Comparing The American Dream In Arthur Miler's Death Of A Salesman

A dream is what have been leading people towards better future for centuries. American dream is not of a fairy-tail kind. It says: hard work will bring a person success. It may be the most practical dream ever, a good advice actually. Life can be tough though, and as it turns out in Arthur Miler’s “The Death of a Salesman” just having an American dream is not enough to become rich, respected, and successful. Willy Loman’s dreams that he also passed to his sons broke on the harsh reality of life, mostly because of his reluctance to accept his mistakes and react according to changing circumstances. Aristotle’s term hamartia means some sort of a tragic mistake that breaks a hero’s life [905-906]. Though there is no agreement if it should
be translated as “a weakness” or as “overweening pride”, Willy Loman embodies both sides of a tragic character.
As action in the play takes place after the Great Depression, young Willy Loman started his career before it happened: “And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.
’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?” [1236]. He seemed to be a go-getter, a type-A personality that is much admired in American society. Among others "Death of a Salesman" was written to criticize the capitalist system for taking a good salesman, keeping him only as long as he kept bringing in a lot of sales, and throwing him on the human scrap heap when he no longer produced. This has been the experience of a lot of workers, not only salesmen. In this situation Willy is just a small man who can’t resist the
system.
On the other hand, Willy Loman is also too arrogant to admit mistakes and miscalculations he made in life. He decided to become a salesman after meeting Dave Singleman, the mythic salesman who died the noble death of a salesman that Willy himself covets. His admiration of Singleman’s prolonged success illustrates his obsession with being well liked. He fathoms having people remember and love him as the ultimate satisfaction, because such warmth from business contacts would validate him in a way that his family’s love does not. As Willy fails to see the human side of Singleman, he also fails to see his own human side. He envisions Singleman as a happy man, but ignores the fact that Singleman was still working at the age of eighty-four and might likely have experienced the same financial difficulties and constant pressures and misery as Willy. Instead Willy sees being liked as some kind of guarantee of success, so he doesn’t help his beloved son Biff to graduate from high school and doesn’t support Happy as well.
“I don’t have a thing in the ground!” Willy Loman cries desperately after both his sons abandon him (Miller, 1257).
The sons in whom Willy has planted his own viewpoints have grown to disappoint him. Neither of his children has reached financial success, or borne fruit, so he ends up literally planting new seeds in the late night in poor soil of the city hoping for the better future. By doing this Willy shows that he understands his fault at least unconsciously, though he refuses to admit it being too proud. Willy is constantly recalling memories of good old times when there were two elm trees and a nice lawn near the house, when there was life around their home instead of soulless buildings that appeared now. These were the times when he liked his sons the most: they all were full of hopes for a quick and easy success. It is Willy who made the Loman brothers rely on being liked over hard work, and this belief led them to a great disappointment in themselves as adults. Biff and Happy are lost, they do nothing worth, in other words, don’t bring any fruit. Willy tries to start over again with different vegetable seeds, and fails again. Biff finally realizes that he is never going to become a great businessman: “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you… I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!” (Miller, 1263). This finding seems to bring peace into Biff’s soul, so he could be happy with what
he’s got instead of his father’s fantasies. Happy, on the contrary, claims to follow his father’s ideas. He never realizes that Willy lived in some kind of American dream, which never came true and never will.
“The Death of a Salesman” is not only a Lo-man, or Low-man tragedy in tough economical circumstances. It is also about great self-confidence and blind faith in American dream. Both these beliefs betray Willy Loman at the end of his life, and still lost and blind he is willing to die for them anyway. Willy does experience some sort of revelation, as he finally comes to understanding that he has been selling himself for his entire life. Willy ends up fully believing that “after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive” (Miller, 1245).