American Dream in Death of a Salesman

The American dream is like a fairy tale, for that reason some people believe and some people do not believe. Arthur Miller is on side of non-believers and he demonstrates it in his play, Death of a Salesman. In this play, he shows the reader that the American dream is an illusion with characters that are created by his pen. In this article, this illusion will be discussed through the Death of a Salesman, but first, it is time to determine what is American Dream?

During the period that the Great Depression was on the top of the United States of America’s agenda, the American dream showed itself. It is a thinking way that is about working hard. Working hard means everything in this dream because by working hard you can become rich, and famous and you can have everything you want. In such a way, believers of this dream want to be self-made men/women. They want to create magnificent life for themselves. This thinking way is very common because many examples can be seen in American history, for example; Benjamin Franklin, he is the embodiment of the American dream.

Arthur Miller reflects the social contexts that it was mentioned above for criticizing the situation of the U.S.A. In the play, we have a family as the main characters, they are Willy and Linda Loman and their sons Biff and Happy in addition Willy is the protagonist. The protagonist is in an illusion, he cannot accept the situation that he is in and he believes only in his reality because he cannot change the reality. Linda and Happy live in Willy’s reality, too but Biff has become estranged from his father. In addition, there is an Uncle Ben who is the uncle of Willy, he is a rich and he is an idol figure for Willy and we can say that he is Benjamin Franklin of Willy.

Willy is a dreamer and his dreams are his reality, he exaggerates his success, he makes sentences about his earnings, he asserts that he earns a lot of money as a salesman moreover, he thinks that everybody knows him and he has a lot of friends. In short, he thinks that he is rich and he is famous, but in reality, he is not a man like he thinks, he is alone with his family. He needs money because of debts but he does not accept financial aid from his friends because of the illusion, and, there is no one except from his family at his funeral, we cannot see his famousness or any friend of him. 

This illusion is in the circle of the American Dream. As it was mentioned above, the American dream, a situation in which everyone in America thinks that they can achieve success by working or making themselves loved. There is the idea that anyone can come from zero and become rich, but as stated above, this may not always be true. Some things do not happen by making yourself loved by working hard, and by creating an illusion like Willy does. Willy does not want to look the life from a real perspective and he kills himself at the end of the play because he understands that this dream is fake, he cannot rescue himself from this fake reality and life becomes harder for him.

In conclusion, the protagonist of Death of a Salesman is a believer of American Dream, while he is living in American illusion, the real face of life showed itself. And this exemplary story of Willy demonstrates that American Dream is a delusion.