Arthur Millers Critical View of the American Way of Life: An Exploration - Coursework Example

Arthur Miller’s Critical View of the American Way of Life – An Exploration “Tempted always to settle for half—for the loss of meaning and the loss of consequence endemic in the whole complex of personal and social relationships, the American way of living as Miller sees it—the heroes of these plays, no matter how perversely, are still attached to life, still moved by irresistible desires for a name, a significance, a meaning.” Raymond Williams (1959, p. 37) Literature has always lent space for expressing praise or censure of the society regarding cultural changes; very often poets, narrators and playwrights have used it as a means of voicing their perspectives on issues such as relationships, lifestyles, war and peace. Arthur Miller was one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century and his play Death of a Salesman (1949) can be cited as a good example that reflects Miller’s criticism of the post-war American obsession with materialism. This essay argues that Miller has indirectly criticized capitalism by pointing out the sheer alienation and disillusionment felt by individuals like Willy Loman and his sons in a capitalist society (post-war America) and, cite appropriately from the play to argue this perspective. A brief biography of the playwright is given before the illustration of the argument; the essay concludes by stating that Miller appears to be warning the American people of the dangers of pursuing excessive materialism. Miller’s Life and Works: Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915, as the son of a wealthy garment manufacturer, Isidore Miller. Due to the heavy loss that the family suffered in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Miller family had to shift to Brooklyn; this left a lasting and traumatic impression in Miller (Welsh 2005) and can be seen in the importance given to the financial upheavals in the lives of his characters. Arthur Miller had to take up low-paying jobs as the result of his family’s financial condition and save money in order to fund his college education at Abraham Lincoln in 1932. Two years later, Miller became involved with the works of the famed Russian author Dostoevsky, and he was accepted into the University of Michigan, where he took up jobs like tending mouse in the laboratory, and working as a night editor of the Michigan Daily newspaper, in order to supplement his income. This can be considered as a crucial period because, this was the time during which Miller came to be gradually realize his playwriting skills, winning awards and the much needed finance to eke out a living for himself. In the year 1940, he married Mary Grace Slatterly (Collins 2005). After a brief stint of writing script for radio, he envisaged to probe deeper into the hearts of the American soldiers who fought in the World War II and tried to compile their actual feelings, for a film script. Though his play The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944) did not get favorable comments, his first novel Focus (1945) was well received. The play All My Sons was won him great success and in 1947, Miller was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (Helterman, 1981, p. 90), putting him firmly on the path of being a playwright. In 1949, Death of a Salesman, brought his greater glories, getting him the New York Drama Critics Circle Award; "critical and financial triumph...[catapulting] Miller into the front rank of American dramatists" (Helterman 1981, p. 95), bestowing him with the second Drama Critics Circle Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. An Enemy of the People, followed by   The Crucible (1953), and A Memory of Two Mondays and A View from the Bridge, and he won his third Drama Critics Circle Award in 1955 for the latter. In his personal life, he divorced Mary Grace Slatterly and married the beautiful actress Merlyn Monroe in 1956, only to divorce her in 1961. Miller married Ingeborg Morath whom he met in the sets of The Misfits. After the Fall (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977), The American Clock (1980), are some of his other works (Helterman, 1981). Time and again, Arthur Miller's plays catch the interest of modern directors, film makers and critics, as the themes are as relevant today as they were in the mid-twentieth century. Thus, his works find place in theatres even in current times and this has kept his popularity intact, making him one of the most renowned playwrights of North America. Arthur Miller passed away on February 11, 2005, leaving his plays to continue speaking his denouncements of American way of life. Miller’s Criticism of the American Dream: Brenda Murphy (2011) observes that Miller wrote the play Death of a Salesman (1949) as “an attack on some of the basic values of American business culture”. Starting from the title which declares a very unhappy occasion namely ‘death’, the play constantly reminds one of misery and disillusionment that abounds in the lives of ordinary men and women like Willy Loman and his family. The play centres around the conflicts and fears of a typical American family set in the post-war period, starting with the main characters Willy Loman, his wife Linda, sons Biff and Happy, neighbour Charley and his son Bernard, and Willy’s older brother Ben. The characterization Willy Loman appears nothing extraordinary, since he reminds one of a common, American salesman, with normal aspirations of any other ordinary person in the capitalist, post-war environment of the U.S., of making it big and living a happy family life. However, while Willy believed in the ‘American Dream’, his mistake was that it would come in easy with just ‘personality’. In Act II, Willy Loman confesses to Howard Wagner of his belief that being a salesman was a great career, since Dave Singleman a salesman he had met, could make a living and all he had to do was to “ put on his green velvet slippers” and “pick up his phone and call the buyers,” (Miller 1949, p. 57). The materialism of the American Dream enticed Willy Loman, and tragically too. The frequent bouts of daydreaming by Willy, sportsman Biff’s disenchantment with his father’s adultery and his subsequent failure in Math, and finally the act of committing suicide by Willy Loman himself – all revolve around Willy’s becoming successful, and the unrealistic views of how to be successful, leading to his failure as not only a salesman, but also as a father, as a husband, and also as a good family head. Paul Rosefeldt (2011) suggests that Miller’s personal childhood experiences had a lasting influence on his worldview and reflected in his writings too. He states that Miller grew up witnessing the hardships of the great Depression, and seeing the once wealthy people reduced to poverty and penury moved the young Miller terribly. “To him [Miller], the Depression signified the failure of a capitalist system of government and the tragedy of a generation of people who frequently blamed this failure on themselves” (Rosefeldt 2011). Willy Loman was not very successful as a salesman and deludes himself of his capabilities, and finally when he realizes his inadequacy, he commits the act of suicide almost as a compensation for this, to give his family the dignity and wealth through his death, what he couldn’t earn in his life as a salesman. One can understand the background in which Miller created the deeply insecure salesman character of Willy Loman, who finally realizes his disconnect with reality. Raymond Williams (1959) elucidates candidly how Miller gives expression to the “experience of disintegration” (p. 36). Williams (1959) states that the Death of a Salesman (1949) is “social expressionism” which is “an expressionist reconstruction of naturalist substance, and the result is not hybrid but a powerful particular form” (p.36). Though Miller (1949) has not explicitly stated mentioned the Marxist concept of ‘socialism’ ‘alienation’ anywhere, it is the influence of the society (the social way of living) that prompts Loman to train his sons and himself to hold unrealistic beliefs of success, which leads to its shattering. Furthermore, Loman is only a human expression of the social norms and constructs of the capitalistic American society. The irony is that, from being just a salesman who sells commodities, his desperation pushes him to the extreme of becoming a salesman who makes a commodity of his own life, and that life too loses its value beyond a certain point of time like all other objects! (Williams 1959, p. 36) The above clearly demonstrates how Miller has made his character Willy Loman stand as an example of the consequences that befall one who gets entangled in the trap of individualistic and materialistic pursuits. Loman’s utter disappointment and loss of self-image is Miller’s way of warning his readers of following American ideals sans social responsibility. Biff and Willy Lowman and the American Dream: While Miller has built his plot mostly based on Willy Loman, the support and development in the plot has been achieved by the characters of the two sons of Willy. Miller (1949) has depicted them as looking up to their father and believing in him. Biff Loman is shown as doing well as a sportsman with a prospective entry into college for further education. His failing in math denied him the opportunity to enter college. The failing of Willy Loman as a father is especially seen in that Willy misdirects his son early on; in Act I , when Willy comes to know that Biff has stolen the football from the locker room, instead of correcting his son and telling him that it was wrong to steal, he indirectly encourages Biff by saying “Coach’ll probably congratulate you on your initiative!” (Miller 1949 p. 19) Not stooping at this, Willy further emphasizes to Biff that it is more important to be liked than being honest; later, he also leads Biff to believe that looking good, being liked and talking smoothly were the most important things to become successful as against labor and toil. Unfortunately for Biff Loman, he does not develop independent opinion, and believes that since he is handsome and well-liked, success will come his way in life. When that does not happen, Biff takes to stealing things (he was not corrected at a tender age by Willy) and even goes to jail because of this habit other than losing jobs. Biff Lowman is shattered in his faith more when he sees his father Willy Loman cheating on his mother with another woman. He is totally shattered at his father’s betrayal, and calls Willy a ‘liar’, and shouts “You fake! You phoney little fake! You fake!” (Miller 1949, p. 89) It leaves him confused about his own identity, his goals and beliefs, and a thoroughly disillusioned Biff does not want o be a part of his father’s dream anymore. He feels that it was another fake thing like his father himself. The alienation felt by Biff Loman is due to the false ideals and social values administered by Willy and the society in which they lived. When Biff gradually understands that his ideals are as flawed as his father’s, he tries to come to terms with reality – the reality that being ‘handsome’ or being ‘well-liked’ by people is just not sufficient for attaining success in life. Unlike what Willy Loman lead Biff to believe, Biff was nothing special or unique, and neither was Willy and Biff tells Willy as much in Act II, “Pop! I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!” (Miller 1949, p. 98) Biff Loman accepts his own inadequacies/failures and also his father’s; Like his mother Linda Loman, Biff loves Willy despite the failures, even after his disillusionment with his father’s fake ness. Biff craves Willy’s reciprocal acceptance and love, which Willy is unable to give, since he is not able to come to terms with his own failure, nor that of his son. Towards the end of the play, Biff Lowman is shown by Miller (1949) as displaying a lot of maturity. He tries to rationalize who he is as a person who has been deeply let down, shaken, even hurt by the wrong principles and ideals he had been led to chase. In Act II he finally wants to come clear of the false game that they were playing in front of his mother Linda Loman, and decides to enlighten her about his life and work, “I stole myself out of every good job since high school!” (Miller 1949, p.98) Admitting that he had been jailed because of stealing a coat in Kansas city (p. 97), Biff reassures he mother that he has come to terms with all that. Not only has he become self-confident about his own identity, he is also able to state clearly to his father that he has overcome the habit of stealing. Moreover, Biff has now emerged on his own, away from sharing his father’s unrealistic and defeating American dream, into a person who can think for himself. Biff tries to explain the process of his maturity to his father and says that he “said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!” (Miller 1949, p. 98) The playwright’s censure of the American dream is understood through the words of Biff as he movingly illustrates his travails of merely trying to eke out a living, “I’m one dollar an hour, Willy I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning?” (Act II Miller 1949, p. 98) Therefore, he confesses to Willy that he isn’t a leader of men, on the same note, neither was Willy. However, in the last part of the play, Biff Loman is seen as a completely arrived man, who knows exactly who he is and who is not as against Willy Loman who had not understood his identity and capabilities and therefore was chasing an unrealistic dream. What we see in Biff Loman’s character is again an attack on the materialistic way of life of the American society and the need for every individual to rationalize his/her personal capabilities and interests/goals rather than blindly following social dictates. Happy Loman –The inheritor of the American Dream: As mentioned earlier in the essay, Happy Loman, the younger son of Willy Loman is painted as a pitiable character by Miller (1949). He is constantly competing for his father’s attention but fails miserably since Willy is too taken up by Biff – the elder son’s handsomeness, sports performance, and likeability, to really notice the well-being of his younger son. This is despite the fact that among the two sons, Happy is more successful in his work and career as compared to Biff. He is not too concerned with moral ideals, and has little respect for women or marriage. He flaunts his sexuality unabashedly. However, he too loves his father Willy and his mother Linda too. Probably because Happy Loman was not under the constant scrutiny of Willy Loman, he had more space to experiment and mature himself, and emerge into a self-assured person who is able to get a more stable job as one of the two assistants to an assistant buyer. Happy Loman draws the attention of Willy to himself even as a child as he feels that Biff was taking away all the love and focus. It may have reflected on his preoccupation with physical health and Happy keeps asking Willy “I’m losing weight, you notice, Pop?” (Miller 1949 p. 19) The lack of love and attention from his parents, he tries to get it from outside and therefore he becomes a womanizer and even admits it to his mother. He seems to be always considered as an extension of Biff, rather than a separate individual in the eyes of his parents when he was younger. However, like Biff, he too loves his father Willy and tells him that he shall retire Willy for life (Miller 1949, p. 28). Happy always takes care to mediate when the argument heats up between Willy and Biff; for example, Happy tries to convince Biff to handle the matter of borrowing money from Oliver smoothly by allowing tempers to cool. He suggests to Biff, to pacify his father, even if it meant telling some lies, “You leave the house tomorrow and come back at night and say Oliver is thinking it over. And he thinks it over for a couple of weeks, and gradually it fades away and nobody’s the worse” (Miller 1949, p. 76). Happy Loman is also shrewder than Biff, as depicted by Miller (1949). While discussing Willy’s money matters, Happy Loman remarks that Biff had the habit of messing up on his work when he was actually doing well and that he had to have more tact; “If I’m going to take a fade the boss can call any number where I’m supposed to be and they’ll swear to him that I just left” (Miller 1949, p. 43). This episode reveals two things about Happy; first that he is smart and has learned the art of surviving in the business world, and secondly, he doesn’t pay too much attention to ethics, like being honest or loyal to one partner and so on. It is Happy Loman and not Biff Loman who takes up his father and partly promises to fulfil the American dream, in the steps of Willy his father. He is almost ready to fight with Biff, when the latter remarks after Willy’s death, that Willy “had all the wrong dreams” (Miller 1949, p. 103). Even when Biff invites Happy to join him, Happy refuses stating “I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have — to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him” (Miller 1949, p. 104). Happy has taken after his father and holds grand plans of making it big in the world of business and sales. Although he is just a sub-level assistant, he dreams of running a million-dollar – business with his brother in the name of ‘Loman Brothers’ selling “sports goods” (Miller 1949, p. 45). In essence, Happy Loman carries on the American dream from his father and he may probably be slightly more successful than his father, from the little said about him. However, his valueless pursuit is already depriving him of love which he so craves to have, through unethical means. Thus, though he may be partly successful in the business world, there is no guarantee that he will find the happiness and love that he so yearns to have. In short he too is a product of alienation in the commodified American world. Social Inferences from Miller: A well-known reviewer of Miller’s plays, Joyce Carol Oates (1998) comments on Death of a Salesman (1949) that, even after many decades, the play is so painfully contemporary with “social realism and expressionistic techniques” (1998). To put it simply, the play is written from a perspective of sharing responsibility for the false conditioning on which the Loman family is brought up in, like for example, it is alright to utter some lies, handsomeness and likeability are the most important ingredients of success, it is alright to commit adultery. It appears that Miller (1949) has created the characters with a clear purpose in mind. Will Loman is the quintessential believer in the American dream – eternally thinking of money and dreaming of a successful, comfortable life which earns him respect and status in the society without having to toil for it. Willy Loman does not labour to produce anything, and does not take responsibility of any flaw in the product; he is merely a selling objects/ commodities. This is so deep rooted in him that, he refuses to take responsibility for misguiding his children especially, Biff. Though he admits it to Stanley that he has not laboured right “Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground” (Miller 1949, p. 90) he is not able to accept his failure in front of his family. Furthermore, he builds his aspiration on the wrong values – to think that a career as a salesman is very attractive because he saw one Dave Singleman making sales through a couple of phone calls, in the comfort of his own bedroom, with velvet slippers, is nothing but foolhardy. Thus, Miller has clearly made an example of Willy Loman’s wrong ideals to warn the society of putting their faith in capitalism. David Walsh (2005) cites Charles Isherwood to observe that Miller was bothered by the “with the moral corruption brought on by bending one’s ideals to society’s dictates, buying into the values of a group when they conflict with the voice of personal conscience.” Walsh suggests that it is not the individual fault of Loman; rather, it is the social element that precludes the element of analyzing things deeply, (2005) which the collective problem of the materialistic society. This appears to be the message that Miller (1949) has hoped will reach his audience. If Willy Loman is Miller’s creative warning to people, it appears that Miller (1949) has wanted to give a ray of hope to his audience too, in the form of Biff Loman. He was the darling of Willy and reciprocated by sharing Willy’s faith in the American dream only to find out the bitter truth of its falseness in his life’s journey. Biff’s learning that success does not come as easily as he was taught to believe, and that there exists an identity beyond material success comes to him the hard way. But the positive thing is that he is able to overcome his shortcomings, and is able to see a valid identity in both himself and his father beyond their faults. This is the hope that Miller (1949) holds out to his audience. The playwright wants his readers to constantly look into their value systems and question themselves as Biff does, to seek for them-selves the answers that align with their consciences, regarding personal pursuits and social responsibilities. There seems to be a small message in the character of Happy too; Happy remains unchanged through all the arguments, tensions and even the death of his father, and still cherishes the American dream. He continues to believe that he can make money and turn out to be a successful salesman in future and refuses the invitation of his brother to join him out of Brooklyn. Probably Miller (1949) allowed the character to remain that way implying that not all people can transform by earning their lessons. Happy has survived well and shall survive in future too, and therefore finds little incentive in transformation, as compared to Biff. Even Willy refuses to change till the end, and had to pay the heavy price of his life to make himself financially worthy, which is the most important aspect of success to him. Conclusion: Arthur Miller (1949) is deemed one of the most successful playwrights in American literature, and Death of a Salesman (1949) is very popular till date. He appears to have written the play from the background of a personal memory of financial ruin his family went through, and the struggles that he faced early in life to make his living. There are a number places in which he has made his message clear; the characters Willy Loman and his sons Biff and Happy Loman all illustrate different aspects of the American dream with an intended warning from the playwright. It seems appropriate to end with the words of Oates (1998) echoing Miller’s general outlook on the American way of life, “As we near the twenty-first century, it seems evident that America has become an ever more frantic, self-mesmerized world of salesmanship, image without substance, empty advertising rhetoric, and that peculiar product of our consumer culture “public relations”—a synonym for hypocrisy, deceit, fraud. Where Willy Loman is a salesman, his son Biff is a thief. Yet these are fellow Americans to whom “attention must be paid.” Arthur Miller has written the tragedy that illuminates the dark side of American success which is to say, the dark side of us.” Oates (1998). References: Collins, Mary (2005). “Arthur Miller (1915-2005): A Brief Biography” in PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing Project, copyrighted Paul P. Reuben. Website updated on November 2, 2011. Accessed on December 5, 2012. http://lead.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/miller.html#bio Helterman, Jeffrey. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-Century American Dramatists Part 2: K-Z. Ed. John Mac Nicholas, Volume 7. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981. 86-111. Miller, Arthur (1949). Death of a Salesman. Online version accessed on December 5, 2012. http://cc.usst.edu.cn/Download/c849567f-a9d0-4250-9b4f-db3b7f3670ed.pdf Oates, Carol Joyce (1998). “Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: A Celebration” in Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 1998, and reprinted in Where I've Been, And Where I'm Going. Accessed online version on December 5, 2012. http://www.usfca.edu/jco/arthurmiller/ Rosefeldt, Paul (2011). “Biography of Arthur Miller” in Critical Insights Arthur Miller ed. Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut, Salem Press, Canada. Accessed online version on December 5, 2012. http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Insights-Arthur-Miller-ebook/dp/B008BT9C06 Walsh, David (2005). “Arthur Miller, an American playwright” in World Socialist website. Online version accessed on December 5, 2012. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/02/mill-f21.html Williams, Raymond (1959). “The Realism of Arthur Miller” in The Critical Quarterly Universities & Left Review 7 Autumn. (Pp. 34-7) Available Online at www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/ulr/07_34.pdf Read More