Introduction
Anyone growing up in America, and many who only dream of growing up there, seems to have an idea of a promised ‘American Dream’ that floats in virtual space like a tasty dessert one only achieves if they have performed well. Although each person has a different idea of exactly what form that dessert make take – a bowl of fruit and cream, a brownie covered in fudge, ice cream and apple pie – there is a shared concept of something enticingly sweet, highly desirable, reasonably attainable and intended just for them. A great deal of energy and attention is given to the concept of the American Dream, but while most people seem to have this concept of a tantalizing dessert drifting just outside of their reach, few have any clue as to just what that dessert might look like for them. Because the concept seems to be universally understood, very few people discuss the idea of the American Dream to any great extent, but without any form of real definition, it remains puzzling just how anyone might be able to determine when or if they have ever reached it. Like the dessert that is sweet, desirable and attainable, the American Dream has some common elements such as a house, leisure time and the natural result of average effort, yet each individual must realize that their idea of home and their concept of leisure might be vastly different from another person’s. Without actually defining what comprises the individual dream, it is impossible to discover it just as a lack of definition regarding what comprises an elephant might lead one to chase a rhinoceros instead as it is also a large grey creature with four legs. In his play, Death of a Salesman, playwright Arthur Miller presents the story of Willy Loman and his last ditch efforts to achieve the American Dream he envisions for himself and his family. This paper argues that Miller’s play illustrates the problem of fuzzy definition, discovers the actual elusiveness of the American Dream as a common treat and that the play itself argues for an adjustment of our concepts of this term in favor of something more personal.
Fuzzy Definition
Throughout Miller’s play, Willy continues to compare himself to a vague notion he has of the American Dream. The idea of the house being an integral part of the Dream is brought in almost immediately as Willy observes to his wife “Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it” (4). This statement reveals the emptiness Willy has found in the accomplishment of providing his family with a home of their own as his sons prepare to leave again. As Linda tries to soothe him, he reminds her “some people accomplish something” (4) indicating that simply owning a home and raising a family isn’t enough to give him the sense of satisfaction he’d thought he’d have at this point in his life. As he drifts in and out of his memories, Willy slowly reveals that while he had a vague notion of the American Dream as including the house and kids, there was also a significant element of something beyond this that equals ‘success’. It can be seen that Willy’s ideas are flawed as he talks with his boys in several memory scenes in which he is seen to be attempting to inflate his own importance and the prestige of his job, “they know me boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there’ll be open sesame for all of us, ‘cause one thing, boys: I have friends. I can park my car on any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own” (18). As a result of his boasting, a great deal of what his family knows about Willy is based upon the image he feels he must portray of himself in order to bring himself in line with his fuzzy notion of the American Dream figure. At the same time, Willy reveals his impression of successful people lies in the degree to which he can impress others rather than anything tangible or helpful for society.
Elusiveness of the Dream
Although Willy seems to have a very unclear idea of what comprises the American Dream, his family seems clear in their belief in him as the epitome of the American man. Throughout the play, it can be seen where Willy’s wife or children have attempted to assure him that his importance to them has little or nothing to do with his ability to impress others or his level of financial success. All they want to do is spend time with him. The boys are seen, in Willy’s flashbacks, to constantly beg him to take them with him on his sales trips while Linda continuously works to reassure him and support him in everything that he does. “He’s the dearest man in the world to me, and I won’t have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue” (38), Linda tells Biff in adulthood. Unfortunately, Willy is incapable of abandoning the fuzzy ideas of his own youth regarding what makes a man great and thus remains trapped in a failed plan that has little or no hope of success. As he is finally brought to the realization that his slipping memory means he cannot work anymore, Willy finds himself grasping for a foundation within his family that cannot now be developed because of the way he has kept his true self hidden behind appearances. He must continue to keep up appearances as a great man in front of his sons even as his wife gently reminds him of the bills that need to be paid. This relationship he shares with his wife only serves to remind him of how much he owes her, telling her “you’re my foundation and my support” (18) even when he just finished belittling her ideas. Willy’s ideas of the American Dream seem to involve a strong, completely self-contained man who sacrifices all of his own inclinations in favor of providing his family with a decent house, the appropriate educational experiences and the money they will need to live on after he retires or dies, yet he has been unable to attain this status following the prescribed plan of working steadily and faithfully for a single employer. By exposing Willy’s failure, Miller points out that the American Dream as it is generally understood provides no assurances of success in any way even if it can be clearly defined by a man’s actions.
Need for a more personal Dream
Throughout the play, there is little option for Willy to do anything other than what he does within the context of his personality and understanding of the American Dream. His absolute belief in the American ideal in which a father lived by certain principles to provide his family with their basic material needs is inextricably tied to his ideas of his status within the family unit itself. From Willy’s perspective, the only way to attain familial success is to first obtain business success. With the type of business success discovered by his brother, Ben, who walked into the jungle a poor man and walked out a diamond millionaire at the age of 21, a man could then work to develop binding relationships between himself and the family his money will support. Upon realizing he had not achieved business success, though, Willy can clearly not consider himself to have achieved any degree of familial success. This is emphasized in his continued disparagement of his son’s choices in life. His comments on Biff leave little room for doubt regarding Willy’s disappointment in his older son: “Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!” (5) while his rants at Happy seem to be directed more toward his own failures: “You’ll retire me for life on seventy dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you’ll retire me for life!” (27). Willy’s belief that his family will receive a $20,000 life insurance benefit following his suicide is the only answer he can discover to finally achieve at least the first half of his concept of the American Dream. By clearing this hurdle, it is in only in his final moments of life that Willy is at last able to understand that his family, particularly Biff, really loved him all along simply because he was Willy. Because these are the final moments of his life, though, Willy is never able to directly benefit from this new appreciation of his life just as his death by suicide automatically voids the life insurance policy, thus leaving his family in greater debt than they had been before.
Conclusion
Through the story of Willy Loman, Arthur Miller illustrates that the American Dream everyone chases after is insufficiently defined to foster any real success. Willy thinks he knows what he means by the term – a house, a family, a career and a high level of respect among his peers – a definition that many could agree upon. However, he has an innate sense that this is not really enough; that what he really wants has more to do with loving relationships with others rather than awed respect or subservient dependence. This sense seems to be fueled by an understanding that the material accomplishments are not as fulfilling as he’d imagined. Unfortunately for Willy, he has bought into the concept that there is one sure way to attain the Dream, by remaining faithful to a given company for a number of years, accumulating respect and owed favors, until comfortable retirement and one can rest in ease in the love and joy of the family built. Although the American Dream is thought to be relatively easy to attain, Miller’s play illustrates how elusive it truly is. Finally, in Willy’s last moments, Miller argues that the individual needs to follow a more personal dream rather than buying into such a general concept as an American Dream. This argument for a personal dream is made all the stronger for Miller’s depiction of it as both insufficiently defined to provide an accurate measurement for success in Willy’s struggle for assessment and more elusive than one might think in Willy’s faithfulness to the ‘plan’ yet failure in attaining the Dream.
References
Miller, Arthur. (1949). Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking Press.