Mythical American Dream Challenged in Arthur Millers Death of a Salesm

Mythical American Dream Challenged in Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman challenges the American pipe dream. forward the Depression, an optimistic America offered the alluring promise of success and riches. Willy Loman suffers from his disenchantment with the American dream, for it fails him and his son. In some ways, Willy and Biff seem trapped in a transitional period of American history. Willy, now sixty-three, carried out a large part of his career during the Depression and World War II. The promise of success that entranced him in the optimistic 1920s was broken by the harsh economic realities of the 1930s. The unprecedented prosperity of the 1950s remained far in the future. Willy Loman represents a uniquely American figure the travel salesman. all(prenominal) week, he takes a journey to stake his bid for success. It would be difficult to miss the survival of the American frontier mentality in the figure of the traveling salesman. The id ea of the American dream was heavily influenced by the rush for gold and land in the nineteenth-century American West. It is no coincidence that in the 1950s, the decade approximately preoccupied with the mythical American dream, America experienced an unprecedented love affair with Westerns.Willy and Linda try to build their own version of the American dream with their family. In high school, Biff was the all-American boy as the captain of the football team. True to the myth of the all-American boy, girls and admiring friends surrounded him. Willy and Lindas lives are full of monthly payments on possessions that symbolize that dream a car, a home, and household appliances. The proliferation of monthly payments allowed families with modest incomes to h... ...une promised by the American dream. He cannot admit doubt or insecurity because a good salesman invariably remains confident, and the American dream promises success to the confident, eager individual. Death of a Salesman add resses Willys struggle to maintain his identity in the face of narrowing hopes that he or his sons will ever fulfill his dreams. Works Cited Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York Norton, 1994. Corrigan, Robert W., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1969. Florio, Thomas A., ed. Millers Tales. The New Yorker. 70 (1994) 35-36. Miller, Arthur. The Archbishops cap/The American Clock. New York Grove Press, 1989. ---. Death of a Salesman. New York Viking, 1965. ---. Eight Plays. New York Nelson Doubleday, 1981.