KILLED BY THE AMERICAN DREAM

KILLED BY THE AMERICAN DREAM

“To follow or not follow your parents’ expectations… that is the question.”

Miller’s play questions the American Dream.

The American Dream basically have stood in the United States as the definition of success, however it have been always related to the picture of standard family where a big house, children, a dog and a great job are indispensable if you want to be happy.

Miller in his play tries to expose 2 ideas of the American definition of success, the first one is related  to leave a mark in the world where everyone will recognize you for what you did while you were alive – Willy is the one who pursuit this idea of the American Dream- and the second one is related to freedom, but the kind of freedom were  you are totally “free” from everyone else expectation and you are free to do choose whatever you want-Just a Biff always wanted-.

This contrast between the 2 ideas is the main problem where everything develops since it’s their conflict –between father and son- that move each character through their decisions. We may even think that they both are kind of antagonist just for the reason that one’s action triggers the other actions thought the whole play.

Also the first thing that caught my attention while reading The Death of a  Salesman was how it uses constant flashback in an extremely smother way in order to make us understand how the actual problems were created since all of the problem have its triggers right in past events, therefore  I noticed a similarity in the style of writing, the stream-of-consciousness just like in Woolf’s plays To The Lighthouse where the protagonist exposes their deeper thought in a kind of monologue.

Now, as I already said, Willy and Biff are the 2 characters that move the whole play just by their curse of actions since Biff, the older son, the “unsuccessful” one is such an interesting character, he seems to love his father in some occasion, then he doesn’t care about anything and then he is trying to please his father and then he leave him alone in a bathroom talking alone. By the end of the play we understand that everything that Biff was trying to do, was finding who he really is in the world, the successful business man that his father wants him to be, or if he us just a person who loves to stay in touch with the world, - he mention working in a ranch in the open air and do things with his own hands”

On the other hand we have Willy, that is always full of flaws, fears, insecurities and he is constantly looking to be “well liked” as he claims, that is the most important thing in order to be a successful business man and that is the reason why he put so much pressure on Biff, because he believed that he was also a very well-liked man, just as him.

All this recurrent “well liked” thing is what keep deteriorating his mind, since Linda -his wife- buys everything Willy says –because she loves him- boosting his self-confident in a false attempt to make him feel better, even when is all the opposite.

Through the story, there are many factors that leads to the tragic end, some of them are quite simple since they are explicit in the play and others not.

The 2 main events that triggers the self-destruction of Willy as a salesman are Biff falling math and not applying to college and also Willy’s affair with The Woman-that is was discovered by Biff also- those were the detrimental points where everything collapsed inside him and any hope was for the future of his family was vanished ending on a tragic curse of action, suicide.

The other factor that is not that explicit in the play is that since Willy was abandoned by his father, he didn’t grow up with a paternal figure, and the only one that filled that role was his brother Ben, who also died, leaving him completely alone, that is why he develops his obsession with being masculine-he remarks the lack of masculinity of his neighbor as an argument of why he is not successful-in order to be well liked, the lack of a paternal figure is what started everything since the beginning, promoting his twisted mental state.

Also, is extremely important to remark  the fact the only thing that he knew about his father was that he was also a successful salesman-because this contributes to his craziness about being a successful one too-, but they were 2 extremely different kind of salesman- and that is what Willy realizes too late-, since what his father used to sell, were product created by himself, by his own hands, but Willy doesn’t have any personal affect for what he sells since they are not created by him, this leads again to his obsession of being “well liked” because as Willy doesn’t have any personal the sell, he sells himself, he sells his attitude, his fake smile to the customer, he sells how he acts, and he carry this problem even to his house, trying to sell himself even to his family, deteriorating even more his mental state.

So, in resume, all Willy’s efforts in trying to create the perfect family based on the American Dream is an attempt to try filling the empty space of affection that his family left on his life, we can interpret that his desire of becoming a successful salesman as his father, is the attempt to becoming a better father that his own was with himself, that’s why he is desperate to leave something material for his sons,-like money- just because his father abandoned him with nothing.

Willy in his obsession of completing the American dream, he distortion this idea to the extent that he believes that the only important thing to do is to have a  successful job and being well liked, leaving aside the real facts of the American Dream which are the family love, unconditional support of beloved ones and also the freedom of choice, in other words, he has a corrupted vision of the American Dream where the only the only thing that matter is being materialistic.

Finally, when Willy remember the funeral of Dave Singleman, and old but very successful salesman, where hundreds of people attended to it, Willy believes that they will do the same for him, and he start talking about how hundreds of people will come to his funeral too since he was a successful and well liked man just as Dave Singleman, but in fact, he is not, this also contributes to his desire of dying and to deteriorate even more his mind.

Later in the play we understand that Willy realizes that he have chosen the wrong path since his profession does not fulfill his personal interests since he explain that he doesn’t like the urban setting and he prefers living in the Alaska forest, however, pursuing the American Dream  is stronger on his mind.  That is why the metaphor of Willy planting seeds is important, since it reveals how desperate he is trying to leave something material for his family, since he has nothing left.

Even after all the problems, he is still thinking about his wrong perception of the American Dream, that’s why he finally decide to commit suicide in order to give his family his life insurance policy as the last resource in trying to fulfill his dream.

Now, the main dilemma appears in the play for Biff which is following Willy’s hopes for him or him following his own dream instead of his father’s.

 But  in a  final attempt to save his father of his madness, Biff decides to become a successful business man, acting like a superhero for his father- just like Willy was for him when he was younger, because unarguably he was the favorite son over Happy-but in the end, after the suicide of his father, he realizes that he still prefer the freedom of doing what he wants to do.

 As a conclusion we can infer that Willy is the tragic hero of the story since it based his fear of being displays of his old days of glory which was the time that willy was extremely sure that the future of his kids and family was going in the right direction, but in fact, it wasn’t, he was digging his own grave, deteriorating his life just for the sake of his family and in a certain why, he accomplished the American dream, he had a job, a family, grown up sons, however, he never realizes it.

Also, Miller’s final idea was to explain what we should not live ruled by fear because this is what will destroy our dreams and our path to success and we have to realize how is our own perception of the American Dream and how we can accomplish that dream in order to leave a thumbprint in the world and not to be forgotten, in other words,  Freedom come for the recognition of who you really are, not by what other think about you.

As a final personal comments, I really enjoyed the development of Willy as a character, because even if he was “crazy” from the beginning, I liked how the story was written in order to make everything clear about the stages that Willy’s mind go through all the play and how The Death of a Salesman is actually the destiny of almost every salesman, where they have to sell themselves in order to succeed and how Willy remarks it as a noble job.

So what would you do if you were a citizen in the United Stated in the quest of pursuing the American Dream?would you follow it to dead too?