Death of Salesman
Death of SalesmanDeath of a Salesman and The Price
When people accept an ideal to live by it can be a glorious and
noble thing unless they become so obsessed with the the ideal that it
becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize their dream. This is
especially true for two characters in Arthur Miller's plays Death of a
Salesman and The Price. In these two plays Miller portays two
lower-middle class men , Willie Loman and Victor Franz, respectivelly,
who each live by an ideal that ultimately is self-defeating. Willie
lived to pursue the American dream rather than living the American
dream and Victor lived to serve and be decent rather than living a
noble and decent life. They pursed their ideal rather than living it
and thus they are unable to succeed.
Willie Loman, in Death of a Salesman,, has lived his life in
pursuit of the American dream. Traditionally the American dream
meant oppurtunity and freedom for all, and Willie believed that.
However, hard work could not earn him everything that he wanted or
thoght he deserved. Willy judged himsel and those arround him by theit
material accumulation, as is demanded by capitalism and the protestant
work ethic. The ethic demands accumulation and work as signs of favor
in the eyes of god. Thus in order to please god and himself he had to
accumulate wealth and objects. The consumer oriented society in which
Willy lives will not allow him to live the American Dream. Willy is
fascinated by accumulating things. His desire fior goods makes him
want objects that he neither needed nor could afford. Willy thinks
that he needs to buy his wife a new refrigerator and new stockings
even though she is content with what they have. As he tries to live
the American dream he venerates those who have been successful at
doing so, like Thomas Edison, B.F. Goodrich, and Ben, his succesful
brother. Furetheremore he punished those who did not work towards that
ideal or accomplish it ,such as Biff, his son, and most importantly
himself. The extreme to which he followed the dream brought him to
disallusionment and lose sense of reality. Willy created a reality for
himself where he "knocked 'em cold in Providence," and "slaughtered
'em in Boston."(p.33) The ultimate result of his disallusionment is
his suicide. It is ironic that he dies for his ideals although they
are misconstrued.
The problem with Willy's ideals which ultimately kills him is
that he has lost sight of achieving the true goal of the American
Dream, happiness and freedom, and the dream took control of him. He
struggled to achieve something that he could...
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