The American Dream in The Death of a Salesman

In the Death of a Salesman, the main purpose of using day dream was to give to the audience ideas of what was going through Willy’s mind. The flashback and hallucinations played a big part in the audience eyes because they showed each event and produced explanation for each character’s action taken in the real time of the play. Every aspect of Willy character is necessary for the organization and progression of the Death of a Salesman play.

The theory and philosophy of all-American dream are heavily represented in the death of a salesman. In Willy perspective of accomplishment in life, every man has to be an influencer in any domain, famous and successful. During the movie, Willy repeatedly mentioned his desire of owning his business “company”. To Willy’s eyes, he feels that he is worthless if he wasn’t able to afford his red car and not loved by others. The theme of American dream derives from Willy’s complex of wanting to own any fancy material that every man could fantasize back then in a society where few people are able to afford certain things and be moneymaking. This is an image emulating American dream where some people enjoy life while others are living in a despairing way. The only way that Willy could feel better and worthy to the society was by owning a business and possessing certain luxuries materials.

The Loman family was a family that was devoting serious effort or energy just to be successful. They wanted to be member of the American society at any cost without looking at areas that could be practicable and almost doable. Willy desperation of wanting to be someone he wasn’t led him to start lying about his figures that he made at work. For example: after his trip he lied that he made five hundred and seven hundred then later on, he was asked again the same question, he lied but finally came up and told the truth about him making only two hundred during the entire trip. Willy felt whole again when he was lying, his number exaggeration made him feel famous, and successful salesman that could ever be.

In the Death Of A Salesman, almost every character expects the mother, they all had the same dream. They all wanted to be successful and lives as happy as ever. Both sons believed that they could be successful together by creating a million dollars company and put their parents to retirement, in the other hand Willy dreams were more self-center but he still wanted for his sons to follow his path as salesman and be successful in that area. During the play, Biff came up with testimony saying that his father picked the wrong career, his career wasn’t fit for him in other term, Willy chose to follow the wrong dream. Willy and Happy were almost alike, they were both delusional about almost everything. They didn’t want to face true reality, their world wasn’t what reality was presented to them. They lived in a world were life wasn’t valuable without success.

During the play, Willy spends almost the entire time reliving his past. The flashbacks in the play were separating real time event and past event. I believe that those flashbacks were sources of information, they were revealing all the insight of each characters mainly Willy’s character. Willy was thinking about suicide and his best way of running away from it was to relive in his memories or probably exaggerate some event which only reflected somehow all the happy moment he had. The only time that we see Willy happy was during the flashbacks.

Willy couldn’t stop wishing to become worthy of the society by being a successful salesman but all the opportunities were disallowed. Willy’s life was oppressive for him. As for dreams, they participated in the big part during the play but they didn’t favor Willy ambition of become who he wanted to be and the person in wanted to be in the American society. I believe that the author was telling the audience through the death of a salesman that a good society cannot only be focused on hopes beyond reach. As for the American dream, the author was talking about how American dreams only make the poor people to work hard by hoping that they dream will be achieved without knowing that what they are hoping for his hardly possible to come true. For my point of view, dreams can be a good thing but can also blind us from facing reality and make us scared.