the dream can eventually take over lives and destroy the grasp of reality that those who has envisaged the dream once had. Ferguson, Alfred R.
Helterman, Jeffrey. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-Century American Dramatists Part 2: K-Z. John Mac Nicholas, Volume 7. Detroit: Gale Research Co, death of a salesman american dream essay. Jacobson, Irving. Lawrence, Stephen A. Scanlan, Tom. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,pp. Shockley John S. Stanton Kay. June Schlueter. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, American Dream in Death of a Salesman. This paper was written and submitted to our database by a student to assist your with your own studies. You are free to use it to write your own assignment, however you must reference it properly. If you are the original creator of this paper and no longer wish to have it published on StudyCorgi, request the removal. Table of Contents. Learn More. We will write a custom essays specifically for you!
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Alas, the capitalist environment ingrained the corrupted American Dream deeper in the culture of Americans, hence sixty-year-old Willy still held on tightly to his dreams of wealth and grandeur at the expense of a sense of reality. The power the American Dream had on the working class was thus manipulated in the capitalist society. The American Dream did not simply just motivate them to pursue a better life; it pushed them to strive religiously towards money and status, when they could have been content, just so that the upper class could exploit the most out of them. Hence, the working class was propelled into a vicious cycle, a class struggle, of trying to gain wealth and status, ending up empty-handed, and trying again.
Death of a Salesman also exposed the brutality of capitalism that all classes of men in society suffered. For the working class, they were fierce believers of the American Dream and Willy was the paragon of such people, who devoted himself to the American Dream self-destructively. Willy had described himself accurately — a piece of fruit which the bourgeoisie had sucked the juice out of and exploited to the fullest. Capital Willy, like many of the lower class citizens, suffered the cruel essence of capitalism. Furthermore, the imaginary fact that Ben, the epitome of success to Willy, would have encouraged him in doing so pushed him to his demise. Ben symbolised the corrupted American Dream; it was not actually Ben who urged Willy to sacrifice himself for money, it was the American Dream which the capitalist society had corrupted, that had Willy voluntarily choosing death.
At the same time, the brutal capitalist society did not leave the bourgeoisie unaffected. Howard, as a representative of the bourgeoisie, displayed the ruthlessness that the capitalist system had made him to be. In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will Marx Critique Although the upper class took up authority, they were forced to be oppressors by the base structure of this capitalist society which was the oppressed. As the upper class in a base-and-superstructure society, Howard inevitably had to exploit the working class to make a living, even if he had been more generous in salary-giving.
Had he given his employees the rightful value of their labour, he would not have earned anything. Yet regardless of their wealth and status, the bourgeoisie, also known as the oppressors, were still locked in an interdependent relationship with the oppressed. The livelihood of Howard, as well as the other bourgeoisie, relied on the productivity of their workers. The American Dream not only manipulated the working classes to strive towards an illusional grandeur, but also had the higher classes like Howard greedy for wealth and profit at the expense of humanitarian values. It was this greed that then turned him into a coldhearted bourgeoisie who was only directed by monetary gain and not his moral compass, therefore exploiting Willy and firing him later.
Willy, the proletariat, held on tight to the corrupted American Dream, and thus stayed subservient under the power of Howard, the bourgeoisie, while Howard, also looking towards the American Dream with greed, ruthlessly exploits Willy. Death of a Salesman shone light on the harsh capitalist positions that both the upper class and the lower class were stuck in. Willy, in despair, is seen driving foolishly on the way home one night and almost gets into an accident. Another symbol in the play to represent Willy being depressed is the rubber hose Linda finds in the basement. Lastly, Miller uses irony in Death of a Salesman to connect it to the American Dream. Biffs work ethic and Willys perception on it is a perfect example of irony at the beginning of act 1.
Another form of irony Miller uses in the play is having Willys son Happy being named Happy. They share the same desirable self-confidence and stubbornness throughout the whole play and it leads to a bad ending. The American Dream is shown to be a stressful thing for Willy, and also a depriving and depressing goal if it takes up all of his time and thinking. Need a custom essay on the same topic? Our writers can help you with any type of essay. For any subject Get your price How it works.
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