“Death of a Salesman” Analysis Essay Example

many orders without ever leaving his hotel room.(miller, 180) When he died many people from all over come to see him on his funeral day and this became Willy Lowman’s inspiration. Hence since then, he has always wanted to be loved and be successful.

The play starts as Willy Lowman had just come back home tired after his business trip which had been canceled, his companion Linda, is troubled about his state of mind. Willy complains that he can’t seem to drive anymore. Linda suggests that Willy requests his boss Howard Wagner to let him work from his home so that he doesn’t have to travel to the city. Willy complains that their child Biff has not yet lived up to expectations in his life. Biff had a promising life; he was a football captain in high school, had a good physique and was generally looking attractive. He had attracted several scholarships from all over the country but failed his senior year math and never attended college. It is later revealed that after Biff had failed his math exams and had traveled to Boston to urge his father to plead with the supervisor, just to find his father having an affair in a hotel room with a strange woman. Since then Biff was disgruntled and could not bring Willy the happiness of having a successful son.

Biff returns home from the west after being away for fourteen years. He is united with his brother happy and together they reflect on their childhood. They discuss their father’s psychological disintegration which they have both witnessed inform of his constant dithering and daydreaming about the boy's high school years. Willy

then walks in angered by the fact that the boys have never reached his expectations. In an vain effort to appease their father, Happy tells him of Biff’s plan to make a business proposal the following day.

The following day, Willy goes to ask for a job in town while Biff goes to make a trade proposal to which they surprisingly fail. Willy gets fired after fuming to his boss decision to let him rest and informing him that he could no longer represent the company. Biff has to wait for hours to see his former employer who doesn’t remember him and turns his offer down. Dejected Biff unreasonably steals a fountain pen. Willy then goes to his neighbor Charley’s office where he meets Charley’s son, Bernard, who is now a successful lawyer. There, Willy is informed that his son Biff wanted to pass his summer school, but after his trip to Boston, he changed his mind.

Biff, Willy and Happy meet at a restaurant for dinner. Willy refuses to listen to Biff ’s bad news. Biff is frustrated and leaves the restaurant. Along with the two girls he had picked, Happy too follows him along. They leave a depressed and upset father behind. On reaching home Linda irritably complains to them about leaving their father behind, meanwhile there father is still standing outside seemingly in a monolog. Biff unsuccessfully tries to reconcile with Willy. The discussion later escalates to another level. He tries to explain to his father plainly that he is just a normal person who’s not meant for great things in life. He tries to emphasize that they are both ordinary people and are

meant to live normal lives. The argument soon reaches climax as Biff hugs Willy as he tries to urge him to let go of his unrealistic dreams. Despite not listening to his son, Willy believes that Biff has forgiven him. As Linda goes to bed, despite urging Willy to come with her, he stays and reflects into Biff’ s playing career for one last time before leaving the house. Biff and Linda cry out in despair as sounds of Willy’s car fades out in flames. The last scene takes place at the funeral. Attendants only include his family members. The attendees have mixed emotions, especially on Willy choice of life and his beliefs. It’s during his burial that the family feels free and can make their own decision. Biff especially retains his stance and doesn’t follow his father’s wish to be a business man. However his brother Happy, follows his dad’s dream to become a businessman. Linda meanwhile is left to lament about her husband’s choices.

The American Dream’ in the Death of a Salesman

The idea of the American dream can be traced back to the declaration of independence; it states that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Among those are; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”(Thomas Jefferson, 1776). The American dream is generally a belief that anyone regardless where they were born or social class can attain success in America. This can only be achieved through hard work, determination, sacrifice and risk-taking. In this ideology, the United States of America is known as the land of

opportunities. The American dream offers free will for one to make either big or small decisions that affect one’s life; it also offers the liberty to aim for better and bigger things and the opportunity of achieving them. However, Miller is very critical and believes that people have in the end been misguided about the whole American dream. (Engleton, 67)
The origin of the American dream can be traced to the 18th and 19th-century immigrants, who came to the United States in hope of a better life. Hard working, desire and being honest are the ways of the dream. These ways leads to success, wealth and power. However, this dream also encourages voracity, egocentric behavior, jealousy and arrogance among the people. Willy Lowman is held up in the American dream. He considers himself as a post-modern hero (Engleton, 98). He believes that the key to succeeding is to be loved and to have a charming personality. He had always aspired to be like Dave Singleman who had both wealth and freedom. “He was eighty-four years old, and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states.” (Miller, 48) The earning drive and aggressive instinct allow Willy to develop weakness in his personality. The weakness is caused by a combination of business pressure. He lacks proper ethics for success. Willy measured success in terms of wealth and popularity. He believed that salesmanship was all about having a good character and a pleasing personality. He always believed that money would make him happy and was never happy with what he had. He wanted to prove himself as a successful salesman, but he fails and his personal life destroys him. He literarily

surrenders himself to a place in society that was never his (Darlingham, 44).
Willy is a failure in life, his trust in his own belief and ultimately it ends up costing him. He feels so, mainly because the success story in the American dream should be available to all, but doesn’t happen to him. Having worked for Wagner company for thirty-four years he stills under appreciated.. “You can’t eat the orange and throw away the peel… a man is not a piece of fruit!”(Miller, 65) His unquestionable commitment to his ideology has created numerous predicaments in his life. This has mostly affected his family especially his two sons.

Willy believes that his two sons have the right characters for success just like in the American dream; they are physically strong, attractive and hard working. Biff, the elder son has a successful football career having been the high school captain. Happy on the other hand is not as gifted as his older brother but possesses a pleasant character. Willy has a mixed feeling about education, although he has good grades in college that coupled with a sporting career can guarantee a good life, but also it doesn’t make a substantial difference in the struggle for success in life. He tries to direct the education of his sons; he believes that even if success surpasses him, he can still look forward to a vindication of his life through them. Biff doesn’t share is father’s identity, he wanted to get out and earn from the work of his hands but his dad prevents him. During the later parts of the play, Biff tries to reconcile his father by urging him

to let go his hopes in him. Unfortunately, Willy considers this as a failure and decides to commit suicide.

Uncle Ben is a true representation of the American dream. Ben strongly believes that the American dream is all about to hold an opportunity to conquer and to gain a fortune. Willy completely idolizes Ben, whereby to him he represents the true American story of rags to riches. He Admires Ben’s adventurous spirit and his story of rapid wealth. He went out to try his luck in Alaska but because of his “faulty view of geography” ends up in Africa, and through a combination of guts and good fortunes struck it rich (miller,156).

In the play, Charley and his son Bernard are used to illustrate the true success story of the American culture. Although they share a similar background and live in the same neighborhood, it’s Charley and not Willy who is successful in business. Their hard work and dedication are clearly described in the ‘Death of a Salesman’. Willy criticized them throughout the play, and it’s not that he hated them but because he felt jealousy of their success. Charley, Willy’s only friend, presented what Willy wanted in life. Charley completely had no interest in Willy’s business theories. He was successful and was even willing to offer Willy a job even for doing nothing, so that he could bring something back home for his family. These characters have been used in the play to clearly present the ‘right way’ to success. They provide contrast behavior to Willy’s.

Reality and Illusion

Willy had always dreamt of success in his whole life, he even makes lies to cover up for his

and his son’s success. It is apparent that the more he indulges in lies, the more he is deluded from reality. After meeting Dave Singleman he completely idolize him. He admires his work which he only thinks of as simply doing nothing more than lifting a phone. He is taken adrift from the existing reality which is, that there is more involved than simply using a phone. He only looks at the surface of reality not into the deeper details, hence his knowledge can be said to be ‘slippery and local’ (Choudhuri 78). Singleman’s success by selling on phone only represents the kindly nature of capitalism. This is justified at Singlesman funeral, which was attended by many.This only went to strengthen Willy’s belief that, being attractive and pleasing were the right ingredients of success.

Willy’s beliefs and ideas in success, faces a lot of challenges as he is presented with harsh realities. He is undoubtedly committed to his identity and beliefs which he considers the truth. He regularly lies about the total sales he makes, about businessmen’s reaction to his personality, about his boy’s importance and accomplishment, even including his own prospective. He constantly engages in illusion just to conceal himself from the truth (Carson, 56).Willy established pathetic efforts to seal his identity. He has no values. He tries to justify his infidelity as a provision against the rebuffs of the day,he also urges his son to steal. He has developed attendance to hide from reality when faced with one; such as his inability to pay his ever mounting bills, his dwindling income and his inability to drive to Boston.He always seeks refuge in the past

or future projections (Jacobson, 113)

To conclude, we see that Willy’s character is in the play is a complete personification of self destruction. He had high belief in success; but never really followed the correct way to attain it. He is seen trying to justify dishonorable means throughout the play such as urging his son to steal his and infidelity with a strange woman. He really does not confer with modern reality and sticks to his own beliefs. His own friend and neighbor becomes successful because he acts in conformity with reality. Until to his death, he sticks to his beliefs and fails to understand that there is death related to every issue affecting man and society. He can only be described as looking at the fruit of a plant and failing to notice the plant has other parts. He also fails to examine his actions and ambitions even after advice from Charley. In the play, Willy creates false philosophy and ideology as he only looks at surfaces of experience and not the deep issues for such experiences. The outcome of his philosophy and ideology is tough and awful as he commits suicide. Lowman experience is not only universal and certain but also can be related by every human being (Koon, 84).

Work Citied

1. Miller, Arthur. (1961). Death of a Salesman.Harmondsworth: Perguin Books Carson, Neil. Arthur Miller 1982; London: Macmillan, 1983. Print.
2. Choudhuri, A.D. The Face of Illusion in American Drama. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979. Print
3. Corrigan, Robert W. “The Achievement of Arthur Miller”. Comparative Drama 2 (1968): 142-60. Print.Print
4. Engleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Print
5. Jacobson, Irving. “Family Dreams in
   

Death of a Salesman.” Critical Essays on Arthur Miller.Ed. James Martine. Boston: G.K. Hall and Company, 1979. Print