Death of a Salesman - Betrayal | Death of a Salesman - Betrayal

A theme is a fundamental and often universal idea that is explored in a literary work. Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, contains many fundamental ideas and thoughts; these themes are explored in this play and can easily be analyzed. Arthur Miller utilizes themes such as abandonment and betrayal. The most prominent theme in this play is one of idolized dreams, especially a so called "American dream"; which is the goal or achievement that Willy strives to reach by trying to become what he sees in his eyes as a true American lifestyle and occupation.

The falsity of the American Dream is a dominant theme in Arthur Miller's play; and Willy Loman represents the primary target of this dream. Willy Loman, the protagonist, and main character in this play is an insecure, self-deluded traveling salesman. Like most middle-class working men, he struggles to provide financial security for his family and at the same time, he dreams about making himself a huge financial success. After years of working as a traveling salesman, Willy Loman has only an old car, an empty house, and a vanquished spirit, and he realizes this. I think that Arthur Miller chose the job of salesman for Willy, the American Dreamer, very well. Willy Loman is merely a salesman; which means that he doesn't have any particular skill or doesn't make any of the things that he is selling. Willy is working on the empty body of dreams and promises. Most importantly, a salesman must sell his/her personality as well as the product and Willy Loman dearly believes he needs nothing more than to be well liked in order to make it big; even though this is false .

Willy Loman believes wholeheartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream; a dream of easy success and wealth. Willy Loman truly believes that a man who is well liked and personally striking that works in business will unquestionably acquire the material comforts that are presented and offered by a modern American way of living. He believes that not only are these material rewards, such as nice a house or an expensive car, offered to a man of mentionable status in the business community, but they are also well deserved.

Oddly, Willy's fixation with the superficial qualities of attractiveness and likeability is at odds with a more rough, more rewarding understanding of the American Dream that identifies hard work without complaint as the key to success. Willy's interpretation of likeability is shallow; he dislikes Bernard because he considers Bernard a nerd and is childishly opposed to the ethic that Bernard goes by, which is one of hard work in order to achieve goals. Later on in the play he realizes how successful Bernard became. When he is speaking to Bernard and then as Bernard departs, Willy finds out that he is going to the Supreme Court and Willy feels a little dismay because he realizes how much he pushes his sons to be successful and here is Charley who never told Bernard what to do; Bernard worked hard and became a successful man as a result(Miller 94-95). He feels stunted because he begins to realize that his fake qualities aren't the key to success. Willy's belief in his diminutive version of the American Dream leads to his rapid psychological decline when he is unable to accept the gap between the "dream" and his own life, as seen from pages 111 to 121 where he returns from a flashback only to find that his sons, who were supposed to be taking him out to dinner, left with a couple of girls.

Willy Loman exercises a major theme in the play, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller. Willy dreams of an American dream of easy success and wealth, but he never achieves it. He is stuck on a belief that the way to make it is to be well like and personally attractive to the point where one is easily rewarded with material possessions, which are supplied by an American lifestyle. Once again, Willy doesn't achieve, what he sees in his eyes as the American dream; nor do his sons fulfill his hope that they will succeed where he has failed. When Willy's illusions begin to fail when put under the pressing realities of his life, his mental health begins to suffer. The overwhelming tensions caused by this gap between life and dream, as well as a failure in the career that drives Willy, form the crucial conflict of the play; Willy kills himself. Regardless of what he believed, Willy Loman achieved merely nothing; besides the insurance claim that his family received following his death. Consequently, Willy's dream of simple, easy and quick acquisition of wealth by way of popularity and self-confidence in the business world in order to receive the material rewards of a modern American lifestyle were false; hence, crushed.