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| The
American Dream of Willy Loman
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Willy Loman, the main character of the “Death of a
Salesman”, is probably one of the most controversial
characters of the play, especially in regard to his view of
the American dream. The American dream traditionally implies
the possibility of getting rich and successful if an individual
works hard and is persistent in his efforts to achieve success,
regardless of his initial opportunities and position in society.
In actuality, Willy Loman sincerely believes in the American
dream which practically becomes the goal of his entire life,
but eventually, this dreams leads him to the greatest failure
in his life since he proved to be unable to achieve success
in spite of his efforts and hard work.
The American dream is very important for Willy Loman because
his entire life is focused on the achievement of success.
In this respect, the achievements of his brother produce a
profound impression on the main character since, unlike Willy,
Ben has already succeeded in his life and, even though he
has already deceased, his success disturbs Willy. In fact,
Willy feels envy because his brother succeeded, though he
did not work along with Willy and preferred to go away, instead
of working in the company. At the same time, it is Ben, who
has actually made the American dream come true because, being
on his own, he achieved the success relying only on his own
forces, intelligence, abilities and will. In this respect,
it should be said that Ben may be viewed as a classical example
of an individual who, being deprived of any material wealth
at the beginning of his career, gets rich in a very short
period of time and, what is more, nobody assists him in his
achievements. In stark contrast, Ben has to overcome all the
problems he faced and achieve success without external support,
since even his brother is of a little help.
The success of Ben is particularly depressing for Willy because
he, as he believed, had consistently larger opportunities
to make the American dream come true and, what is more, Willy
sincerely believed that he did deserve the realization of
this illusionary dream. Basically, Willy stands on the ground
that the American dream is above the dream of a wealth, prosperity
and respect, which he supposes to gain through the hard work
for the company. This is why he has actually dedicated his
entire life working for the company in an erroneous hope to
get the final reward for his devotedness, hard work and loyalty
to the company. But, instead, he gets nothing but a loss of
his position in New York. Moreover, he has to move from New
York since the company does not actually need him anymore
and this is the end of his dream. His failure, which leads
him to death, is an unexpected and undesirable awakening which
Willy is unable to confront and accept. Even though he understands
that his dreams about success and wealth have failed, he still
refuses to accept the idea that the man, who did his best
while working for the company, is not needed for the company
anymore that naturally means that he has already reached his
top position, which is apparently from the realization of
his American dream.
Obviously, such a situation totally contradicts to Willy’s
belief in the USA as the country of great opportunities. At
the same time, he cannot agree with the fact that it was not
actually the country or the company that have prevented him
from the success, but it is also he, who has failed to achieve
success and prosper in his own life. In fact, he had a choice
at the beginning of his life and he could follow the example
of his brother Ben, but Willy proved to be unable to face
the challenges of the real life. Instead, he has preferred
to live in the world of his illusion raving of his American
dream. However, his American dream was just another, unrealizable
illusion because his view of the American dream was quite
shallow and simplistic. Obviously, his American dream lacked
the adventurism Ben’s vision of the American dream had.
Otherwise, Willy would be able to take bolder and riskier
decisions.
Thus, it is possible to conclude that Willy’s American
dream was totally ruined and his entire life was spoiled,
but the problem was not in the lack of the hard work from
the part of Willy. The problem was the high expectations of
Willy and his inability to go beyond boundaries of a routine
life to make his American dream come true.
Works cited:
Miller, A. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Classics,
2002.
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