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Critical analysis of arthur millers death of a salesman
Death of a salesman DRAMATIC STUCTURE SYMBOLISM
Death of a salesman character analysis
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"Willy Lomans life is just a meeting point, containing as it does, the contradictions of a culture whose dream of possibility has foundered on the banality of tus actualization, a culture that has lost its vision of transcendence, earthing it's aspirations so severely in the material world." (Bigsby pg. 1) Arthur millers story Death of a Salesman gives us a profile of a once well known man to a troubled father and husband to his family. Willy has a firm belief in what he thinks the perfect American Dream would be like and exactly how his sons biff and happy would achieve this dream. Willy believed good looks, material goods, and likeability would guarantee his sons this dream. Willy's perspective will eventually lead to his fall as the protagonist of the story. Willy also lies about many things throughout the story to make his image look better than he really is, "Linda asks how much Willy has sold and although he initially lies about the amount, Linda patiently waits for the truth, which is that he has barely made enough to pay the bills." (Arthur Miller)
Willy's American dream is to be known to everyone and financially successful. Willy doesn't believe in hard work and honesty to achieve the highest respect but instead focuses on personal appearance and social judgement. "He worries that people do not like him, admitting that people seem to respect Charlie which talks less, but Linda cheers him up, insisting that he will be fine." (Arthur miller) Willy's view of how to achieve the dream is a flawed one and he doesn't want to admit one bit of it. Willy plays his sons as to be the greatest and the worst failures in life sometimes. "Willy boasts that his sons will achieve more than Bernard becuase they are more attractive and bet...
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... in Modern Drama,” where he finds all great drama to be concerned with one big problem: “How may a man make the outside world a home?” What does he need to do, to change himself or in the external world, if he is to find the “the safety, the surroundings of love, the ease of the soul, the sense of identity and honor which, evidently, all men have connected in their memories with the idea of family?” (Jacobson)
"Willy’s failure is our failure, for we are also involved in the cult of success, and we, too, measure men by occupational attainment rather than by some sympathetic calculus of the whole human being. We are all partners in the American Dream and parties to the conspiracy of silence surrounding the fact that failures must by definition outnumber successes, given our cultural ground rules and or singular interpretations of the words ‘success’ and ‘failure’.”
After seeing both his father and brother find success, Willy attempts to prove himself to his family by chasing after his own version of the American dream. Willy grows up in the “wild prosperity of the 1920’s” when rags-to-riches tales inspire everybody, making them believe that “achieving material success [is] God’s intention for humankind (Abbotson, Criticism by Bloom). Willy’s father, a “very great” and “wildhearted man,” made a living traveling and selling flutes, making “more in a week than a man like [Willy] could make in a lifetime” (Miller 34). Even though Willy barely knew his dad, he built him u...
America is a country built on the idea of The American dream; an idea that any person, white, black, brown, or even purple can achieve economic freedom and upward social mobility through hard work and determination. There are few men who hold this idea more dear than Willy Loman. Mistakenly, Willy focuses more on the ideals of wealth than the laborious journey it takes to become a successful business man. The American capitalistic society is competitive and people like Willy, who do not understand the environment they are in, will habitually have problems climbing the economic totem pole. Death of Salesman admits to a flaw in the American system, not everybody will be successful, but through characters, flashbacks, and the resolution it is clear that Willy’s lack of success is result of his own choices, and not society.
An additional segment of his common human nature is Willy's self-centeredness. Although one might say that the American Dream is imposed upon him by the society, Willy himself creates his dream. Willy supports this claim when he praises Dave Singleman's career to Howard: "And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want" (Miller 81). His nostalgia for a non-existing future is also proven by the fact that no one else in his environment has a similar, impossible dream: "If he were not wearing the rose colored glasses of the myth of the American Dream, he would see that Charley and his son are successful because of lifelong hard work and not because of the illusions of social popularity and physical appearances" (Spark 11). Surely the false ego and pride predicted to come from his assured success are the bridges that prevents Willy from seeing through his fake dream, pushing him to persuade the rest of his family to worship it along with him.
This highlights the overall message of blind faith towards the American Dream. The major case of irony in the book is Willy’s blind faith in the American Dream. This belief is that if one is well-liked, they will become successful. The truth is actually completely the opposite. The real belief is that if one works hard, with no regard to how well liked they are, they will be successful.
In the play Death of a Salesman the author, Arthur Miller illustrates the struggle of most American husbands from the nineteen forty-nines. Amidst all that is happening around the world with the Great Depression in the nineteen thirties the character of Willy Loman strives to support and maintain his wife and their home by paying their mortgage for more than twenty years. Though Miller does not specify what is it that Willy sells we can assume Miller implies that we should connect to this play no matter the time gap of nineteen forty-nine to the present. Hundreds of people lose their jobs every day and with the industries being cheap sakes they will try and find any way possible to avoid having to pay a high check every month to its retirees. This leads to another relatable topic that is emphasized in this play. When Willy confronts his boss Howard exclaiming “You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away---a man is not a piece of fruit” (Miller 326) we are able to acknowledge the cause of Willy’s breakdown. To better understand the reasoning behind Willy’s anger and frustration w...
If Willy had not got the wrong impression of the American dream he would have had the right dreams and would still be alive. Things could have turned out differently for him and his family. But unfortunately Willy died the death of salesman at least that is the one thing he could relate himself with Dave Singleman to.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
In Death of a Salesman, written by American playwright Arthur Miller, focuses on Biff’s relationship towards his father Willy Loman. He plays the role that drives most of Willy’s thoughts and actions, specifically his memories. Whenever Willy is not able to accept the present, he reverts to the past where Biff is usually nearby. Before Willy’s trip to Boston, Biff admired his father. He trusted and believed his philosophy that any person can be successful, provided that he is “well-liked”. Biff never questions his father even though at times it is obvious that Willy is not following the rules himself. This results in Biff growing up believing that rules do not apply to him because Willy does not follow them nor does he expect
Willy’s character alone has many flaws which bring about his tragic ending, most of which can be attributed to society. Here, society has created and nurtured Willy’s character, passing its values, morals and dreams onto him. Miller has described society as ‘the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct’, although it is a crucial factor in this tragedy. It is because of this society and environment Willy has been surrounded by that he embodies the ideals of the American Dream. The false ideas of success and happiness that Willy has adopted have been readily handed to him by the materialistic and superficial environment he lives in, works in and fails in. Another perception that Willy had acquired from society is its shallowness, which leads to his infidelity and also losing the trust of his older son, Biff.
Willy Loman, was never really of noble stature, as was summed up by Linda, the person who knew him best. “ Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived.” Willy’s harmartia was his obsession with the false American Dream that caused him to become delusional and totally blind of his actual situation. If this is so, then he cannot he commit a true and calculated error of judgment and then his downfall is due to an overriding irrepressible mental condition which cancels his own fault in his downfall. His delusional state of mind blurs reality and causes him to never accept or understand who he is or his downfall erasing any notion that he experienced an epiphany of any sort. In fact, it can be said that he dragged one of his sons with him. In front of Willy’s grave Happy vows to continue Willy’s dream. “ He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have- to come out the number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him.” Willy Loman is an example of the middle class man caught as a victim of society where the odds are against him, a “has-been”. As a victim he unwillingly suppressed hi...
In brief, it is apparent that Willy’s own actions led to not only his own demise, but his children’s as well. The salesman tragically misinterpreted the American Dream for only the superficial qualities of beauty, likeability and prosperity. Perhaps if Willy had been more focused on the truth of a person’s character, rather than purely physical aspects, his family’s struggles and his own suicide could have been avoided. On the whole, Arthur Miller’s play is evidence that the search for any dream or goal is not as easy and the end result may seem. The only way to realize the objective without any despair is the opposite of Willy Loman’s methods: genuineness, perseverance and humility.
The American dream described in the play can be achievable, but Willy’s ways of achieving that American dream leads him to a failure. According to an article published by the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, the play builds the idea of American dream that it is harmful and immoral as long as it is based on selfishness and greediness. However, the dream us described realistic when it is achieved on values that ar...
Willy believes that the key to success is being well liked. He thinks that if a man becomes well liked and known, then they must be truly successful. He is even so confident in this ideology that he tells his kids, “…the man who creates a personal interest, is the man who gets ahead.” This drives Willy not too work hard in life, but to maintain an appearance. Almost all his actions comes from this idea that being liked equals success. He
Willy, a traveling salesman, his wife Linda, and his sons Biff and Happy, are all in the pursuit of happiness which is the American dream. The most faulty view of this happiness belongs to Willy as he constantly alters the truth to deal with reality. Doing so, throughout the play he contradicts himself and begins to slip into almost a dementia-like state. Frequently Willy suffers specific flashbacks, that transport the play into a time where the family were younger and happier; they take place around the time the brothers were finishing high school, which results in the biggest factor to the Loman
...y he is so obsessed with trying to attain it. He is the product of his own illusions and of a society that believe that with hard work everything is possible. The reader can understand that Willy’s skewed perspective of the “American Dream” is due to his distortion of his life and the dream that he thinks he lives in everyday.