Death Of A Salesman American Dream Analysis

In the play, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, there are a number of ways Willy Loman shows his version of the American Dream. The most obvious way is him thinking that any man who is manly, good looking, charismatic, and well-liked deserves success and will naturally achieve it. Willy Loman buys into the dream so thoroughly that he ignores the tangible things around him, such as the love of his family, and imposes this dream on his boys who become paralyzed by the falseness of it. In the end, Willy demonstrates that the American Dream can also turn a human being into a product whose sole value is his financial worth.

The idea of Willy believing that any man who is a hard worker and deserves success is shown in act one. Willy says to Linda, “Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such—personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about
Happy says, “I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have - to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him”. This quote shows that Happy has vowed to continue in his father’s footsteps, pursuing an American Dream that will leave him empty and alone, just like it did to his father. The tragedy of Willy’s death comes about because of his inability to distinguish between his value as an economic resource and his identity as a human being. Willy is proud of being able to sell himself to the women he is cheating on and not to his wife, Linda. This sabotages his role as a financial provider for his family. Willy sacrifices himself in order to get his family the money from his life insurance policy. This is the abandonment and betrayal of Willy towards his family because of his vision to pursue the American