Family Values In Death Of A Salesman, By Steve R. Centola

The lives of the Loman’s from beginning to end seems troubling, the play is centered on trying to be successful or trying to be happy, and the sacrifice which must be made of one to achieve the other. The environment that these characters live in encourages them to pursue the American dream, which can be said to devalue happiness through the pursuit of material success. Death of A Salesman written by Arthur Miller has several themes that run through the play, one of the most obvious is the constant striving for success. Willy Loman put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. Willy, Biff, and Happy are chasing the American dream instead of examining themselves

Over time the American Dream has been changed fundamentally with the introduction of new ideology and values. Death of a Salesman illustrates how Willy Loman has been shaped by society. It conveys the impact of this ideology on his children, raising them to believe in quantifiable values being benchmarks of success. Throughout the play his mental health takes a downward spiral as he encounters various failures in his life and his sons’. This can be attributed to the conflict between the shifting values of the time. The values of hard work and individualism are no longer important. Miller utilizes Willy Loman’s inability to succeed and address his own failures to convey the corruption of the American Dream with values such as capitalism, personal attractiveness, and entitlement to success.

The author Arthur Miller wrote the book Death of a Salesman and it tells the tale of a dysfunctional family and its members. This family is comprised of Willy Loman, a salesman, Linda, Willy’s wife and mother of Biff and Happy, Biff, eldest son of Willy and Linda, and Happy, younger son of Willy and Linda. Each of the characters in the book all have flaws such as Willy being suicidal, Linda being an enabler, Biff being lost, and Happy being a liar. These flaws have created an atmosphere where conflicts will occur time and time again. In fact, the main plot of the literary work revolves around Willy, the salesmen, coming to turns that his whole life has been nothing but a lie that he gets caught up in causing his son to confront him.

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows the tragic descent of a nobody, Willy Loman. Willy Loman can be characterized as an extremely flawed character, full of ego and pride, completely oblivious to the concept of working hard to reap the benefits of life, remaining hopeful past the limit he should be allowed to be. These flaws all define his character, and eventually, his downfall. Miller uses the characters that exist around Willy Loman to define him. Willy’s son, Biff Loman, is Willy’s focus throughout the book, and their interactions offer insight into Willy’s character.

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, Miller probes the dream of Willy Lowman while making a statement about the dreams of American society. This essay will explore how each character of the play contributes to Willy's dream, success, and failure.

In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman’s life seems to be slowly deteriorating. It is clear that Willy’s predicament is of his own doing, and that his own foolish pride and ignorance lead to his downfall. Willy’s self-destruction involved the uniting of several aspects of his life and his lack of grasping reality in each, consisting of, his relationship with his wife, his relationship and manner in which he brought up his children, Biff and Happy, and lastly his inability to productively earn a living and in doing so, failure to achieve his “American Dream”.

The play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller is about the loss of personality as well as a man’s incapability to admit the change in himself and society. The play is a montage of memories, confrontations, dreams, and arguments that all make up the last 24 hours of Willy Loman’s daily life. The author uses the Loman’s family that comprises of Willy, Linda, Happy, and Biff to construct a constant cycle of contraction, denial, and order versus disorder.

In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, readers are taken on a journey showing the last twenty-four hours in the life of failing salesman, Willy Loman. Willy’s failed ambitions of being the quintessential American salesman cause him to fall on hard times and lose all will to live. Willy Loman allows his pride to cloud his judgment, and manipulate all sense of rational thinking; his death along with many of his other actions became selfish in nature because they affect more than just himself and cause the downfall of many other characters. When Willy loses his job, he, in essence, loses himself. Willy’s life is centered around the sales firm and it’s the only life he’s ever known.

Through the characterization and development of Biff and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the importance of acquiring a rational, logical and realistic perspective is brought to light. The significance of this form of a mindset is explored in juxtaposition to a mindset that denies a person from advancing and growing to new heights and new possibilities. Throughout the entirety of the modern drama, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman had a destructive perspective. His way of thinking and his perception of the world did not serve him.

The story ‘Death of a Salesman’ written by Miller focuses on a man doing all he can to allow him and his family to live the American dream. Throughout the story it is shown how the Loman’s struggle with finding happiness and also with becoming successful. Throughout their entire lives many problems come their way resulting in a devastating death caused by foolishness and the drive to be successful. Ever since he and his wife, Linda, met she has been living a sad and miserable life, because she has been trying support his unachievable goals. Also by him being naïve put his children’s lives in jeopardy and also made them lose sight of who they really were. Miller uses the Loman family to show how feeling the need to appear a certain way to the public and trying to live a life that is not really yours can turn into an American nightmare.

Death of a salesman is a resemblance to the American society in the forties in which the play’s protagonist, Willy Loman, strongly tries to attain the dream of making a fortune through salesmanship. Miller denotes the artificiality of the American dream, the play’s major theme, which possessed the people at that time. In his play, Miller also signifies the stark difference between the delusive dreams and the actual reality as another vehement theme that leads the characters into anger and disappointment. The death of the salesman, Willy, comes to be shocking and unanticipated as it suddenly occurs at the end of the play. Furthermore, Death of a salesman is an expressionistic tragedy that is mainly characterized by symbolism and flashbacks as the means of establishing the dramatic depth in the play (Murphy and Abbotson

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Willy Loman has an obsession with material wealth and popularity. These obsessions get in the way of him achieving true happiness in his life with his family .Willy was inspired by Dave Singleman , his dreams of being like him were also ruined because of his obsessions. Willy said to his wife Linda describing Dave“His name was Dave Singleman… and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room… −I’ll never forget−and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living” In most scenarios people think that the more items they own the happier they will be in life, Willy quickly learns that is not the

This book was written by Arthur Miller to display his opinion on the relationship between tragic novels and the common man. “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were” (Miller). Miller believed that the real feeling of tragedy is evoked in the audience when the character of the novel is willing and ready to lay down their life. This situation occurs in The Death of a Salesman when Willy Loman commits suicide after his decision that he is worth more to his family dead than alive because his family will receive money from his

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller is a domestic tragedy that focuses on the Loman’ dysfunctional family. The author’s approach in this story is to define tragedy through the Loman family’s inability to distinguish reality from illusion, and especially the father Willy Loman who’s caught up in this fantasy world he created for him and his family. This tragic flaw will lead him to his death and make him miserable in the last few hours of his life. These illusions he created in his head will make it seem like they are destined for greatness, which leads to him putting too much pressure on his first born son Biff. His relationship with Biff deteriorates little by little because of what he expects from him. He has a difficult time earning his son’ respect and being a role model to him because of his actions. However, he is concerned about his relationship to his son Biff because it will mean that he failed as a father; and therefore the reason for his concern is that he’s in denial, he feels responsible for his son’s failure, and he failed to accomplish the american dream.

Many believe that “Death of a Salesman” represents a working man’s goal of achieving the American dream, but the disillusioned Willy Lowman uses it as a façade. This façade conceals his narcissistic personality while accommodating for his lack of self-esteem and failures. Willy lives in his own utopic fantasy where everyone knows who he is and he’s treated like a king. A man full of delusion in an ever changing world which is advancing and leaving him both mentally and physically stale, if only he could see through his grandiosity. In the following text we’ll see that “Death of a Salesman” reflects the delusions of one man and his image as seen by himself, his family and others, through the examination of the theme, his character and the time period for his existence.