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Laura Seng
Professor Kruger
ENGL 271
May 12, 2014
The American Dream and Capitalism in Death of a Salesman
One major theme in Death of a Salesman is the pursuit of the American dream. Playwright Arthur Miller details main character Willy Loman’s misguided quest of this dream. Death of a Salesman was written in postwar America, when the idea of the American Dream was a way of life. The United States was flourishing economically, and the idea of wealth was the base of the American Dream. Capitalism was alive and well, and by living in a capitalist society, everyone in America was supposed to have a chance to become rich and successful. Miller makes the reader realize this dream is a falsehood, because it doesn’t always work for everyone as planned. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a prime example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s effects.
Based on the philosophies of Karl Marx, Marxism has developed into both a political direction and a social theory. There are two social classes: the proletariat (blue-collar) and the bourgeoisie (white-collar). This capitalist society is prevalent in Death of a Salesman. In the play, salesman Willy Loman struggles to support his family while nearing his retirement. Willy is part of what Marx describes as the proletariat class and wants desperately to believe and prove he is worthy of a higher class. By accepting materialistic ideals, Willy and his son Biff struggle to make ends meet, finding themselves routinely stuck in the working class. Biff, however, is eventually able to understand the faults of his father’s dream and attempts to gain more happiness in life by not attempting to ...
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...ften disappointed by the system, but characters that live their lives in a practical, realistic manner, can prove to function successfully.
Throughout the play, Arthur Miller uses characters’ inner tension and also tension with each other in order to shed light on capitalism’s misleading promises and devastating consequences for believing its promises. For many of the characters, believing in an imperfect system leads to many undesirable consequences, like disillusionment and suicide. For those that don’t throw themselves willy-nilly into the promises of capitalism and the American Dream, there is the chance of living a successful and fulfilling life. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a great example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s misleading nature.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman exploits the notion of the American Dream and the promises made by the American Government towards its citizens. Throughout the play, Miller makes references to dreams that each character carries but the failure in the fulfilment of the same. He recaptures the disappointments and disillusionments that the American nation suffers from for the American Dream is as well as death. Miller was the first playwright of his time who sheds light on this fact that the dream that every American carries a torch for is dead and gone.
Although the characters are not of noble birth nor possess a heroic nature nor experience a reversal of fortune, many of the elements in "Death of A Salesman" fulfill the criteria of a classic tragedy. The downfall and crisis points in the play are directly linked to the Loman family's combined harmartias, or personal flaws. The Loman's have unrealistic ideas regarding the meaning of success. To Willy, the foundation of success is not education or hard work, but rather "who you know and the smile on your face." Moreover, Willy ridicules the education Bernard has earned, declaring that his sons, Biff and Hap, will get further ahead in the business world because "the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked, and you will never want." Willy idolizes two men: his brother, Ben, who walked out of an African jungle a rich man, and an 84-year-old salesman who could "pick a phone in twenty or thirty cities and be remembered and loved, and finally honored by hundred of mourners at his funeral." To Linda, success is paying off a 25...
The play, “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, presents Willy Loman, as a salesman, who fails to earn a living and slowly loses his mind. Willy continuously seeks the past to find out where he went wrong. During his years in life, Willy wanted his two sons, Biff and Happy to become someone they’re not; Willy wanted them to become a salesman like him. However, because of his obsession in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, he created a life full of lies for himself and his sons. In the end because of “his misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness” leads to his downfall and the end of his life (Death of a Salesman).”
Willy Loman is a 60 year old senile salesman who desperately wants to be a successful salesman; however, his ideas about the ways in which one goes about achieving this are very much misguided, just as his morals are. He believes that popularity and good looks are the key to achieving the American dream, rather than hard work and dedication. He not only lives his entire life by this code, but instills his delusional beliefs in his two sons Biff and Happy. As a result, his sons experience similar failures in their adult lives. Willy led a life of illusion, lies and regret which not only ruined his life, but gad a negative impact on the lives of family as well.
Willy Loman's Vision of America in Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman is about a man, Willy. Loman, whose life is going downhill and coming to an end. Willy Loman was a good salesman because he cared and was honest and through his personality. He sold his goods. Time has moved on, but Willy hasn't.
In post-Depression America, the United States endured internal battles in political ideologies between capitalists and Marxists, which is the focus of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. According to Helge Normann Nilsen, author of “From Honors At Dawn to Death of a Salesman: Marxism and the Early Plays of Arthur Miller,” the Great Depression had a profound impact in forming the political identity of Arthur Miller: “The Great Depression created in him a lasting and traumatic impression of the devastating power of economic forces in the shaping of peoples’ lives” (146). This lasting effect on Miller is embodied in the character of Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman whose life collapses from the strain of his competition for wealth, demonstrated by Nilsen as she claims the fault lies in the “Impairment of [Willy’s] conscience and sanity by intolerable economic pressures” (155). Because of his focus on material success, which Marxists view as a critical flaw in capitalism, Willy loses his sanity battling the corruption within himself and the American free market system. I believe, however, that while Miller embraced and promoted Marxist values and that the messages in Death of a Salesman are directed at capitalists, Miller was not condemning all aspects of capitalism. Although his portrayal of Willy may seem politically biased, Miller’s portrayal of Charley as a generous and kind man contradicts the notion that Death of a Salesman is purely Marxist propaganda. Miller, therefore, was not denouncing capitalism, but calling instead for reforms within the existing system.
Because Death of a Salesman is set in the late 1940’s, in the midst of a hardworking America, Arthur Miller’s portrayal of Willy Loman reflects the struggles of having trouble balancing a successful job with the ever changing economy. Even though small sales men, like him, are having trouble thriving, he attempts to live on ideals of a successful business man. Without the ability to confront reality, Loman’s pathetic life and failures are an effect of his skewed outlook on capitalist society and its values. One reason why his life goes downhill is because he believes that he can make business by merely being well liked. Also, Loman does not realize the insensitivity that is part of the capitalist industry.
Barack Obama made history by being elected President of the United States, twice. This is just one more example that the American Dream is without a doubt achievable. Its pursuit is not easy; it requires undeniable hard work, modesty and optimism. Armed with these characteristics, seekers of this lifestyle will undeniably succeed. Success, though, is an interesting concept, for it can entail many superficial qualities. Willy Loman, the tragic hero of the play Death of a Salesman, sees only the superficial qualities of this dream. He views success solely as likeability (linked with attractiveness), and wealth. Ignoring all methods to honorably achieve these, Arthur Miller demonstrates how Willy’s search for the superficial qualities of the American Dream lead him to his own despair.
Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, portrays the cost of selling oneself to the American Dream. Willy Loman, the central character, is madly determined to achieve affluence that he overlooks the value of his family and himself in the process. He instills in his sons, Biff and Happy Loman, that being charismatic will hand them a prosperous lifestyle. Happy trusts in his father’s ideology while Biff’s beliefs contradict them. Biff deems that success is a product of happiness and contentment, not a paycheck. Out of all the sociological theories, social conflict best emphasizes the author’s perspective of how conflict, through class and family, can deteriorate the American dream. By analyzing the play’s themes- social class and family- through the sociological perspectives: structural-functional, social conflict, and symbolic interactionist, we can predict what drives these characters to behave and perceive things the way they do.
Late twentieth century society has made the transition from agrarian and rural communities to massive urban industrialization. These changes can and have been monitored; they are tangible. Small family operated businesses and farms have been gobbled up by multinational conglomerates. The days of the employer as a sort of surrogate parent to his or her loyal employees are over. Our world no longer has time for Willy Loman. We discard these people as inefficient, burdensome, and unnecessary, all in the name of progress. Willy Lomans are expendable commodities to be used up and cast aside. This change in societal attitudes, though perhaps not as tangible, is very real. A social theory as well as a literary one is needed, therefore, to reconcile Miller's play with the modern world.
An American dream is a dream that can only be achieved by passion and hard work towards your goals. People are chasing their dreams of better future for themselves and their children. The author Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman has displayed a struggle of a common man to achieve the American dream. Willy Loman the protagonist of the play has spent his whole life in chasing the American dream. He was a successful salesman who has got old and unable to travel for his work, and no one at work gives him importance anymore. He is unhappy with his sons Happy and Biff because both of them are not successful in their lives. Moreover, Biff and Happy are also not happy with their father Willy because they don’t want to live a life that Willy wants them to live. The heated discussions of Willy and his older son Biff affect the family and the family starts to fall apart. However, Willy is unable to achieve the American dream and does not want to face the reality that his decisions for himself and his family have lead him to be a failure in the society. In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the protagonist Willy Loman spends his whole life to achieve the American Dream by his own perception and denies facing the reality, just like nowadays people are selling themselves and attempting to find success in life.
In conclusion, the play represents the collapse of the “American Dream” for a typical lower-middle class family in Brooklyn during an economic depression. The story represents “the brutality of the system toward man” (Kroll). Willy, with his illusions of living the present with the mementos of the past represents the unwanted desire to accept reality. Therefore, he decides to commit suicide in a coward way and leave the insurance money to the family. Moreover, his wife sees the whole process of Willy’s death without interference in order to not hurt his pride. His sons, Biff and Happy, always had a constant pressure to achieve luxuries and comforts of the American Dream and due to that pressure they were unable to attain it. Willy dies believing in a dream that his family did not believe because they were seeing reality a little bite closer than him.
Social class is a major factor in Death of a Salesman. Willy is a salesman. Willy believes that success comes from being well liked and popular and has tried desperately to instill his notions to his two boys Happy and Biff, Willy's biggest aspirations in life. His wife Linda is extremely supportive and is Willy's only connection to reality. While raising his boys and trying to instill his "American Dream", he fails to teach them any sense of morality, leading them down to what he feels is the wrong path. At one point, he defends Biff for stealing just because he was an amazing football player. "Loaded with it. Loaded! What is he stealing? He's giving it back, isn't he? Why is he stealing? What did I tell him? I never in my life told him anything but decent things." (Pg 41. Act 1)
Failure of the American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a story about the dark side of the "American Dream. " Willy Loman's obsession with the dream directly causes his failure in life, which, in turn, leads to his eventual suicide. The pursuit of the dream also destroys the lives of Willy's family, as well. Through the Lomans, Arthur Miller attempts to create a typical American family of the time, and, in doing so, the reader can relate to the crises that the family is faced with and realize that everyone has problems.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman criticizes the American Dream and the means some (i.e. Willy Loman) use to achieve the Dream through many different symbol and motifs; however, the title Miller selected for his play is an overlooked aspect of his criticism towards the Dream. He uses the title to build layers of understanding for his denunciation of the American Dream.