Willy Loman Abandonment

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Recommended: The character of Willy Loman in the light of the American dream

Death of a Salesman, written in 1949 by dramatist Arthur Miller, is a play about Willy Loman, a 60 year old travelling salesman living in Brooklyn with his wife, Linda and their two sons, Happy (32) and Biff (34). This play presents the capitalist American ideology, the American Dream and how this manifests in the deluded mind of Willy Loman, affecting himself and his family. This ideology is structured and presented through the use of dialogue, characterisation and themes.

Dialogue from many of the characters of the play exemplifies the character’s attitudes towards the ideology of the American Dream. For example, Willy expresses his faith in the dream when he says, “In the greatest country in the world a young man with such – personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker…” From this quote, we understand that Willy has faith that his son’s may eventually achieve the American Dream by meeting the minimum …show more content…

Willy experiences three significant incidences of abandonment that influences the adoption of a stunted version of the American Dream. The first and most influential was his father’s abandonment. Willy’s dad left for Alaska leaving behind Willy and Ben when they were very young. As a result, the boys had no successful father figure to look up to, nor a tangible (money) or intangible (history) legacy. His brother, Ben, eventually left Willy in search for his father in Africa where he became successful mining diamonds. These occurrences lead Willy to adopt the stunted version of the American dream. Willy then enforced this dream onto his sons, which lead to them abandoning him because they could not uphold his expectations due to opposing interests. In this way Miller conveys the idea that the American dream, in its warped perception in Willy’s mind, has influenced him psychologically, affecting his personal relationships and his success as a

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