Arthur Miller
ccept an ideal to live by, it can be a glorious and noble thing unless they become so obsessed with the ideal that it becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize their dream. This is especially true for two characters in Arthur Miller's plays Death of a Salesman and The Price. In these two plays Miller portrays two lower-middle class men, Willie Loman and Victor Franz, who each live by an ideal that ultimately is self-defeating. Willie lived to pursue the American dream rather than living the American dream and Victor lived to serve and be decent rather than living a noble and decent life. They chased their dreams rather than living them and therefore they are unable to succeed (Murphy, 131).
Willie Loman has lived his life in pursuit of the American dream. Traditionally the American dream meant opportunity and freedom for all, and Willie believed that. However, hard work could not earn him everything that he wanted or thought he deserved. Willy judged himself and those around him by their material accumulation, as is demanded by capitalism and the protestant work ethic. The ethic demands accumulation and work as signs of favor in the eyes of god. Therefore, in order to please god and himself he thought he had to accumulate wealth. The consumer oriented society in which Willy lives will not allow him to live the American Dream. His desire for goods makes him want things that he neither needed nor could afford. Willy thinks that he needs to buy his wife a new refrigerator and new stockings even though she is content with what they have. As he tries to live the American dream he venerates those who have been successful at doing so, like Thomas Edison, B.F. Goodrich, and Ben, his successful brother. Furthermore he punished those who did not work towards that ideal or accomplish it, such as his son Biff and most importantly himself.
The extreme to which he followed the dream brought him to disillusionment and he lost sense of reality. Willy created a reality for himself where he "knocked 'em cold in Providence," and "slaughtered 'em in Boston."(Miller, 33). The ultimate result of his disillusionment is his suicide. It is ironic that he dies for his ideals although they are misconstrued. The problem with Willy's ideals, which ultimately kills him, is that he has lost sight of achieving the true goal of the American Dream, happiness and freedom, and the dream took control of him. He struggled to achieve something that he could not; he did not have the talent to be a salesman. He became so obsessed with living the dream that he was unable to be content with his talents in carpentry and with his family. There is also a manner in which he pursues the Dream. He is a salesman, a profession that is [next page]