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Character of Willy Loman on death of a salesman
Death of a salesman and the american dream
Death of a salesman and the american dream
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What encompasses the American Dream? Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” offers a realistic, stark picture of lives overflowing with dreams wished and dreams broken; yet, there are no dreams realized here. Their dreams comprise glory and fearlessness over those which genuinely can be achieved. Although Willy, Linda, Biff and Happy, as individuals, still believe in the American Dream, it’s clear that it represents something different for each.
Willy Loman has an innate ability for dreaming way beyond his capabilities. Throughout the play, Willy’s dreams represent more fantasy than truth, a behavior which his boys clearly imitate. Yet, despite the talk, there is an ongoing criticism for the world and the way things work. He brags about his sales for a trip, “I’m tellin’ you, I was selling thousands and thousands, but I had to come home” (1224). It’s difficult to tell if the stories Willy tells are what he believes to be true or what he imagines is correct; as a result, he continually tells lies to cover his shortcomings and mistakes. On the contrary, with all the “thousands and thousands” of dollars he is making, he complains about necessary repairs to mechanical objects around the house: “Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it’s broken! I’m always in a race with the junkyard” (1244)!
Willy’s primary escape from reality involves his brother Ben, who typifies the American Dream; however, Willy’s escape with Ben is purely a figment of his imagination. “Opportunity is tremendous in Alaska, William. Surprised you’re not up there” (1230). His imaginings about Ben, while they appear to be an illusion throughout the story, are thoroughly realistic in Willy’s mind. He truly believes that Ben has reached the pinnacle of the American Dream.
Willy refuses to recognize that he does have true abilities, as in the field of construction. He appears at times to have hope for the future, “on the way home tonight, I’d like to buy some seeds” (1243). Nonetheless, there is a pinning undercurrent of fear for Willy, as Linda discovers, “…sure enough, on the bottom of the water heater there’s a new little nipple on the gas pipe” (1237). Although the illusions that Willy puts forth are real to him, they are, nevertheless, simply that: Illusions. Deep down he knows things are not as they should be, with his family, his job and his life.
Willy pleads for Ben’s advice, and is constantly trying to get his attention, even though Ben has to ‘leave’. Ben is Willy’s older brother who has died. He, unlike Willy, has experienced a lot of success in the selling world. Willy is driven by Ben, and therefore tries to extract the keys to his success. Willy feels neglected when Ben does not speak with him, even though he is merely a hallucination.
support is a pathetic effort to protect his identity. Linda will never admit to herself,
The phenomenon of the American Dream has been engraved into the American culture since perhaps the beginning of post-revolutionary America itself. The classic belief that if you work hard, you would be able to reap the material benefits of what you sowed, at least enough to live comfortably is a myth that has been propagated in many literary works, deconstructed in many American literary works as a mere myth. And in Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, we see such deconstruction of the American Dream take place through both plays’ showcasing of the many complexities of the American life, complexities that are not taken into consideration with the black-and-white narrowing of the American Dream. While hard work does make up a part of the equation, it does not make up the entire equation of a comfortable lifestyle. That manifestation of the many facets of the American Dream is shown in both Miller’s The Death of a Salesman and Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.
Happy Loman has grown up to be a well-adjusted man of society. He has developed from a follower to a potentially successful businessman. Throughout his childhood, Happy always had to settle for second fiddle. Willy, his father, always seems to focus all his attention on Happy's older brother Biff. The household conversation would constantly be about how Biff is going to be a phenomenal football star, how Biff will be attending the University of Virginia and be the big man on campus, how Biff is so adulated among his friends and peers, and so on. Young Happy was always in Biff's shadow, always competing for his father's attention but failing each time. Happy would resort to such antics as laying on his back and pedaling his feet backwards to capture his father's attention but to no avail. Willy would continue to not take notice of his younger son and maintain his attention on other matters that he thought were of greater importance. Growing up under these conditions is what motivated Happy to be the man he is today.
Miller’s use of personification and symbolism in the book shows the situational irony that surrounds Willy. 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 opposite. The real belief is that if one works hard, with no regard to how well liked they are, they will be successful. This relationship is shown between Willy and his neighbor Charley. While Willy believes likability is the only way to success, Charley works hard and does not care how people think of him. Through his hard work, Charley started his own business, and is now very successful. Willy, however, ends up getti...
BANG! Your father is dead. Within a few seconds, although he attempted many times, your father dies. He gave up. All the fights, all the disrespect, and all the struggles are behind you. However, all the hope, all the passion, and all the love is still there. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the main conflict is between Willy Lowman and his son Biff. Most of their struggles are based on disrespect; however, much of the tension throughout the play is also caused by the act of giving up.
At the beginning of the play it is evident that he cannot determine the realities of life, and so he repeatedly contradicts himself to establish that his conclusion is correct and opinion accepted. These numerous contradictions demonstrate that Willy is perturbed of the possibility that negative judgements may come from others. Willy strongly believes that “personality always wins” and tells his sons that they should “be liked and (they) will never want”. In one of Willy’s flashbacks he recalls the time when his sons and him were outside cleaning their Chevy. Willy informs Biff and Happy the success of his business trips and how everyone residing in Boston adores him. He mentions that due to the admiration of people he does not even have to wait in lines. He ultimately teaches his sons that being liked by others is the way to fulfilling one’s life and removing your worries. These ideals, that one does not need to work for success, demonstrate Willy’s deluded belief of achieving a prosperous life from the admiration and acceptance of others. This ultimately proves to be a false ideology during his funeral, when an insufficient amount of people arrive. Willy constantly attempts to obtain other’s acceptance through his false tales that depict him as a strong, successful man. In the past, he attempts to lie to his wife, Linda, about the amount of wealth he has attained during his
...s personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life. He cannot grasp the true personal, emotional, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman” or “low man.” Willy is too driven by his own “willy”-ness or perverse “willfulness” to recognize the slanted reality that his desperate mind has forged. Still, many critics, focusing on Willy’s entrenchment in a quagmire of lies, delusions, and self-deceptions, ignore the significant accomplishment of his partial self-realization. Willy’s failure to recognize the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy. Despite this failure, Willy makes the extreme sacrifice in his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
Foremost, Willy has a problem with his inability to grasp reality. As he grows older his mind is starting to slip. For example, when he talks to the woman and his brother Ben. Throughout the story, Willy dreams of talking to the woman, because the woman is a person that he was dating in when he went to Boston. He was cheating behind his wife’s back. Willy basically uses her as a scapegoat when he’s hallucinating about her. He blames all of his problems on the woman. For instance Willy says, “ Cause you do… There’s so much I want to make for.” (38) This is the evidence right here. Also he dreams about his brother Ben. Willy wishes could be more like his brother who has just passed away a couple of months previously to the story. He also wishes he didn’t have to work and could be rich like Ben. He respects Ben for not really working and making a lot of money. Another example of Willy’s hallucinations are when he says,“ How are you all?” (45) This occurs when Willy is talking with Charley and he starts thinking about Ben. Willy’s inability to grasp reality never changed throughout the story.
Throughout the play, Willy can be seen as a failure. When he looks back on all his past decisions, he can only blame himself for his failures as a father, provider, and as a salesman (Abbotson 43). Slowly, Willy unintentionally reveals to us his moral limitations that frustrates him which hold him back from achieving the good father figure and a successful business man, showing us a sense of failure (Moss 46). For instance, even though Willy wants so badly to be successful, he wants to bring back the love and respect that he has lost from his family, showing us that in the process of wanting to be successful he failed to keep his family in mind (Centola On-line). This can be shown when Willy is talking to Ben and he says, “He’ll call you a coward…and a damned fool” (Miller 100-101). Willy responds in a frightful manner because he doesn’t want his family, es...
In short, Willy Loman's unrealistic dreams caused his downfall. By trying to be successful with material desires and being "well-liked" he failed. By the play's end he had to lose his own life just to provide funding for that of his family. He put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. He should have settled with what he had, for his true happiness included a loving family. Willy's example shows that one must follow their own dreams to be truly accomplished.
Moseley, Merritt. "The American Dream in Arthur Miller 's Death of a Salesman." In Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom 's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 30 Nov. 2015
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.
Willy believes that he is much more successful than he is in reality. The first sign of Willy’s illusion about his life occurs rather early in the play. He has the illusion that “[he’s] the New England man. [He’s] vital in New England” (14). In reality any person could have taken Willy’s position at work. This illusion leads to his downfall because as his life begins to fall apart, he lives in the illusion that he has enough money to support his family, so he does not recognize that he has to put the pieces of his reality back together. More towards the end of the play, in an outburst of anger Willy refuses to be called “a dime a dozen” and states “I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman” (132), as if the Loman family is a special figure in society. His unclear view of his place in society leads to his destruction; with only one view of his life, Willy believes that he is living his life to the fullest.
Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.