Death of a Salesman Essay

Improved Essays
Death of a Salesman

From the outset death of a salesman portrays the pitfalls of the
American dream. The dream centred on the high chance that anyone can strike it rich in this Land of opportunity. Even in 1950s USA people were still taking a chance on this myth. Death of a Salesman shows the traps of the dream. The failures centred on poor Willy Loman This fine line between making it and become your average Joe becomes heavily apparent when Willy decides he has had enough and kills himself. Willy begins to believe that [In a thick American accent] "No man needs a little salary." Willy perceives himself lower than everybody else partly due to his low wages. One of his great dreams would just be
"forty dollars a week" but his
…show more content…
The book marks the passing of time, where no longer men can simply become great being simple salesmen. They can no longer just roll up with a big smile and sell their good. Being known like Willy was just aint cutting it any more. Dave Singleman had pioneered the traditional salesman. One who could sell over the phone in any state? When Willy dies this breed of gentleman passes. Sadly, Willy never realises the coming news. As a result he drifts slowly into obscurity throughout the play.

Willy experiences the problems because of his debts. His perspective of his possessions goes down hill. His Chevy and then later he owns a studebaker which at one point he is full of praise for, when as soon as the car needs work doing he curses it and disowns it. He also dislikes his house. The house where he can no longer grow any grass in the yard or produce some vegetables. He also longs for a rural setting, which is linked, to his strong link to the American dreams of a house in the country. It is also ironic that in his time of need we find out that he now owns his house, the house that he despises and doesn't need.

Willy's spirits die when he finally discovers that no one gives him the respect he deserves. I think this could again be linked to the issue of the American world, judging people on their wealth. Yanks just aren't going to give a poor salesman the respect the give to a highly paid

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    According to Linda, Willy “drives seven hundred miles without earning a cent”. Willy suffers between the adversity of low income and unrealistic goal of being successful. In order to ensure Willy’s independence, Willy sacrifices not only his happiness, but also opportunities to be rich. During Willy’s funeral, Charley says that Willy is “a man with a batch of cement”; Linda also recognizes that Willy is “wonderful with his hands”, which shows that Willy is good at fixing and…

    • 1061 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willy Loman Deception

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Willy models his life around the American Dream, but refuses to accept the fact that he is an unsuccessful business man who is generally unknown. Willy is too proud to accept his own reality and resorts to lying to convey a sense of security. Lines like “ ...he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me [Linda] that it’s his pay ?” reveal how Willy succumbs to fibbing as a result of his own pride. This is seen again when Charley offers Willy a job, his response being “ I can’t work for you, that’s all.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willy Loman Mental Illness

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Traces of his ideals are still instilled in Happy and Linda, even after his death. Willy’s final sacrifice set Biff up for success by leaving him with $20,000 in life insurance money. These mementos of his life will result in success for Biff and an unsure future for Happy. But Willy still never realized, in an evaluation by the editors at sparknotes.com pointed out, his “personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life.” (“Death Of a Salesman Analysis”).…

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Willy’s death is avoidable. He fills himself with imaginary thoughts that are distinctively different from the world of realities. He lives in a wishful world rather than focusing on the present situations. This is illustrated by his desire to give in to the pressures of modern America, characterized by material things such as new appliances. Willy’s proud and selfish nature largely contributed to his ultimate death as well, as he cannot accept his failures.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Inherent in humans is the desire to strive for accomplishment in their life course. However, the fact that “accomplishment” exists abstractly within the realm of individual perception leads to conflicting translations of what defines it. In Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, the protagonist, engages in such a conflict with his son, Biff. Willy, a longtime traveling salesman, harbors lofty expectations for Biff as a young man anticipating he will become a great success in athletics. Therefore, after Biff fails to meet academic requirements for acceptance into college, Willy begins to lose himself while labeling his son a failure.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Raisin In The Sun Ethos

    • 1128 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In The Death of a Salesman, the idea that Willy has of success and the path to attaining his dream is misguided. In addition, he blindly lets his sons follow his ideas but they all end up failing. Willy is engrossed in a whirlwind of self-generated concepts that he follows to achieve his dream. He lives a slanted reality that somehow bars him from achieving any worthwhile success. Willy believes that success – the American Dream – is demonstrated through someone that is rich, well-liked and with a good personality.…

    • 1128 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The reason Willy goes from moment to moment, from joyful to angered, so quickly happens because the life he leads is both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to him. This duality of a salesman is shown in the theatrical yet real sets, in the adherence to the 1984 play's staging, dialogue, and set. Even the cast comes from the '84 play. The house which is so prominent and integral to the story and Willy's view of his life stands in a fake world too close to the edges as it falls apart becoming frailer each day. What is real and what is creation becomes blurred not only in Willy's head, but also in each location of this film.…

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After reading “Death of a Salesman,” questioning if Willy’s attempt to save his family from all their problems was the right decision. It wasn’t; all he did was leave his sons without a father and his wife without a husband. If anything he made things worse by taking his life, they had just finished paying off the house and both his sons were home. This was the time for a new beginning a time to fix his wrongs but he can no longer help since he lost himself and his family. Starting with Willy getting home after a long day of disappointment.…

    • 1755 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willy instils into his mind that, because he must earn money he still has a job with Howard and he’ll “go to Boston tomorrow” (Miller). His conscience refuses to accept the fact he no longer has a job believing that he deserves the world for all that he believed he did in the past for the sales firm, “I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week” (Miller). Willy continues to live in his own mind in which he provides for his own image and…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The song lyrics from “Dream” by Imagine Dragons concisely summarizes what the Loman family experienced, as “[they] all are living in a dream, / But life ain’t what it seems / Oh everything’s a mess” (8-11). The false realities were especially intensified by their beliefs on appearances, as the family emphasized superficial qualities of people and objects, rather than their genuine qualities, furthering their demise. Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, emphasizes that by only considering appearances, people will only deceive and hurt themselves. Miller promotes this message through literary devices, including rhetorical questions and idioms.…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Linda Loman is the most sympathetic character. She devotes her life to Willy, doing anything to make sure he feels important. Despite all of Willy's faults, she stays by his side. Linda's actions and role in the play show how women were treated and expected to act.…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Play Analysis Essay # 2 One of the most important things in Death of a Salesman is the father and son relationship expressed in this play. It is very relatable to me and may show a different side of family relationships that most people don’t see and are not accustomed to. It shows a constant struggle between the closest of family members. It will make you reflect on your relationship between your child or parent.…

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willy Loman has also accomplished the biggest achievement in society by having his own house, a stable job, a car and a beautiful family that allows him to live a decent life known as the “American Dream”. However, the fruitless salesman begins to care more about his business dream rather than the more desirable historical dream. As a result, he gets too carried away with his ideal dream and follows a successful eighty-four year old salesman named Dave Singleman. When Willy was planning to go with his older brother Ben to look for their father in Alaska, he met the elderly salesman. Dave Singleman changed his way of thinking into a whole new different level.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Arthur Miller emphasizes the importance of family relationships in his play “Death of a Salesman.” Through the characters, and their actions, Miller demonstrates to his audience how drastically one person’s actions can affect the rest of the family since everyone 's actions affected each other to some degree. Willy’s actions and attitude greatly distressed himself, his wife, Linda, and son Biff, resulting for all three characters to have realizations in the end. Willy learned that Biff had always loved and cared for him even when Willy felt otherwise; Linda learned that she was never able to live a happy life until Willy died; and Biff, who underwent the greatest epiphany, finally accepted the fact that he should have lived his life for…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the play, an important discussion between Biff, Linda, and Happy occurs regarding the paternal alpha figure in the play, Willy. Prior to this discussion Willy displays himself as a hardworking, forgetful, and prided man. These traits begin to contradict each other which lead to this discussion about how Biff feels towards his father. There are many underlying factors that lead to why Willy has created this gossip between his kin, the concealment of the truth, and the solitude of Biff’s emotions. All of this can be scientifically traced back to the physiological impact of the Stock Market crash of 2008 and the stereotypes of its influence.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays