Death of a Salesman - Essay Example

Even from a cursory reading of the play, it is obvious that there is a battle going on inside Willy that deals with reality and fiction and even though Willy pretends to believe in the fiction it is reality which wins at the end. The play can be studied as a search for happiness which Willy is unable to find simply because his focus on making friends and his false belief in himself has led him to be a failure in life. The son, who Willy thinks will follow his footsteps, ends up taking his own path since his lack of faith in him is evident from the events of the play.

In his mind, Willy believes himself to be successful and extremely popular as a salesman who has friends across the region and is well respected by others. This would have been true had he been a good performer in business and had made the money which would have given him the success he needed to be happy. In reality, he was nothing more than an average performer and had no more than one or two friends. He expected hundreds of people to be present at his funeral but a grad total of five showed up in a reality (Wikipedia, 2006).

Of course, the death of a salesman or even a successful salesman is hardly expected to get news coverage even in this day and age. However, as we have seen on television, the media does cover the funerals of the rich and famous with thousands in attendance (Ross, 2007). Clearly, his imagined supremacy put him at a disadvantage since he was not really supreme in the real world. Willy failed at the American dream not because the dream is flawed, but because Willy could not work hard enough to get to the get rich part of the equation.

As opposed to those people who do find happiness by working hard, getting rich and making a life for themselves, Willy lived a life of lies. He believed that his friend Charley and his son would not be successful since they did not have a ‘preset’ personality