“The American Dream”
When the Declaration of independence was first being signed, it began to spend this idea that soon gripped the land and eventually the world all over. That simple idea of that the founding fathers believe became known as the American Dream. In it, it was stated that “We believe that all men are born with these inalienable rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1776). Soon people all over migrated to America in pursuit of this 'dream' which consisted of a belief that with hard work and effort anything was possible. Yet in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, it shows that time ultimately erodes even proud ideals such as The American Dream. This proves especially true to Willy, Happy, and Biff Loman where rather than success, their pursuit of it tore down their family and ultimately cost one character his life.
In the play, Willy Loman is a traveling salesman whose main goal in life is to make it big and climb the social ladder to the top. But instead of using hard work, Willy depended on his ability to be liked to gain wealth and success, neither of which he achieves. Willy’s career as a salesman to him revolved solely around this ability and ultimately leads to his failure as a salesman. He further tries to make himself seem better and important by making up stories and changing them to suit his needs. Willy's main downfall in my opinion was that Willy honestly and truly believes that he should take orders from anyone. Willy refuses to allow anyone other then himself tell him what to do, not even his own family. Willy believes so strongly in this perverted version of the American dream he has that he passes these teachings on to Biff and Happy. Willy’s warped view of the American Dream also included the belief that successful people were risk-takers and adventurers. He envisions Biff, the once-great high school athlete, becoming a success through starting a sporting goods company and believes that...