Introduction
The concept of the “American Dream” is one that can be found without difficulty in many of Arthur Miller’s dramas. Miller frequently writes his protagonists as a man who is desperately in search of his own American Dream, and often the main (or underlying) theme of Miller’s work concerns this protagonist’s downfall is the result of his constant search and inevitable failure to realize this Dream.
This way, he shows how false this concept is, often built on illusions and paradoxes, and when people try to achieve the Dream, they often lose a whole lot more in the process: things which are invaluable such as their morality, ethical values, and family unit. In this paper, we begin by briefly discussing the American Dream and how its ideals and values contrast with family values, after which we move on to an in-depth discussion of three of how Miller displays this in three of his plays, “Death of a Salesman,” “All My Sons” and “The Man Who Had All the Luck.”
The American Dream
The concept of the American Dream is based upon the idea that any man—whether he is a poor and uneducated immigrant who has just placed his two feet on American soil or a well-to-do businessman from a white-collar family—can create his own destiny through a belief in his own abilities and hard work. Whether a man is a chimneysweeper, a magician, an artist, or an inventor, if he hones his skills to distinguish himself in his field and works as hard as he can, he will rise above the rest. And as his reward, he will, of course, become wealthy, but he will also gain respect from every sector of society.
This was a concept that exploded in popularity of belief and American culture during the great immigrant boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when icons like Horatio Alger, J.P. Morgan, and John Rockefeller publicized it in their own particular ways. In fact, the most general definition of the term first appears in what was then viewed as a common history book published in 1931 called The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams. He writes, “…there has also been the American Dream, that Dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement…It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position” (404).
The term “American Dream” is today usually said in the context of immigrants; the phrases “living the Dream” or “pursuing the American Dream” are also used to refer to native-born Americans. Generally, it is the concept that one’s prosperity and success are determined by how hard their work and how competent one are, and not by a rigid social hierarchy. Still, over the period of time, the meaning has evolved, and people view it in different ways. Some perceive it to be the greater opportunity to succeed which they find exists in America as compared to their native countries; others look at it as the chance their children have to grow up with adequate education as well as professional opportunities, yet others view it as an opportunity to grow up without any racial, social, or ethnic barriers.
The American Dream: In line with Individual/Family Values?
The American Dream has set standards which in reality are very difficult to achieve. In fact, they are extremely difficult to achieve along with comfortable, secure family life, with one’s ethics and morals intact. As Miller’s characters grapple with the realities of an industrialized world, similarly today, the world has become extremely cutthroat and fast paced, where in order to keep up with the rat race, people often have to compromise on the very aspects they are working towards. Society has become obsessed with consumerism, and inflationary pressures have made sure that people are constantly uneasy with whatever level of material wealth they might have managed to secure.
Climbing the economic ladder has become extremely difficult, and as Lende (2007) quoted, “[Working families’] belief in that mythical dream that has sustained so many generations for so long is fading faster than sunlight on a December afternoon.” Research conducted by Lake Research Partners showed that “nearly 50 percent held the exceedingly gloomy view that today’s children would be ‘worse off’ when the time comes for them to enter the world of work and raise their own families.” With such anxiety about their economic future, the struggle to keep up with changing economic realities, and the growing income inequalities have led to a large percentage of the population simply making do with the best they can get. The rising cost of education, health care, a deteriorating environment, and more intense competition for natural resources has led to more dissatisfaction and discontentment.
In such an environment, one of the things which have had to suffer is the family unit because today’s society poses many conflicts between the pursuit of success, as per the American Dream, and one’s individual and family values. Success has become difficult to attain, and there are many hurdles that come in one’s way. Values are often one of these obstacles, and the choices one makes determine the path his or her life will take. More often than not, the path to material comfort requires the sacrifice of traditional family values. In Miller’s plays, this point is stated via the stories he tells about his main protagonists, as will now be discussed.
Death of a Salesman
Willy Loman is a staunch believer in what he considers to be the lure of the American Dream, which is that a businessman who is a well-liked and personally attractive man will definitely attain the material goods and comforts which modern American life has to offer. Ironically, he is obsessed with superficial characteristics such as attractiveness and likeability, which goes against the actual concept of the American Dream, which rewards effort and hard work with success. He is completely fixated with the superficial things, exemplified, for instance by his dislike of Bernard because he regards him as a nerd. Willy has a distorted vision of the American Dream, and he has such blind faith in this inaccurate vision that it leads to his mental disturbance when he is not able to accept how the Dream is at odds with his own life.
Willie spent his whole life chasing the American Dream. As tradition went, the Dream meant that everyone had opportunities and the right to freedom, and this is also what Willy believed. But however hard he worked, he felt he did not earn everything that he had wanted to achieve or deserved to earn. His criteria for judging success, his own as well as everyone else’s, was by the material wealth they had managed to accumulate, as going by the concepts of capitalism and protestant work ethic. The latter proposes that in the eyes of God, work and accumulation are signs of favor. So Willy felt he had to amass wealth and material objects so that he could please God and himself.
Willy was living in a society that was extremely consumer-oriented, and he could not live the American Dream because of this factor. He is obsessed with accumulating material things, and this fascination makes him crave for objects that he does not have a need for, and neither can he afford them. For example, he thinks he has to buy his wife new stockings and a new refrigerator even though she is satisfied with what they have currently. As he makes attempts to live the American Dream, he admires people who have been successful in this regard, such as Thomas Edison, B. F. Goodrich, and even Ben, his successful brother.
Also, those who did not chase the American Dream or try hard enough to achieve it, he does not think too highly of them and punished his son Biff because he is one of those. His obsession with the Dream leads him to become disillusioned and form a distorted sense of reality. He has his own reality where he “knocked ’em cold in Providence” and “slaughtered ’em in Boston.” This mental imbalance ultimately leads to his suicide, a death that was the result of misconstrued ideas.
The ironic part was that while Willy was idealistic, what eventually killed him was that he was chasing the American Dream but had completely lost focus of what the real goals of this Dream were: happiness and freedom. He was constantly struggling to be something he wasn’t and achieve something that he couldn’t, as he did not have the talent and ability to be a successful salesman. He was talented at carpentry, but his obsession with living the Dream made him discontent and unable to be satisfied with his talents and his family. He is obsessed with the version of American success in his head, and the Dream ultimately becomes a nightmare, and he becomes its victim.
All My Sons
All My Sons is another of Arthur Miller’s plays. It is based on the character of Joe Keller, who is a typical American. He is a successful middle-aged man, who has lived through the Depression. He is not educated, but his hard work has led to his success today as he owns a factory which he wants his son to inherit after him and lives in a comfortable house. But he has done a terrible act in the past: when World War II was happening, in a hurry to meet an order from the Army and prevent his factory from going bankrupt, he sold them substandard and defective airplane components, knowingly, and this caused the plane to crash and the death of 21 American pilots. At the time, he managed to frame his business partner for this criminal act and worked things out in a way that none of the blame fell on him. However, now his son is marrying that partner’s daughter. This leads to light being shed on this incident of the past, and the lie that Keller had based his whole life on is finally caught.
In this play, Miller tells the story of how the American Dream has gone terribly awry, in the way that a single-minded focus on acquiring wealth wreaks such havoc. He shows his readers how hollow the American Dream is and that one should always “think about the consequences of our actions.” Keller has worked very hard to provide his family with material comfort even though he was an uneducated man. But the material wealth which he and his family have today is quite meaningless.
While it appears that he has a nice family with two children and they live in a nice house, in reality, his family is undergoing a lot of suffering as his wife is ill, one of his sons is highly discontent and the other has committed suicide because of what his father did all those years ago. A letter which Larry wrote prior to killing himself shows Keller how wrong he has been, as though his one selfish, reprehensible act, he has not just killed one son but all of them. This is the recurring theme throughout the play, also the reason for the play’s title. This means that he has to understand that the pilots that were killed in the War because of the defective parts he sold were also his sons, and he must take responsibility for his heinous act. This storyline of taking responsibility for one’s actions is common to almost every character in All My Sons.
At the same time, this play also shows how the American Dream has now become more similar to an American Nightmare because it is built upon many paradoxes and illusions. The world has become a dishonest one, and in order to acquire wealth and a comfortable existence, one is often required, forced even, to make compromises. Keller’s justification for selling defective parts was that he just wanted to keep his family happy by earning enough wealth. In the end, Keller’s guilt leads him to commit suicide because he just wants to escape from the terrible act that he committed. He was also so obsessed with the American dream of success that he became its victim. When Freedman (1971, p.85) discussed All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, he said, “The first records the destruction that comes to the successful man in America, for success came to him only through criminality; the second records the destruction that comes to the unsuccessful man who has dedicated himself to pursuing only the appearances of American success.”
The Man Who Had All the Luck
The Man Who Had All the Luck is another play by Arthur Miller, based on the lead character of David Beeves, a young automobile mechanic who finds out that he is blessed with amazing luck, almost supernaturally so, which makes it possible for him to get over every problem or obstacle in his life, no matter how impossible, even when other people are not able to do the same. His fortune can be likened to that of Midas, where everything he comes into contact with turns to gold. He often wonders if and when his luck will change, and then he will also have to deal with problems and tragedies that come in his path. Eventually, he comes to the realization that his hard work, quick thinking, and good intentions have played a bigger role in his success rather than just luck.
As the earlier discussion showed, Miller has exhibited the vainness and hollowness of this Dream of success. Joe Keller and Willy Loman were both struggling to attain or retain material comforts: Joe was a successful businessman while Wiley was an unsuccessful salesman. What Miller has shown, however, is that while traditionally the American Dream was a possibility for anyone willing to put in hard work and effort, in this capitalistic, industrialist, dog-eat-dog society, success has become equal to the survival of the fittest and this often means a compromise of ethical values. In The Man Who Had All the Luck, David is also pursuing success in the mink business similar to Keller and Loman in their respective professions. But David is not as desperate as these characters, as is shown in the scene where he explains to Hester why he is so devoted to the mink business, he says, “I don’t want you to worry, Hess. I promised you’d live like a queen, remember?”
As Miller (1957) says, “The law of success” is in sharp contrast to “the system of love,” and he believes that this conflict between the two is a major theme in his plays. In Death of a Salesman, Biff represents the system of love, and this conflict causes Wiley’s mental health to suffer. Because when the “law of success” is mixed with family, it conflicts with the ethical foundations in the family, which is what Miller refers to by a “system of love.” As he creates storylines where there are elements of family drama, he tries to depict humans as social entities as well as individuals. In All My Sons, Joe’s conflict with his son Chris is an example of the “system of love” while in The Man Who Had All the Luck, Hester represents this concept. However, in the latter play, the theme of the Dream of success is a secondary or almost-hidden theme, with the play mostly focused on how invisible good luck beyond man’s capacity, hard work or effort has the power to shape his life. Still, the play does manage to depict in a different way than the other two plays how the American Dream contradicts family values and leads to the downfall of the family unit.
Conclusion
As the discussion above shows, Arthur Miller has shown in his plays how the concept of the American Dream is completely at odds with traditional family values and leads to the downfall of the family unit. Wiley Loman, Joe Keller, and David Beeves are the protagonists who are pursuing success and find out how acquisition of material wealth often leads to losses that can never be recovered. All of them are seeking the Dream of success, but this eventually leads to the downfall of their family lives because of the many compromises and conflicts which come in their path to success.
References
Adams, J. T. The Epic of America. London: George Routledge, 1931.
Freedman, Morris. American Drama in Social Context. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1971.
Lender, D. The American Reality versus the American Dream. December 2007. Web.
Miller, Arthur. The Man Who Had All the Luck. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Miller, Arthur. Collected Plays. New York: Viking Press, 1957.
Miller, Arthur. “Introduction to the Collected Plays,” Collected Plays. New York: Viking Press, 1957.
Oikawa, Masahiro. “Terror of Failure” and “Guilt for Success”: The American Dream in the Great Depression and Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had All the Luck. Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, 3, (2004): 117-139.