The American Dream in The Death Of a Salesman
In Arthur Miller's play, The Death Of A Salesman, Willy Loman's twisted view of "The American Dream" ruins life for both himself and the rest of his family. The American dream consists of hard work and dedication, which eventually will lead to success, wealth, and happiness. Willy however took the part with the wealth and money and ran with it, not realizing it will sent him straight to failure. Add to this his superficiality and irresponsibility and the outcome is Willy Loman's idea if the "American Dream." Eventually he began to ruin the lives of his sins, and through years of emotional abuse, the life of his wife. As he repeatedly failed and failed, he began to throw his own life away, throwing himself and his family down an abyss that lead to nothing but doom. In this play, Willy become delusional and begins to have rapid flashbacks from the past. Through the flashbacks Willy searches for the moment everything went wrong.First, Happy, Willy's younger son, ironically enough was anything but happy throughout his life. He loved his family, but the love was never returned. He spent his whole childhood in Biff's pathetic shadow. He was always ignored and since all attention was constantly on biff, he was never properly discipline
Next, Willy constantly abused his poor, loving wife emotionally. Linda was the ideal wife...she cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, was supportive, and most importantly loved Willy unconditionally. One characteristic of Linda was her tendency to mend things. She did do literally, and figuratively. She would literally always be mending the "too expensive" stockings Willy bought her. This drove Willy mad however because of the guilt he felt. Willy had a girlfriend he bought a box of stockings for, while his devoted wife wore old ones she constantly had to mend. She would also mend Willy. Whenever Willy would "crack", she would always make excuses for him. For example, when Willy crashed up the car, all Linda would do was blame the car. Whenever Willy would say something, she was quick to agree, or reinforce his words. She treated him like a king, while he used her. He would yell at her, put her down, cheat, etc. His very existence was painful for Linda because he had tried to commit suicide many times. His fragility scared Linda, but it only made her love him more and want to take more care of him. She would play along as Willy made lies about his sales, job, and image. Linda knew she was fired, had no income, made no sales, and borrowed money from Charlie the neighbor every month, but she never brought it up or lost respect for him. She was a mother not only to her two sons but also Willy while being the type of wife she was. She was truly a woman who deserved more than to have a man like that ruin her life. After a lifetime of misery with Willy, he killed himself leaving her completely betrayed. Perhaps in a way that was the greatest thing to happen to her. She lost the source of her misery, b
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Approximate Word count = 1152
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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