, Research Paper

If gaining success were easy, everybody would be successful. Although who is to state what precisely being successful embodies. In America, the success of a individual is weighed harmonizing to the sum of mercenary ownerships one has attained. In a success orientated society such as this, populating harmonizing to these values means that one must besides be cognizant of failure. In the drama? Death of a Salesman? by Arthur Miller, the writer touches upon the subjects of failure and remaining true to one? s ego. The relevance of these subjects maintains non merely within the drama, but throughout real-life state of affairss and is, in fact, a reminder of the sometimes unachievable? American Dream? .

The drama plots the tragic prostration of a adult male, Willy Lowman, who can non confront up to his moral duties in a society whose false values attach a unsafe importance to success as measured in such transient footings as income and mercenary properties. Willy places being successful so high on his list of precedences without truly understanding the agencies to really achieve that success. Because of this, his misconstruing finally leads to his ruin. Failure in a success orientated society is inevitable, but Willy was a failure by pick. He made the error of presuming that his household and equals would non accept him unless he supplied his household with? The American Dream? . When this end was non met, Willy took his life. The pickings of one? s life because of deficiency of success is non all that uncommon in today? s society. Like Willy, many hubbies and male parents commit suicide because they feel they are non accurately supplying their households with adequate fiscal aid. What many of these people lack to understand is that their households most probably would hold loved them irrespective of their pecuniary success. In the drama, Biff eventually tells his male parent that he loves him and explains that sometimes it? s O.K. to be merely the mean cat, although Willy is already excessively far along his way of suffering to see this. By puting failure as a cardinal subject in the drama, possibly Arthur Miller was suggesting on the thought that many Americans are disillusioned by? The American Dream? . ? The American

Dream? is non some fabulous saint, that when wished upon, grants success. No, it is something which requires difficult work and finding in order to achieve. If one believes in? The American Dream? , so one must besides esteem the failure which entails with it.

In Willy? s life, his failure was besides nursed by his deficiency of self-identity. While at times he proclaims to his boies the virtuousnesss of clean life, friendliness, sportsmanship and honestness, his ain life denies these qualities in that he has a kept woman on the route and he lies about his concern success. He stresses the importance of being well-liked, of being physically attractive and good at athletics, and being able to sell one? s ego. All of these qualities he tries to construct up in his boies so that they may, one twenty-four hours, be successful. However, it is these same properties which prove to be the really ground for their deficiency of success. This state of affairs is evocative of many narratives affecting the same cardinal subject ; be true unto one? s ego. Take for case the comedic drama? The Little Shop of Horrors. ? In this drama, the cardinal character, Seymour, is in love with a miss but feels like he has nil particular to offer her. So Seymour makes a trade with this people-eating works that every bit long as he keeps feeding him people, Seymour will be well-liked and celebrated. In the terminal, Seymour finds out that the miss loves him merely for who he is, even before he became celebrated. Although a small more far-fetched than? Death of a Salesman? , the subject fits both dramas. Like Seymour, Willy puts excessively much accent on position. They both tried to be something they were non, and in the terminal their false pretences eventually caught up with them, merely Willy ne’er survived to recognize his fatal error.

The existent calamity of the drama? Death of a Salesman? , is non the failure or deficiency of self-honesty of Willy. It is the cognition that there truly are people out at that place like Willy. The really ground Arthur Miller may hold written this drama is in order to exemplify the? dark side? of? The American Dream? . Everybody hears about the Rockefellers and the Carnegies, but what many people fail to admit are the Willy Lowmans, the work forces who fall short of the glorification.