Universal Statement: The American Dream is largely a misconception.
Intro: In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy, a businessman, contemplates his end during two days of reflection upon his life.
Thesis: Willy’s abandonment as a child leads him to believe that likeability leads to success, which in turn leads to love; this cycle to him is the key to the American Dream, but this misunderstanding leads him to his inevitable failure.
Mapping Statement 1: Willy’s abandonment by his father and brother makes him determined to set Biff on a successful course, which he believes stems from likeability, athleticism, and respectability.
Mapping Statement 2: The cycle Willy discovers from Dave Singleman leads Willy to become consumed with becoming
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likeable and loved. Mapping Statement 3: Willy sees fulfilling the cycle as a business deal; once he fulfills being well-liked, successful and loved it leads him to his inevitable end. Transition: Before the end there was a beginning; Willy’s beginning is abandonment. Body Paragraph 1: Topic Sentence 1: Ben’s desertion of Willy as a child makes Willy eager to give Biff the keys to a successful life, which Willy believes are likeability, athleticism and respectability. Context: Ben comes to visit Willy, after he talks to the family, he announces he is leaving. Willy begs him to stay. Quote: “Dad left when I was such a baby and I never had a chance to talk to him and I still feel - kind of temporary about myself.” (51) Analyze: Willy blatantly tells the reader that he feels abandoned and “temporary” about himself. He states that he feels this way due to his father abandoning him, although Ben also abandoned Willy after his father. These events caused Willy to feel not permanent. This abandonment damages Willy and causes him to have several flaws and misconceptions, specifically the American Dream. Context: Linda and Bernard are expressing their concerns about Biff’s actions to Willy. Willy refuses to accept them. Quote: “There’s nothing the matter with him! You want to be a worm like Bernard? He’s got spirit, personality…” (40) Analyze: Willy states the message he wants to portray to Biff which he believes will give Biff a successful life. He firmly believes likeability will make you successful, which in turn will make you loved. Willy enforces this throughout their childhood. He believes this so much that he continually states that academics do not matter because personality trumps all. Willy would rather Biff focus on athletics rather than arithmetic. Context: Bernard is expressing his concern to Willy about Biff not passing math. Willy talks to Biff afterwards. Quote: “Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him.” (33) Analyze: Willy is saying that Bernard can study hard and get good grades, although personality trumps that. Willy says this to reassure Biff, but also to express his beliefs and set him on a track for success. Willy believes that having a likeability personality will allow Biff to be successful and respected. Willy wants Biff to be successful and he will attempt to fulfill his success at any cost. Transition: Willy learns the notion that likeability leads to success, which leads to love from a man named Dave Singleman. Body Paragraph 2: Topic Sentence 2: Willy discovers the cycle from Dave Singleman and becomes absorbed in becoming likeable and loved. Context: Willy is talking to his sons Biff and Happy about his aspirations. Happy asks if Willy intends to be like Uncle Charley. Quote: “He’s liked, but he’s not--well liked.” (30) Analyze: Willy states that there is a difference between being liked by a few people and being liked by everyone. Uncle Charley is liked by a few people and he runs his own business. Willy aspires to be liked by everyone or well-liked. This mentality comes from Dave Singleman’s legacy. Willy believes being well liked will spur successfulness and love in his life. Context: Willy is talking to Howard, his boss, about the person that made him chose sales as a career as an attempt to sway Howard to give him a job at home. The person is Dave Singleman, who is a very liked and successful businessman. Quote: “‘Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?” (81) Analyze: Willy not only aspires to work from home like Dave Singleman, but also be as successful and liked as Dave Singleman. When Willy says “helped” he means being bought from. Willy talks about the high turnout at Dave’s funeral and how he was helped by a lot of people. They key portion Willy is misunderstanding is that Dave was not loved. The last names makes his single-status apparent. Willy becomes consumed with being liked, successful and loved based upon a man who was not even loved. Context: Willy continues to attempt convincing Howard that Willy deserves a job at home. Willy does this by reflecting on his long past in sales at the company. Quote: “In those days there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect and comradeship and gratitude in it.” (81) Analyze: Willy says this to convince Howard that he should not only take Willy’s track record into consideration, but also his personality.
Willy has this conviction that personality trumps all when it comes to success based upon salesman Dave Singleman. Dave Singleman’s successful career is the spark that lit the fire of Willy’s consumption with becoming likeable and loved.
Body Paragraph 3:
Topic Sentence 3: Willy views accomplishing the cycle as a business deal; once he accomplishes being well-liked, successful and loved, it points him to his inevitable end.
Context: Willy is planting a garden whilst discussing his life insurance policy with Ben. Willy wants to cash on the policy to help Biff in his journey to success.
Quote: “A man can’t go out the way he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something… Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition.” (125)
Analyze: Willy cannot leave the physical earth leaving himself and his family broke. Willy needs to become a success. Since Willy was fired, he has to make money a different way. His solution is cashing his insurance policy. Although, Willy knows that he has to die in a specific way to cash the policy. Also, Willy will not die until he has fulfilled being likeable and loved on top of the success that the policy will
bring. Context: Willy is discussing the success his death will bring to his family. He is happy about this because he will fulfill success for his family. Quote: “I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand… Ben, that funeral will be massive!” (126) Analyze: Being successful and liked is no longer a dream to Willy. Success, likeability and love is now almost tangible to him. Willy is happy about this because he has never considered himself a true success until now. He has hope and faith that his death will bring success to his family. Willy realizes his death will fulfill the likeability aspect of Singleman’s legacy because he believes lots of people will show up to his funeral, just like Dave Singleman. Context: Biff is passionately yelling at Willy, begging him to cut him out of his life. Willy interprets this as love. Quote: “Isn’t that— isn’t that remarkable? Biff— he likes me!... He cried! Cried to me. That boy — that boy is going to be magnificent!” (133) Analyze: Up until now, Biff and Willy have fought due to Biff’s distaste of Willy’s decision to cheat on Linda. This secret relationship gave Willy a temporary feeling of love, although Biff truly caring about Willy filled him up completely. Willy realizes that Biff really does care about him. Willy is happy because his death will bring love to himself and success to Biff. Success is fulfilled with the $20,00 life insurance policy. Likeability is fulfilled by the hope of a high turnout at his funeral. Love is fulfilled by Biff loving Willy. Willy happily yells, runs out of the house, and crashes the car, dying. Conclusion: Tie Argument into Thesis: Willy experiencing abandonment two times during his childhood urges him to believe that likeability leads to success, which in turn leads to love; Willy believes fulfilling those 3 ideas is the key to the American Dream, although this misconception leads to his inevitable end. Summarize Body Paragraphs: Due to Willy’s abandonment as a child, he is determined to lead Biff to success, which he believes comes from likeability, athleticism and respectability. Willy learns the cycle from Dave Singleman, which causes him to become consumed with becoming likeable and loved. Willy views achieving the cycle as a business deal; once he achieves all three aspect of the cycle it leads him to his inevitable end. Universal Tie-In: The American Dream is largely misconceived because it is romanticized.
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...
It is stated by Standage that, “Sandage believes Willy Loman was a success. But the message of the play, he says, is that “if you level off, you have to give up. You might as well not live”” (Baird 25). This is quite ironic because all Willy does is push to be successful and he when he can’t he puts expects his son’s to follow through so he gives up. He constantly reminds them, “the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 67). This is also ironic because Willy is the man who creates personal interest in the business world, but when everyone passes away he is left with nothing but the past to remember. This false reality that Willy creates for Biff brings on the conflicts between the father and son duo due to the fact that Biff fails as a result of the way he was raised. So by the time Biff goes to interview for his first job he thinks that his success will come with no effort
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...
Like countless characters in a play, Willy struggles to find who he is. Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman become too high for him to handle. Under the pressure to succeed in business, the appearance of things is always more important than the reality, including Willy’s death. The internal and external conflicts aid in developing the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Willy Loman will bring his downfall upon himself as he entices his own disillusions and the bedrock of his values pertaining to success and how one can achieve it. His failure to recognize the fruitless outcome of his own idealism will seal his fated suicide and have a determining effect on the failures of his two sons that when adolescent, idolized their father as a guid...
Willy Loman is an old salesman (63 years old) who is no longer able to earn a living. He receives only a small commission as he ages, and he slowly loses his mind and attempts to kill himself by inhaling gas from the water heater or from crashing his Studebaker. Dave Singleman is his role model, he wants to become well liked and rich. He spends most of his time dreaming instead of doing anything to improve his life. He is obsessed with the post-war interpretation of the American Dream.
In Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s warped view of the American Dream caused tragedy in his family because he stressed the importance of popularity over hard work and risk-taking over perserverence. *Willy grew up believing that being "well-liked" was important to becoming a success. He believed that being well-liked could help you charm teachers and open doors in business. *He is proud that the neighborhood boys flock around Biff and respond to Biff’s athletic abilities, and in the same breath scoffs at the nerdy Bernard, who is too focused on school and his studies to be popular. Even though Biff turns out to be a failure as an adult, Willy holds on to the hopes that a business man who Biff met years ago will offer him a terrific job if Biff can be his old likeable self and recapture the confidence and grace he had as a teenager.
Willy Loman’s tragic flow leads him to purse the idea that reputation in society has more relevancies in life than knowledge and education to survive in the business. His grand error of wanting recognition drove him crazy and insane and lead to his tragic death. Willy’s hubris makes him feel extremely proud of what he has, when in reality he has no satisfaction with anything in his life. Willy Loman’s sons did not reach his expectations, as a father but he still continued to brag about Biff and Happy in front of Bernard. Willy Loman caused the reader to empathize with him because before his tragic death he did everything he could for his family. Empathy, Hubris , and Willy Loman’s tragic flow all lead him to his death that distend for him the beginning.
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.
To Willy, Dave Singleman represents the promise of a successful life through being well liked and having social connections. However, Willy doesn’t realise that to achieve his dream, o...
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 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.
As shown in this scene, Willy gains satisfaction from having people remember and love him, because such love would validate Willy’s success. Thus, Willy’s adm...
...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.
Willy is a multi-faceted character which Miller has portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality. In another time or another place Willy might have been successful and kept his Sanity, but as he grew up, society's values changed and he was left out in the cold. His foolish pride, bad judgment and his disloyalty are also at fault for his tragic end and the fact that he did not die the death of a salesman.