Death Of A Salesman American Dream Essay

The American Dream was an idea brought about when the United States was beginning to gain its freedom. Many people believed that when they came to America, their poverty would soon disappear once they got a job and climbed the ladder all the way to the top; to become something out of nothing. In the play “Death of a Salesman”, Arthur Miller gives people a taste of what it’s like to be Willy Loman: a mid-sixties man who obsesses over the American Dream, and for the life of him (literally) couldn’t figure out why the “secret” had flown right over his head. The play is centered around him and his belief that there is indeed a secret to success and that the American Dream is not just a myth. The story of Willy Loman demonstrates what happens to a person when they live on the dark side of the American Dream and ultimately are annihilated by the false promises caused by this myth. Like Tyler Durden said, “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.” The setting of this play contributes greatly to the overall theme of failure. For example, The Loman house is completely surrounded by apartment buildings, so much so that there isn’t even enough sun to get to the seeds Willy so desperately

He never gave up, though; he always tried to find opportunities in which he might actually achieve something. Willy urged Biff to get a loan from Bill Oliver so he and Happy could start their own business, and therefore provide someone for Willy to fall back on. Willy just expected that his boys would know exactly what the almighty secret was and yearned for them to share it with him as soon as they found