Society influences people throughout the history of the United States no matter wha era you come from. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the play The Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller society is reflected in the way the characters act. Different symbols are used in The Great Gatsby to show the 1920’s society. The 1920’s was a big change in the way society started to act and the way people went about life. The Death Of A Salesman took place in the 1940’s which was post world war just like the 1920’s were. This post war attitude of being care free and trying to be popular in society stayed true in both eras. Willy Loman wanted so badly to just be well like and his family to be well liked so he would be seen as successful
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Even when he was fired, Willy said, "I was fired and I am looking for a little good news to tell your mother, because the woman has waited and suffered"(Miller 107). Willy always wants to act like him and his family aren’t struggling so he wants good news to make it seem like everything is good. This want is essentially just a ploy to make him feel better about himself, so once again Willy puts Linda second to his own needs, which is really the reason for all the waiting and suffering she had to do. He also does this to help himself believe that everything is okay and to make him feel better about himself. He treats Linda with no respect and makes her suffer towards the end of Willy’s life. Society influenced Willy so greatly that he overworked himself and seemed to be going crazy. His obsession with the American Dream was the reason he ultimately killed himself. Willy said "Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it"(Miller 15). He knows that his whole life he had been working towards this dream and by the time he starts paying things off its too late to achieve
Even when he was fired, Willy said, "I was fired and I am looking for a little good news to tell your mother, because the woman has waited and suffered"(Miller 107). Willy always wants to act like him and his family aren’t struggling so he wants good news to make it seem like everything is good. This want is essentially just a ploy to make him feel better about himself, so once again Willy puts Linda second to his own needs, which is really the reason for all the waiting and suffering she had to do. He also does this to help himself believe that everything is okay and to make him feel better about himself. He treats Linda with no respect and makes her suffer towards the end of Willy’s life. Society influenced Willy so greatly that he overworked himself and seemed to be going crazy. His obsession with the American Dream was the reason he ultimately killed himself. Willy said "Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it"(Miller 15). He knows that his whole life he had been working towards this dream and by the time he starts paying things off its too late to achieve