Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller - 1470 Words

Since the beginning of its time, America has set a global standard for offering chances at prosperity and career opportunities for qualified adults. Its people have been implicating the idea of the â€Å"American Dream† into its culture for many years and has become widely recognized by individuals all across the world. People pack up their lives and families to travel to American soil to try at a chance of a better life, and in doing so, they too venture on a path to achieving this so commonly understood â€Å"American Dream.† Arthur Miller, a well-known literary writer in America, seems to disagree with this national phenomena, offering a different view in his play Death of a Salesman. In this play, he demonstrates through the life of an average†¦show more content†¦Looking at all of those characters individually, it is tough to pinpoint if Miller believes in one, all, or a combination of those views. Fortunately, it becomes clearer in the introduction writte n by Christopher Bigsby. Insightful in his analysis of the play, Bigsby explains that â€Å"Death of a Salesman is not an attack on American values. It is, however, an exploration of the betrayal of those values and the cost of this in human terms† (Bigsby XXIII). To put it more simply, Miller’s view of the American dream (A dream where equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative) is that it serves more as a misrepresented societal norm, than a guide to lifelong happiness. Looking at the work as a whole, he shows that more often than not, the theory of the American dream is not aligned with the reality of an American life. Considering each character individually, it is obvious that Miller wanted to make a point that dreams are whatever we want them to be. The American dream is more or less just an outline or blueprint, and the individual determines the specific goals they themselves would like to achieve. Such th oughts applied to all characters in the play, Miller’s most extreme case being Willy Loman. A working man, a husband, and a father of two, Willy was traditional in his belief that a man in America could be prosperous and successful, but only if he was viewed