An Analysis of the American Dream in The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
In The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a mentally disintegrating businessman with a distorted view of the American Dream. Being well liked and personally attractive will only get you so far in life, but to Willy Loman they seem to be the keys to success. The American Dream itself is built on a foundation of superficiality, and throughout Miller's play it is associated with tangible signs of achievement. Capitalism, defined by Miller, is the pursuit of said material success without regard to happiness and internal satisfaction. By spinning the narratives of three generations of men in the Loman family, Miller successfully attacks capitalism by showing how it rewards corruption, causes one to repress happiness for the pursuit of ever-elusive societal success, and sometimes even kills.
Willy's older brother Ben serves as his idol and idealized image of prosperity and accomplishment. Ben explains his journey to wealth by stating, "Why boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich"(48). The fact that Ben is able to enter the jungle and in such a brief amount of time make a fortune implies some level of extortion. But, in the eyes of Willy, getting rich quick is not bad; in fact it is one of the things he admires most about his brother.
Ben has obtained material wealth and success while Willy has been unable to do so, and Ben therefore has obtained the American Dream. Willy even allows Ben to instill the same fierce, adventurous, and morally questionable attitude into his son when Ben says to Biff, "Never fight fair with a stranger boy, you'll never get out of the Jungle that way" (49). Jungles, real and "concrete", are full of danger, and to come out on top there you must fight dirty.
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The Jungle ends up serving as a symbol for not only the journey to opportunity, but in Willy's case missed opportunity. Willy regrets not joining Ben on his adventures and gaining wealth the same way he did. The image of Ben says as it tempts Willy to commit suicide, "The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy" (134). Darkness depicts the corrupt road to wealth, one that Ben knows well. Diamonds represent tangible success, but they are ironically highly valued and scarce. By using the image of a jungle and saying that inside one can find diamonds, Miller is saying that capitalistic society rewards those who stray ethically and make an uncommon fortune. And Willy, like many others, views this as success.
After he fails math class senior year, Biff throws out his opportunity to play college football and instead forges a transient life for himself in the West. Although as a young boy Biff admired Willy, and strived to be more like his father, uncovering Willy's history of adultery and lies causes him to completely change his life track. Willy often critiques Biff's lack of targeted career ambition, and he does not understand why Biff lets his natural assets of personality and appearance go to waste. In a last-ditch effort to explain his life choices to his father Biff exclaims, "I'm one-dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour!" (132).
By this Biff is trying to tell Willy that he no longer wants to measure himself by society's standards of material success. He has tried to achieve this before, and now wants to forge his own path towards happiness instead of capitalistic goals. "Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be... when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute say I know who I am?"(132), Biff asks himself in the middle of a moment of self-reflection. Biff has attained a level of personal growth that none of Miller's other characters are able to reach. He understands that his own goals do not line up with those of society and his father, and he wants to pursue his own passions instead of conforming to the mold of society.
Biff wants to be out in nature, and to do what he loves. He has the dream to own a ranch, and he knows who he is because he has recognized his own hopes and goals. Arthur Miller uses Biff to show that only those who go against society's relationship with capitalism's seductive and dangerous call are able to find themselves and truly be happy.
As his age and mental health cause him to no longer be able to fill his role as a salesman, Willy begins to fall through the cracks physiologically. After he is fired from his job of more than twenty years, Willy reflects on life, the past, and what it means to be a salesman. “In those days, there was personality in it.....there was respect, and comradeship and gratitude in it. Today it's all cut and dried, and there's no chance for bringing friendship to bear- or personality," (81), Willy explains to his boss, Howard. To Willy, being a salesman is his defining feature, and he has built his life around the goals of being well-liked and attaining material success.
Although Willy's statement may not be seen as a direct criticism of the capitalistic system, he says that over his career he has seen a change in business and personal interactions in the workplace. Unlike an ideal system where years of work, loyalty, and dedication would get you ahead, the system that Willy is part of does not reward him for his labor. Capitalism, Miller is saying, is a system that does not care about individuals, but one that hurts many and benefits few. But, even after Willy is confronted with the bitter reality of his situation, he still holds out some hope to attain his goals. "The whole wealth of Alaska passes over the lunch table at the Commodore Hotel, and that's the wonder, the wonder of this country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked!" (86), Willy exclaims about the American Dream.
In Willy's world of delusion he is well liked and good at his job. In reality, he is not a very good salesman and no one seems to care about him with the exception of a select few. He regrets not using corruption to gain material success the way his brother had, and therefore again brings up the image of diamonds. Even as a young man, Willy is already deep in his own self-deception telling his sons, "And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there'll be open sesame for all of us, 'cause one thing, boys: I have friends"(31). More than anything, Willy wants to provide for his family and gain financial security.
Even though Willy is good with his hands, able to build porches and put up ceilings, he has pursued the career of a salesman because he believes it will help him achieve the American Dream. A true optimist, Willy never gives up believing in opportunity, and ultimately sacrifices his own life in hopes to provide for his family the way he was never able to in life. While talking to his friend Charley on the day of his death Willy says, "Funny, y'know? After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up with more dead than alive" (98). Willy, in his detachment from reality, believes that if he would be of more use to his family as insurance money, a material possession, than a man without a livelihood. Through the tragedy of Willy's death, Miller criticizes capitalism by showing that it pushes a man to suicide for the pursuit of an empty dream.
Within every family, generations find varied levels of success. Individuals wish to achieve more, push harder, and obtain positions of stability for their posterity. In The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, three generations of the Loman family aid to narrate an acute attack on capitalism. Not only does Miller write of individuals struggling within the flawed capitalist system, but he also crafts a tragedy beginning with the harrowing downfall of Willy Loman, and ending with Willy's avoidable demise.
Even though Willy commits suicide, Miller frames the story in such a way that one may end up thinking that it was the system itself that ultimately killed him. Arthur Miller uses The Death of a Salesman to show how capitalism awards corruption, represses happiness, and produces casualties along the way. Willy Loman is meant to serve as a warning against the system of capitalism as a whole, for he believed himself to be a great man, and he fell, with almost no one left to attend his somber funeral.
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An Analysis of the American Dream in The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. (2023, Apr 20). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/an-analysis-of-the-american-dream-in-the-death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/
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