The Problem of a Dream Defined by Society in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
The American Dream, the American experience, the idea that possibilities are endless, that life changes and becomes better day by day, that anyone is able to achieve anything by working hard and making sacrifices. Expectations are rising, tomorrow is going to be even better than today, there is always hope for a change, the deeply gruelling pressure of the society but still, the unappeasable desire of social admiration and acknowledgement (Samuel 5). These are all parts of the concept of the American Dream which has been shaping a nation. The concept which defines American people’s lives, hopes, dreams, desires, thoughts, emotions and behaviour. People want to realise themselves through the American Dream, they define their own selves based on the Dream. The Dream controls, it creates limits, sometimes it creates handrails and sometimes it kills people. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman portrays the American Dream and shows the tragedy of this Dream by depicting the trials of self-realisation through a concept which is defined by the society.
The protagonist of the story is Willy Loman who is a quite unstable character. He does not have a stable emotional background. It turns out that his father abandoned him when he was a child which might be an explanation for his instability rooted deeply within his soul. Willy believes in the American Dream wholeheartedly, his behaviour and ultimately his whole life are very much defined by the hopes and expectations connected to the Dream. He believes that he is going to be very successful, he will achieve financial success as well and he and his family will be socially acknowledged. When Willy was a child, he met a salesman by whom he was totally impressed so Willy himself became a salesman as well. But his boss fails to recognise his work experience and expertise. His job mirrors his desires for material success: everything he wants is all about business.
His desires for success and the way by which he believes he can achieve them are not in line with his true self. He chose his job because of a previously imagined and hoped success, he loves being in the nature, in the forest, still he moved into a suburban house where there are only huge concrete houses and buildings around him. His choices might symbolise Willy’s inner conflict which he is unable to solve. He clings to a Dream which is based on superficial values and material properties while he fails to notice the deeper parts of his life which are the love of his family, the attention of his wife and the satisfaction and happiness of his sons. “The American Dream has hardly been just an everything-is-coming-up-roses-and-daffodils fantasy there to cheer us on and up, however, having a dark side just as powerful as its positive side. For each and every American Dream, there is an American nightmare, this evil twin always lurking in the shadows…” (Samuel 9).
The perfect example for Willy is his brother who managed to achieve the Dream, which Willy could not achieve, moreover, he could achieve it without making an effort. His brother’s success makes Willy obsessively believe that he will too be able to achieve the desired goal. He so much clings to his illusions of being greatly successful that he re-creates his past memories and events that had happened to him or his family. He tries to legitimate his non-existent financial and work success when he, in fact, lacks that kind of wealth. The memories he re-creates are truly positive and are about more successful and happier times. As the story unfolds, it turns out that Willy is unable to cope with his failure and he rather maintains his illusion with lies and images from his past. His obsessive, maniac attachment to his illusion about his desired success drives him mentally unstable and kills him. Willy Loman’s tragedy is not only his tragedy but also American people’s pursuit of the Dream (Stanton 156).
As it was mentioned, Willy clings to his illusion very much, so much that he conveys his views to his sons as well. Both Willy and Biff love being in the nature, still as Willy refused to choose nature, he refuses to let Biff choose nature:
“How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!”(Miller 5).
Biff Loman inherits the inner conflict Willy was unable to overcome and handle. Biff tries to continue his father’s business and he also wants to start a business with his brother, Happy. They plan to create something big, something unique of which Willy can be proud.
“The Loman Brothers. Displays in the Royal Palms—all the hotels. And banners over the ring and the basketball court: ‘‘Loman Brothers.’’ Baby, we could sell sporting goods! That is a one-million-dollar idea!” (Miller 46). But, in fact, Biff does not want to follow his father:
“I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw—the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!” (Miller 105).
Biff keeps asking himself about his own goals in life, his father’s goals and the pressure of society. He keeps asking himself about his American Dream. Biff, just like his father, loves nature, and he loves being in the nature but he is just not able to arrange his life in the way he wants to because of other people’s pressure and because it is already defined what counts as good, successful, quality life. But at the end of the play, Biff manages to resolve his inner conflict and he becomes aware of the difference between self-realisation and the goals and expectations built up by Willy and the American Dream:
“I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! […] Pop, I’m nothing! I’m nothing, Pop. Can’t you understand that? There’s no spite in it any more. I’m just what I am, that’s all” (Miller 105-106).
Biff becomes able to say out loud what Willy were unable to say. He uncovers the truth that was covered by the poisoning illusion of the American Dream.“…Miller reconfigures the Dream as one in which modern man returns to hands-on work, a return that may allow him to reconnect with his environs and assert his status as a fully realised being” (Hawkins 51). By this recognition Biff became able to decide about his own life as a fully self-conscious human being who is not limited by the superficiality of consumer society craving for the American Dream. Biff broke down the concept of the American Dream and he decided to define it for himself and does not let it define him. Self-realisation does not always fit into the frames of the strongly defined concept of the American Dream and the Dream is not always huge financial success, social admiration, huge suburban home and a nice businessman:
“Having an all (great success) or nothing (great failure) perspective is a terrible attitude toward life, the simple truth that it is and should be something in-between. Similarly, having (too) great expectations, […] is a very disturbing trend, something not boding well for the future of America and the rest of the world. We have lost sight of the things that really matter…” (Samuel 10).
In conclusion, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman portrays the traditional American Dream and how people want to achieve it. As it is portrayed, the American Dream is thought to be the destination where people finally, surely, achieve happiness, financial stability and social acknowledgement so they can live life to the fullest. This story is about the failure of this Dream. But it does not explicitly criticise the American Dream. It portrays, it tells a story behind the Dream and raises the awareness of the other side of it and let the audience draws conclusions.
Enclosing a video in which we can admire Timothée Chalamet and also related to my topic (but mostly we can admire Timothée):
Works Cited
1. Hawkins, Ty. “‘A Smile and a Shoeshine’ From F. Scott Fitzgerald To Jonathan Franzen, By Way of Arthur Miller: The American Dream in ‘The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, and The Corrections.’” The Arthur Miller Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, 2007, pp. 49–68. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42908900. Accessed 10 May 2020.
2. Samuel, Lawrence R. The American Dream. A Cultural History. Syracuse University Press, 2012.
3. Stanton, Kay. “Women and The American Dream of Death of a Salesman.” Death of a Salesman with an Introduction, Annotations and Critical Essays, third impression, 2011, pp. 156-200. https://books.google.hu/books?id=sjc5TdesY1YC&printsec=frontcover&hl=hu#v=onepage&q&f=false
