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Arthur Miller's view on the American Dream
Arthur Miller's view on the American Dream
Arthur Miller and the American Society
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Recommended: Arthur Miller's view on the American Dream
The Death of Willy Lomans American Dream Willy Loman is a sixty-three-year-old disturbed man, who is continuously dreaming of his past and a better life. The repeated dreams act almost as a barricade between the realistic world and his dream world. Willy is incapable of forgetting the past life, where he was a successful man in his own mind and lives the American Dream. His mind forces him to evaluate what is wrong and what is right. Arthur Miller seems to drop Willy into his dream world as soon as any trouble is stirred up, allowing the reader to see that Willy feels safe in his imaginary world. This shows the readers that Willy's mind has some control over his actions. Willy’s search for the American Dream leads to his lack of success …show more content…
Dr. M. Fogiel a researcher at Research and Education Association says that “Willy Lowman’s version of the American dream is one in Sievers 3 which athletic success, popularity, financial success, and being well-known and respected in a community loom large”. While trying to make his family perfect and fit the American Dream he, in fact, makes them miserable. Whenever something did not go the way Willy planned it was blown out of proportion. Falling to make his families image like the American Dream is one example of Willy’s mistakes. Every time Willy actually accomplishes something he never sees the good that has come from it, he only sees how it could have been better. He is so caught up in everything being perfect and in reality nothing is perfect and does not always go the way we plan or the way we want it to. Willy Loman is what people call today a perfectionist everything has to be perfect and if it is not perfect then they are failures. Willy Loman is painted as a “Common man” who lives a life of illusion. Willy has a good idea that he focus on but he only pays attention to the image of the American dream, not the things you have to do to achieve the dream. Willy’s choosing to follow his version of
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...
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.
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...
the laws of man and kept in check by society's own norms. The human struggle to
Arthur Miller provides us with a character who is both pathetic and tragic. Willy Loman spent his life chasing a false dream. His failure to live the "true" American Dream was what brought about his own downfall.**
Willy had quite a few ‘wrong’ dreams and they could have turned into ‘right’ dreams if his perception of the American dream was right. Dave Singleman was the man who sowed the false umbrella dream in Willy’s mind. This umbrella dream was the American dream, for all the smaller dreams Willy came up with, started with the pursuit of the American dream. However Willy’s perception of this dream was warped and therefore the rest of his dreams turned out wrong. His version of the American dream was to be able to achieve success and wealth through being well liked and popular, and not through hard work and skill.
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.
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." 8. 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.
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.
... that Willy dreams the dream and goes to pursue his own passions. Thus, the illusion of Willy’s life that resulted from him dreaming the wrong dream, ends up in his tragic suicide and the destruction of his family.
The life of Mr. Loman is one of loneliness, and lies. An online source emphasizes about Willy, “Willy convinces himself that he is successful, well- liked, and that his sons are destined for greatness.” Willy’s mind is consumed with being popular, and having material wealth. The results of Willy’s internal problems resulted with his children that could not be stable in any aspect of their lives, his failing marriage, and him struggling throughout all of his adulthood. Edward states (an online source), “Willy spent his life pursuing the wrong dreams for him. The wrong dream slowly possessed his life.” And also states, “Willy appears to have been obsessed with his goal of being known as a great salesman rather than with actually being a great salesman.” Willy is constantly under attack with thoughts of his past, to the point he has such vivid flashbacks that he will openly be talking to him, but thinking is he talking to people of the past. An online source states, “Unable to cope with reality, he entirely abandons it through his vivid fantasies and ultimately through suicide.” Willy is aware of his mistakes, but spends his time looking forward to the ‘perfect’ future he has planned, but never changes his ways to achieve his goals. Mr. and Mrs. Loman realize how different and happy Willy is when he is working outside with his hands. Both characters recognize
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.
The first component of the American dream, in Willy’s eyes is a successful career. Always the dreamer, he attempts to make his mark as a salesman because “selling [is] the greatest career a man [can] want” (1492; Act 2). But when he falls short of his goals, he blames the superficiality of the business world, as evidenced in his thoughts about Bernard:
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.
Willy Loman is a firm believer in the "American Dream:" the notion that any man can rise from humble beginnings to greatness. His particular slant on this ideal is that a man succeeds by selling his charisma, that to be well liked is the most important asset a man can have. He made a living at this for 30 years, but as he enters the reclining years of his life, people have stopped smiling back and he can no longer sell the firm's goods to support himself. His ambition was one of greatness, to work hard and to be a member of the firm; and if he could not succeed in this respect, that he should at least be well-liked and be able to sell until the day of his death: When his friends would flock from all over the country to pay their respects.