Death of a Salesman: Family, Identity, and the American Dream

Introduction: Family, Failure, and the American Dream

The family structure is regarded as the central unit of the American lifestyle. The value system, emotional interactions, and dynamics that develop between various family members are all expected to conform to certain social expectations. The American Dream, as it were, is said to be represented by the achievement of liberty, security, and happiness for a man and his family. Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman revolves around a family unit damaged by disillusionment. In Willy Loman, the audience is given a character who, at 60 years of age, is worn down by overwork, under-appreciation, and emotional inaccessibility to his family. The senility and exhaustion this character displays are indicative of a failing psychological condition. In his examination of this emotional ailment as it impacts Willy, Miller provides a psychoanalytical investigation — not just of a man, but of a country and culture deserving of critique. This renders the work a timeless piece of literature that continually echoes prevalent issues of identity and success within both intrinsic and cultural perspectives.

By revolving around the exploits of a man just returning from his last business trip, the story takes an end-game perspective on the career and family life of an individual who has found very little satisfaction in either. Flanked by estranged sons who have their own complex psychological obstacles to overcome, Willy occupies an interesting representative position for the American observer. There is no question as to the dedication this man has shown to his career, traveling as a merchant for decades in order to feed his family. Within the context of this responsibility, we see a sense of pride that can be regarded as the fuel pushing an otherwise empty shell of a man. No longer truly capable of competing as a salesman, the aging Loman is shrouded by illusions he himself constructs in order to maintain the tenacity to keep working. When his wife suggests that he consider requesting a sales route closer to home in New York, he even resorts to remarking upon his indispensability at his current post, explaining, "I'm the New England man. I'm vital in New England" (14).

Willy Loman's Illusions and Psychological Decline

Foisting this sense of purpose upon his family, Loman steadfastly adheres to the same illusions that have prodded him through a career spent away from home. His essentially thankless occupation — increasingly so as he aged beyond effectiveness — was made possible only through the subversion of a reality with a decidedly bleak taint. The illusions Willy has constructed in order to persist and to find intrinsic reward in the way he has spent so much of his life ultimately become the seedlings for his descent into senility. His frequent withdrawal from present reality, as in scenes where he becomes disoriented and decontextualized when speaking with his sons, suggests a man whose commitment to a fabricated circumstance eventually contributed to his fleeting grip on the real.

The American Dream as False Promise

It is at the play's inception that Willy acknowledges, even if somewhat unconsciously, that he is at the end of a road that never led to its expected destination. Returning from an aborted trip, Willy tells his wife, "I'm tired to death. . . I couldn't make it, Linda. I just couldn't make it" (13). As with much of what Willy has to say, this is a sentiment layered with meanings below the surface. We see a man defeated. Though most immediately he has been vanquished by the overwhelming demands of his recent trip, more poignantly he seems bowled over by a sense of his own broader failure.

This is perhaps the most important underlying notion of Miller's play. The American Dream, which can perhaps be seen as the principle at the heart of the work, is also the ambition that pushes Loman through his life of artifice and vain pursuit. In a flashback, Willy is shown to be a man of aspiration who wishes to transform his diligence and respect for authority into a life of comfort and reputation. Even wishing eventually to start his own business, Willy Loman is a startling figure insofar as his decline does not occur without a background of optimism and forward momentum. This is the crux of Miller's point, however — that there is an illusory nature to the expectations of the American Dream. Working for somebody else's ideals and spending his whole life lining another man's pockets, Willy has been exploited by the false promises of this dream.

Conclusion: Empathy, Exoneration, and Cultural Critique

In the two sons, there is a reproachfulness for Willy. With his suicide, however, the empathy and emotion displayed by both — uncharacteristic given the distance between many of the figures throughout the play — suggests that the audience is expected to forgive Loman for his trespasses of ineffectualness and social conformity. Miller exonerates the salesman by recognizing that his psychological condition is as much a product of his environment as of his character, ultimately offering a work that resonates with key themes that continue to afflict modern life.