Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
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Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman was written in the 1940s, and it showed that Americans after the war were questioning certain values they had long held dear and were asking whether the new world in which they found themselves would be as optimistic as the old one. The play presents a sort of Everyman in Willy Loman, the salesman who has lived his whole life on the road and who has survived largely by creating an illusion of himself not unlike the wider illusion by which Americans viewed themselves as superior in the world. Now he is faced with the loss of his illusion as he is no longer needed, and this forces him to reassess his life. The play reflects many American's concerns about the Twentieth Century and their place in it, and most of these are concerns that are still cogent today. Linda Loman states that "attention must be paid" to the life of her husband, an undistinguished salesman who was unfaithful to his wife, not a very good father to his children, and unsuccessful in his work. Yet, as Linda Loman notes, attention must be paid to this man. It is the thrust of this entire play that Willy Loman that attention must be paid precisely because Willy Loman is an undistinguished salesman. His life is a mirror of the lives of millions of other people, people who are ignored by life but who are human beings just the same. Miller speaks here for the average man who tries his best to make a living and raise a family. All Willy wants is recognition, from his fam
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eliefs in America has been in the American dream, a dream that changes from time to time but that has sustained generations as the ideal to which they aspire. More and more we are hearing people today express the belief that the American dream has failed, at least for them, and that they can no longer feel assured that their children will be able to improve their lot and live better than did their parents. Robert Reich says of the dream that it is an American morality tale telling us what we should do and how we will be rewarded when we do it:
The American morality tale defines our understanding of who we are, and of what we want for ourselves and one another. It is the tacit subtext of our daily conversations about American life. It permeates both American conservatism and American liberalism. And--the essential point--it is a fundamentally noble, essentially life-affirming story (Reich 391).
The myth is also vague in that it does not involve a clear definition of what the American dream is. It is whatever different people believe it to be, and in this sense it is the ideal embodiment of confidence because it allows the individual to shape his or her destiny and then achieve it. Indeed, as Reich points out, it is the str
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Approximate Word count = 1447
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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