Willy Loman and the American Dream - Assignment Example

Willy Loman and the American Dream Anyone growing up in America, and many who only dream of growing upthere, seems to have an idea of a promised ‘American Dream’ that floats in virtual space just waiting for them to pick it. A great deal of energy and attention is given to the concept of the American Dream, but while most people seem to have this concept that it’s just waiting for them to grab it, few have any clue as to just what it might look like. Without any form of real definition, it is difficult to understand how one might determine when or if they have reached it. The American Dream does have some common elements such as a house, leisure time and the natural result of average effort, yet each individual must realize that their idea of home and their concept of leisure might be vastly different from another person’s. Unless you know what the dream means to you, it remains impossible to attain, but many people fail to provide themselves with that clear sense of definition. In his play, Death of a Salesman, playwright Arthur Miller presents the story of Willy Loman and his last ditch efforts to achieve the American Dream he envisions for himself and his family. This paper argues that Miller’s play illustrates the problem of fuzzy definition, discovers the actual elusiveness of the American Dream and that the play itself argues for an adjustment of our concepts of this term in favor of something more personal. Throughout Miller’s play, Willy Loman continues to compare himself to a vague notion he has of the American Dream. The idea of the house being an integral part of the Dream is brought in almost immediately as Willy observes to his wife “Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it” (4). This statement reveals the emptiness Willy has found in the accomplishment of providing his family with a home of their own as his sons prepare to leave again. As Linda tries to soothe him, he reminds her “some people accomplish something” (4). By making this statement, he is indicating that simply owning a home and raising a family isn’t enough to give him the sense of satisfaction he’d thought he’d have at this point in his life. Willy’s ideas are shown to be flawed as he talks with his boys in several memory scenes. In these scenes, he is seen to be attempting to inflate his own importance and the prestige of his job: “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. I can park my car on any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own” (18). As a result of his boasting, a great deal of what his family knows about Willy is based upon the image he’s created of himself instead of the real Willy. He does this to try to prove to himself that he has attained the American Dream of a successful businessman. Although Willy seems to have a very unclear idea of what comprises the American Dream, his family seems clear in their belief in him as the epitome of the American man. Throughout the play, there are many places when Willy’s wife or children have attempted to assure him that his importance to them has nothing to do with others’ opinions or his level of financial success. All they want to do is spend time with him. The boys are seen, in Willy’s flashbacks, to constantly beg him to take them with him on his sales trips while Linda continuously works to reassure him and support him in everything that he does. “He’s the dearest man in the world to me, and I won’t have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue” (38), Linda tells Biff in adulthood. Unfortunately, Willy is incapable of abandoning his fuzzy ideas of the American Man and thus remains trapped in a failed plan that has no hope of success. As he is finally brought to the realization that his slipping memory means he cannot work anymore, Willy finds himself grasping for a foundation within his family that isn’t there because of the way he has kept his true self hidden behind appearances. He must continue to keep up appearances as a great man in front of his sons even as his wife gently reminds him of the bills that need to be paid. This relationship he shares with his wife only serves to remind him of how much he owes her, telling her “you’re my foundation and my support” (18) even when he just finished belittling her ideas. Willy’s ideas of the American Dream seem to involve a strong, completely self-contained man who sacrifices all of his own inclinations in favor of providing his family with a decent house, the appropriate educational experiences and the money they will need to live on after he retires or dies. By exposing Willy’s failure, Miller points out that the American Dream as it is generally understood provides no assurances of success in any way even if it can be clearly defined by a man’s actions. Throughout the play, there is little option for Willy to do anything other than what he does within the context of his personality and understanding of the American Dream. His absolute belief in the American ideal in which a father lived by certain principles to provide his family with their basic material needs is inextricably tied to his ideas of his status within the family unit itself. From Willy’s perspective, the only way to attain familial success is to first obtain business success. With business success, a man could then work to develop binding relationships between himself and the family his money will support. Upon realizing he had not achieved business success, though, Willy can clearly not consider himself to have achieved any degree of familial success. This is emphasized in his continued disparagement of his son’s choices in life. His comments on Biff leave little room for doubt regarding Willy’s disappointment in his older son: “Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!” (5) while his rants at Happy seem to be directed more toward his own failures: “You’ll retire me for life on seventy dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you’ll retire me for life!” (27). Willy’s belief that his family will receive a $20,000 life insurance benefit following his suicide is the only answer he can discover to finally achieve at least the first half of his concept of the American Dream. By clearing this hurdle, it is in only in his final moments of life that Willy is at last able to understand that his family, particularly Biff, really loved him all along simply because he was Willy. Because these are the final moments of his life, though, Willy is never able to directly benefit from this new appreciation of his life just as his death by suicide automatically voids the life insurance policy, thus leaving his family in greater debt than they had been before. Through the story of Willy Loman, Arthur Miller illustrates that the American Dream everyone chases after is insufficiently defined to foster any real success. Willy thinks he knows what he means by the term – a house, a family, a career and a high level of respect among his peers – a definition that many could agree upon. However, he has an innate sense that this is not really enough; that what he really wants has more to do with loving relationships with others rather than awed respect or subservient dependence. This sense seems to be fueled by an understanding that the material accomplishments are not as fulfilling as he’d imagined. Although the American Dream is thought to be relatively easy to attain, Miller’s play illustrates how elusive it truly is. His warning to his audience, whether the contemporary audience of his time or that of the present paper, is that one must understand the fundamental elements of the Dream before trying to chase it. By understanding that your Dream is to be surrounded by people who love and respect you whom you have time to enjoy, you will spend more of your life doing things that encourage true love and respect rather than chasing a lonely dream entirely on your own and finding at the last that you are still alone. The way that Miller tells the story also demonstrates that whether he were rich or poor, Willy would have lost out on the Dream simply because he was unable to recognize it when he had it. Works Cited Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking Press, 1949. Read More