Characterization in Miller's Death of

Characterization in Miller's Death of a Salesman Willy Lowman is the modern-day tragic hero and he is nothing if he is not the epitome of the failed American Dream. Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman explores the theme of the failure of the American Dream and the nasty trail of desperation it leaves behind. Willy is a breed of new tragic heroes that do not fit under the traditional notions of the tragic hero in that he is an ordinary man in fairly typical surroundings.

He is what Missy Barringer refers to as a "commonplace hero" (Barringer 311) and he becomes a success because we can relate to him in a way that we cannot relate to kings and princes. Willy is a "decent, though deficient" (311) character and this is what draws us to him and his plight. According to Barringer, Miller believed that modern-day heroes desired to secure a "sense of personal dignity" (312) in the world more than anything else and this becomes the foundation of the fleeting dream after which Willy chases.

It is Willy's humanity that makes him someone to whom we can relate, and that is why his story becomes more tragic. We can all relate to the American Dream and the failure of it is dreadful. Through the literary technique of characterization, Miller focuses on Willy's worthless pursuit of his dream and the damning repercussions of that failed he left behind. The American Dream is a term that is thrown around loosely and generally associated with a certain level of success.

That success seems as if it would be easy to attain but it is more difficult that many imagine. Miller concentrates on this difficulty in Death of a Salesman. Richard Rovere contends that Miller was a "socially conscious" (341) writer, not concerned with individuality so much as being concerned with conveying "with force the crushing impact of society upon its members" (342). This notion certainly reflects the theme of Death of a Salesman, as the Lowman's suffer under Willy's chase of his elusive dream.

His problem boils down to a character flaw that he never conquers. Willy's deficiency is his inability to accept reality. He is literally blind to the fact that his life is a failure because he still clings to the hope that he can still turn things around. Willy cannot be faulted for having a dream but he can be faulted for not doing enough to achieve it.

Willy is too much talk and not enough action; if Willy were an active participant in his own life, he would have chosen a different career path decades ago. This truth is too difficult for Willy to face so he continues to live a lie. As one might guess, his avoidance of thinking or doing anything proactive in his life only makes things worse in that his life and career continue to go downhill.

Willy is flawed, he is lazy, he is misguided, and he does not care enough to change. The conflict we discover when we look at this man is the pain we can relate to when giving up a dream and the anger we feel for him because he refuses to see the truth. Willy is the victim of society's concept of the American Dream but society can only be partially responsible. In the end, Willy is responsible for his own life and choices.

Through decades of choices, Willy seems to fail and all of these failures can be attributed to the chase of the dream. The dream can be somewhat tricky because just because one desires it does not make it real. Sometimes hard work does not make it real and, as Willy illustrates, a lifetime of work does not make it real. The attraction of the play is the reality of it. We do not like to look at Willy but something deep inside knows that his tragedy is far too common.

Unfortunately, Willy's character flaw does not end with Willy. John Gassner maintains that Death of a Salesman bridges the "gap between a social situation and human drama" (Gassner 339). The social situation is the allure of the American Dream and the human drama is Willy's inability to achieve it. The drama is tragic but what makes it more tragic is how the father passes down the doomed dreaming legacy to his sons.

Robert Spiller observes that Willy Loman is Miller's "most beautifully conceived character" (Spiller 1450), who dies at the end of the play, "still believing in the American success myth that killed him and infected his sons" (1450). The man is to be admired because of his humanity but reviled because of his irresponsibility. Willy once tells Biff that one summer, he will take him and his brother on the road with him and together they will look at all of the towns across America.

He claims that the country is "full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England.. I have friends." (Miller 1044). This is an outright lie and while we know that part of Willy's motivation is impressing his son, we must also realize that another reason why Willy tells such lies is because he wants to believe these things about himself.

In addition, he tells Happy that one of the most important things in life is being well liked and he goes on to say that he is well liked because he never has to wait for a buyer. His tall tales also include grandiose feats in the selling world, such as knocking them "cold in Providence" (1045) and slaughtering them in "Boston" (1045).

It seems that Willy cannot help himself and while his lies may not appear to be doing any damage, they are and the best example of this can be seen in Biff's life, who grew up believing the lies that his father told him. He thought that things would come easily for him and, as a result, he never applied himself to anything seriously. His life was going down a path of disappointment and Willy was culpable.

The saddest aspect of this circumstance is how Willy refused to accept his responsibility in the matter becoming angry when Bernard suggested that Willy might be at least partially responsible for Biff's attitude. Willy is a man plagued with denial. He becomes a modern-day tragic hero because he cannot accept certain truths about his life and allows himself and his family to suffer because of it. We can relate to Willy perhaps all too well, which is Miller's goal in Death of.