The desire to achieve the American Dream and enjoy the opportunity for financial success and satisfaction is not new; still, it is always possible to find out some unique approaches to understand it. People like to follow their goals and dreams. People need certain goals to be identified as they help to live and survive. There are many stories, real-life examples, and fiction about the role of the American Dream in human life; still, the plays like “Death of a Salesman” and “A Raisin in the Sun” remain to be the ones of the most interesting and educative to the readers.
The authors, Arthur Miller and Lorraine Hansberry introduced their own visions on the American Dream and the methods that can be used to understand and achieve it. Personal struggles for living a better life are considered to be an integral part of the American culture, and the authors want to explain how the two families, different in race, social status, ethical backgrounds, and attitudes to everything around, maybe equally disappointed in life and aimed to change something.
Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” tell the stories about how people can perceive and be affected by the idea of the American Dream, how they choose wrong dreams sometimes and cannot find the necessary way out, and how they try to believe in the truths that cost more than they actually have to; and in spite of the fact that the two stories depict the same idea of the American Dream’s achievement, they have a number of differences due to the characters’ natures and the decisions they made.
Miller and Hansberry demonstrate the two unique depictions of the American Dream and their effects on the lives of the characters: if “Death of a Salesman” proves that a personal desire to achieve the goal by any means may prevail upon logics, emotions, and relations, “A Raisin in the Sun” shows how family relations and support in addition to personal prudence make people re-evaluate their own possibilities and the future for good. Throughout the whole play, the main character of “A Raisin in the Sun,” the head of the family, Walter Younger, truly believes that money is a synonym for life and “it was always money… We just didn’t know about it” (Hansberry, 522).
In spite of the fact that the rest of his family tries to offer him different explanations, for example, Mama tells that “once upon a time freedom used to be life” (Hansberry 522), Beneatha proves that to follow her dream to become a doctor is an option of life (Hansberry 496), and Ruth hopes that love to her family is the thing that can save a human life, Walter continues making attempts and mistakes to achieve his cherished dream and become someone in this life.
He perceives the American Dream as something that has to be achieved and neglects any kind of support until he learns that nothing is more important in this life than a family and realizes that it is enough to be very proud people to survive. Unfortunately, Willy from “Death of a Salesman” does not have a chance to demonstrate the same results and find the required portion of family support. Or it may happen that Willy was more absorbed in his dream to create a financially stable future for his family and affected by the necessity to achieve the chosen dream disregarding a worth of his own life.
Willy’s failure to enjoy the results of his dream as well as Walter’s inability to comprehend his father and mother’s values may also be explained by the fact that people are under a threat of choosing wrong dreams and the dreams that do not lead to the cherished light at the end of a tunnel. Biff, Willy’s son, admits that “he had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong… He never knew who he was” (Miller, 103).
However, people around him, like his sons, wife, or his neighbor Charley, realize who he was, still, do not find it necessary to help him come up with it. They can provoke, support, or calm him down, but never explain or give a hint. It seems to be so easy to put on someone’s mistakes and underline someone’s failures. This message is not clearly defined in “Death of a Salesman”, but the reader can understand that it is wrong to blame Willy only in his attempt to set and achieve a wrong dream. Though he has a blind faith in his dream that makes him weak in the face of reasonable analysis, he never denies the fact that he is in need of support.
In his turn, Walter seems to be a stronger character. It may happen because of his racial differences with Willy that make him more confident in what he is saying or choosing. If Willy is expected to become financially stable because of the color of his skin, Walter is expected to be broken by ethical and racial disparities. Such expectations provide Walter with some kind of invisible power that helps him make the right choice and consider the importance of his own life and the emotional well-being of his family in regards to the American Dream to be achieved.
Finally, the despair of the American Dream may also be explained by the human beliefs in the truth that costs more than it has to, and this despair becomes the main obstacle for the authors of the plays as well as for their main characters. The main truth of both plays under analysis is that their characters have to participate in several struggles at the same time, and each struggle has its own peculiarities, goals, and motifs. “A Raisin in the Sun” depicts the fight against a number of outside circumstances like racial biases, social inequality, the necessity to follow the rules and norms that have already been established, and the desire to become better than it is really possible.
If Ruth, Mama, and Beneatha have their own truths and dreams and do not try to impose them on the others, but ask to understand them, Walter does not find it is enough to share his goals and dreams. He wants everyone to believes in his ability to achieve the goal and helps him in his intentions. He wants his mother to provide him with some money as soon as she has a possibility, his wife to stand on his side, and his sister to abandon her dreams in support of his own ideas.
His selfishness leads to a number of mistakes and disappointments that make him change his mind and turn him from the man with “nothing left to love” (Hansberry 573) into the man with pride, family, and a new dream to be followed. Willy from “Death of a Salesman” shows another example of how to remain the same person with a number of ambitions and the truth that costs more than it should be. Willy does not want to see a new option but the necessity to achieve his cherished dream to make his family wealthy and free from any financial debt. Though his wife Linda tells him that she “made the last payment on the house today” and proves the fact that “we’re free and clear” (Miller 104). Willy is not able to enjoy this truth with her as she says this in front of his fresh grave. Yes, this kind of truth costs too much.
The idea of the American Dream and a burning desire to achieve it are the things that unite Hansberry’s and Miller’s stories. However, in spite of the numerous similarities and educative lessons observed, there are many differences that make the reader enjoy them both in a unique way. If Miller’s play shows the way of how a human life may be destroyed because of the American Dream, Hansberry tries to introduce the same dream as a wonderful chance to change the life and improve it to any possible extend.
The main difference between “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Death of a Salesman” is the main characters’ personalities. They show how various attitudes to life, available opportunities, and social expectations may guide a person and lead to different endings. In comparison to Willy, who wants to prove his family that the American Dream can and has to be achieved by any means, Walter uses the American Dream as a means to improve his life. In other words, a key difference of the stories under analysis is that Miller introduces the American Dream as the goal to be achieved, and Hansberry considers human life as the goal and the American Dream as a means to achieve it.
In general, one of the most crucial things about the American Dream is the fact that people truly believe that they do deserve something in this life; it does not matter whether it is money, love, happiness, or personal satisfaction, people want to strive for something to be directed and not to lose their own ways. “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Death of a Salesman” introduce the lives of the two families with their own ideas, truths, and goals. The authors do not find it necessary to underline that each family member has the American Dream that runs his or her life.
Though they tell different stories about the American Dream and its relation to and place in human life, they use it as a powerful weapon in the battle the characters are eager to win. It seems to be enough to describe their financial problems, jobs’ routines, struggling for happiness, and interpersonal relations to explain that the concept of the American Dream is not only somewhere near in the air, but it has already penetrated in the minds and souls of each character and gained control over their actions, words, and even thoughts to promote the struggle. However, the characters of the plays believe that their struggles should be for wealth and a kind of financial stability instead of struggling for personal happiness, the emotional success of their families, and love that helps to overcome any challenge.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. n.d. Web.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. n.d. Web.