Death of a Salesman: American Dream
 

[FONT=Verdana]The [I]tragedy of Willy Loman[/I], says Arthur Miller, is:

[/FONT][CENTER][CENTER][B][FONT=Verdana]“Willy gave his life, or sold it, in order to justify the waste of it…”[/FONT][/B][/CENTER]
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[FONT=Verdana][I]Willy represents Every low-man in America[/I]. Hence, it is a tragedy of every American. The play is [I]really a challenge to the American Dream [/I]because it is the tragedy of a man troubled by the society. Willy believes in American myth that [I]“Success is obtained by being well-liked”[/I]. His dream ends up in nightmare. So the play challenges to new American capitalistic concepts.

[I]American dream means[/I] the dream of becoming [I]rich overnight[/I]. The scale and merit of success is [I]money, big house, a costly car[/I] and [I]other[/I] [I]material things. Nobility, truth, honesty[/I] are not merits. [I]Values have been changed[/I] through this dream. Instead of hard work and courage, [I]there[/I] [I]is salesmanship[/I]. It implies [I]fraud[/I], the ability [I]to sell a commodity[/I] regardless of its intrinsic uselessness. The [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]goal of salesmanship is to [I]earn a profit[/I].

So, in these circumstances, [I]man ceases[/I] to be [I]man[/I] and [I]spiritually[/I] he is [I]hollow[/I]. He constantly [I]wears a mask[/I] hiding his deceptive frauds. The only reality, the only goal is that of material success. The same situation happens [I]with Willy Loman[/I]. By this way, Willy, to a large extent, represents Every Low-man in America. His fall, [I]his death[/I] reflects the total break down of the [I]concept of salesmanship[/I], an integral [I]part of America[/I] [I]setup[/I][I].[/I]

[I]Willy believes[/I] that life’s problems can be solved by looking “Well-liked”. But he does not realizes the fact that [I]the age[/I] in which he is living, the good looks does not matter, what matters is [I]the wealth[/I][I]you have[/I]. By wealth you can buy anything. All relations are useless before [I]almighty[/I][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana] [I]dollar[/I]. He receives his severest blows [I]when he needs [/I]the greatest amount of love and care. He is[I]unable to[/I][I]travel[/I] extensive. He makes a [I]request to [/I]his young employer to relieve him of such a tiring burden and give him a[I]comfortable job[/I]. But, for the capitalism businessman no moral or legal obligation can be biding. To him, [I]Willy is commercially as useless [/I]as the peels of a fruit. So, he says:

[/FONT] [CENTER][CENTER][B][FONT=Verdana]I can’t take blood from a stone”.[/FONT][/B][/CENTER]
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[FONT=Verdana]In fact,[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] [I]“Death of a Salesman”[/I]is a[I]red light[/I]for American society. It shows that all Americans adopt one million ideas and dream for success. Everyone wants to become the[I]president of America[/I], but when he fails to achieves his dreams, he becomes frustrated. Willy’s suicide is a [I]caution for such modern values.[/I]

[I]Eugene O’Neil[/I]comments on the failure of American dream in following lines:

[/FONT][CENTER][FONT=Verdana] [B]“I am going on the theory that the United States, instead of being the most successful country in the world, is the greatest failure”[/B][/FONT]
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[I]In conclusion [/I]we can say that Miller in[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Death of a Salesman” has tried to show the failure of American dream. Implicitly, he tells us tht man is not a machine, he has emotions too. Thus placing all the values on riches is wrong. The whole situation he sums up in Biff’s remark who says on his father’s death.

[/FONT] [CENTER][CENTER][B][FONT=Verdana]“He had the wrong dream. All, all wrong.”[/FONT][/B][/CENTER]
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