Different points of view of the American Dream

While reading Arthur Miller's play “Death of a Salesman”, what caught my attention was the difference of the vision between the pursuit of the American Dream according to an author from the Beat Generation (Arthur Miller) and an author from the Lost Generation, such as Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.

To make comparisons, in Death of a Salesman, the main problem is to not starve, to have a job, to have a family, and to live a quiet life. And this is the pursuit of the American Dream according to Arthur Miller’s vision in this play, it seems to be so simple but while reading the book I understood the struggles of the Loman family to make it day by day, with the head of the family having hallucinations, and with two grown sons that didn’t know what to do with their lives, apparently being at ease living still with their parents and thinking that magically life will be easy and better in the future.

But on the other hand, in The Great Gatsby, the pursuit of the American Dream is having more than you need thinking that when you have all the material stuff, a big house, and a lot of money; you will get what you really want (In this case: Daisy. The woman that Gatsby has loved since always) and that you will be happy.

But what I think these two stories have in common is the ambition (even when there are different pursuits) of the main characters and the little moral they have when it is about to obtain what they want. And it made me think that maybe sometimes we wish something so much, and we spent all our forces to obtain it, but when we have it, it does not seem to be interesting or it is not useful anymore.

Willy killed himself thinking that his son will have a great future, but he was not going to be part of it; and Gatsby died thinking that Daisy was not the same girl he was in love with when he was young and poor.