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Example research essay topic: Death Of A Salesman Willy Loan - 1,373 words

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The Delusion of Willy Loan Death of a Salesman tells the story of a man confronting failure in the success-driven society of America and shows the tragic trajectory, which eventually leads to his suicide. Willy Loan is a symbolic icon of the failing America; he represents those that have striven for success but, in struggling to do so, have instead achieved failure in its most bitter form. Arthur Millers tragic drama is a probing portrait of the typical American psyche portraying an extreme craving for success and superior status in a world otherwise fruitless. To some extent, therefore, Death of Salesman evokes the decline of a man into lunacy and the subsequent effect this has on those around him, particularly his family. Willy Loan is a simple salesman who constantly aspires to become great. Nevertheless, Willy has a waning career as a salesman and is an aging man who considers himself to be a failure but is incapable of consciously admitting it.

As a result, the drama of the play lies not so much in its events, but in Willys deluded perception and recollection of them. Miller uses many characters to contrast the difference between success and failure in the American system. Willy Loan is a deluded salesman whose vivid imagination is far greater than his sales ability. Linda, Willys wife, honorably stands by her husband even in the absence of fundamental realism. To some extent she acknowledges Willys aspirations but, naively, she also accepts them. Consequently, Linda is not part of the solution but rather part of the problem with this dysfunctional family and their inability to face reality.

In restraining Willy from his quest for wealth in the Alaska, the New Continent, ironically the only realm where the dream can be fulfilled, Linda destroys any hope the family has of achieving greatness. Even so, Linda symbolically embodies the plays ultimate value: love. In her innocent love of Willy, Linda accepts her husbands falsehood, his dream, but, in her admiration of his dream, she is lethal. Linda encourages Willy and, in doing so, allows her sons, Biff and Happy, to follow their fathers fallacious direction in life. Willys close friend Charlie on the other hand, despite his seemingly ordinary lifestyle, enjoys far better success compared to the Loman's. Charlie differs to his friend considerably: he is financially secure whereas Willy can barely afford to pay the next gas bill.

Similarly, Charlie never indoctrinated his son, Bernard, with the same enthusiasm as Willy. Subsequently, Charlie stands for different beliefs to Willy and, ironically, ends up far more successful. He is a voice of reason for his friend but is only useful if Willy follows his advice. Instead, Willys proud and stubborn nature ensures that he will never accept Charlies many generous job proposals. The Dream, as Willy perceives it, is still within grasp of the Loman's thus an ordinary job would not fulfil the true expectations Willy holds of either himself or Biff. Ironically, these job proposals are the one gate left open to Willy and his hopes of becoming great.

According to Biff, his friend, the anemic Bernard, is not well liked. However not well liked he may be, Bernard, through constant persistence, has grown up to be an eminent lawyer. He appears to be proof enough of the systems effectiveness and affirms the proposition that success is achieved through persistent application of ones talents. Whilst everyone around Willy experiences success and wealth, the Loman's themselves struggle financially. The play romanticists the pioneering dream but never makes it genuinely available to Willy and his family. Willy reveres success.

He wants to be successful, to be great, but his dream is never fulfilled. Indeed, he feels the only way he can actually fulfil his dream is to commit suicide so that his family may subsequently live off his life insurance. It seems Willys dead brother, Ben, is the only member of the Loan family who has ever achieved something great when he proclaims, -when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich. Ben is idealized by Willy since he fulfilled the genuine American Dream: to start out with nothing and eventually become rich through effort and hard work. Ironically, this wealth is achieved outside America suggesting that there is little left available for the ordinary individual within the countrys own boundaries.

Instead, one must look elsewhere for true greatness, underlining the fact that, for the majority, the much sought after American Dream is a myth. The play is ambiguous in its attitude toward the business-success dream, but certainly does not rebuke it openly. Nevertheless, when Charlie declares, Nobody date blame this man, Miller hints at the responsibility of the state influenced Everyone should have a dream campaign behind Willys death, suggesting that the salesman was driven too far, pressurizing himself into suicide. Miller also seems to judge America in hinting that there is far greater success to be found outside of its land. Indeed, it seems there is a lot of room for failure (and ruin) as well as greatness in America.

Hence, Willy is a foolish and ineffectual man for whom we feel pity. Willy detaches himself from reality, living in a life of idealism and dreams that never materialise. One example of Willys deluded perception of reality lies in his constant disgruntlement with the American car industry. In truth, Willy has always scorned his cars. Even in the 1930 s when, according to Willy, the Chevy was at its prime, the Chevy is still insulted by its owner!

These, and other such instances in the play, evoke a prime flaw in Willys character: he is never, fully content with what he possesses at present. Instead, he lives in a deluded world where imagination and past experiences collude and, frequently, appear as far more desirable eras. As a result, Willy continually finds aspects of his life remarkable but never actually realises that as a salesman and a father, he is a failure. This lack of understanding eventually leads to his tragic death; a death he could not escape for he brought it on himself. In killing himself, Willy finally becomes a man of purpose and reason. He had been trying to make a gift that would crown all those striving years; in this instant, all those lies he told, all those dreams and vivid exaggerations would now be given form and point.

In American Society the only option open to Willy as such was to be a salesman. Tragically, he eventually feels he must, symbolically, trade his own life for his family's wellbeing whereby they will hopefully experience a life of greatness without, ironically, himself present. Death of a Salesman may also be interpreted as an allegorical representation of America. Willys garden can be perceived as a microcosm of American society as tower blocks continued to be raised around him. This suggests that, for the ordinary person, the literally Lo-man in comparison to the skyscrapers, life has become overshadowed at the cost of capitalism. The audience is left with the image of the garden that will never grow; the ordinary person has been left behind and even rejected by wealthy capitalists.

With everyone succeeding except Willy, Miller also suggests that there is far more success outside America. Indeed, there are nothing but fruitless hopes and shattered dreams to be found within the nation. And, in one last vain effort, Willy attempts to grow something for his family in his buying of seeds to plant in the garden. Nevertheless, even Willy has come to realise that his life is a failure when he declares, Oh, Id better hurry-Nothings planted. I dont have a thing in the ground. Nevertheless, it seems that Millers intention in writing about the death of a salesman, a seemingly mundane occurrence in twentieth-century society, was to express the playwrights own vision of American Society and the nature of individuality.

Death of a Salesman may be interpreted as being solely a play about the failing America and the jagged edges of a shattered dream but it does, nevertheless, engage Millers belief that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy as kings are. Essays


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Research essay sample on Death Of A Salesman Willy Loan

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