Three thrilling and riveting themes from Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, has many thrilling and riveting themes. However, the only themes thrilling enough to be mentioned in this blog are Individual vs. society, Individual vs. self and The American Dream. These themes are very thrilling indeed. Willy Loman, the riveting main character of Death of a Salesman, is the center of many of these themes. In the theme Individual vs. society, Willy is the Individual. Nothing seems to be going right for poor Willy Loman. Perhaps he is not that riveting after all. His failing life on the other hand is very riveting… and thrilling. Willy is always setting high standards for himself, standards of which he cannot reach. He tells his sons and wife about all the money he is raking in. In reality he is not raking in anything, not… even… leaves. He travels so far for nothing. Willy just cannot figure anything out. Individual vs. Society works so well for this play because it shows how Willy works so hard to meet societies standards. Despite all his efforts nothing is accomplished, he… can’t… even… grow… a carrot. Individual vs. Society ties in being equally thrilling and riveting as Individual vs. self.

News Flash: The theme of Individual vs. self, in Death of a Salesman, is so thrilling and riveting that it has already hospitalized 198,000,000 people worldwide. In all seriousness the theme of individual vs. self is an important aspect to Death of a Salesman. It shows how Willy is losing himself. Instead of living in the moment he lives in the past. This is a problem. Willy is putting himself into danger. For example: while Willy is driving he is having a flashback… he almost kills someone. This… is… not… safe! To top it all off he is also trying to kill himself. Don’t let this be discouraging. Willy is a strong dude. He works his butt off for his family and at the same time deals with being a failure. That is tough! The first step to recovery is admitting that there is a problem, but sadly he does not recover… This is what makes this theme so thrilling! Willy will always have an everlasting battle with himself but will never admit anything to anyone. All of his failure is due to his quest to capture the American Dream.

Excluding the “the” the American Dream is five syllables long. This in no way relates to this blog at all. So continuing on with relevancy the American Dream is yet another huge factor in Death of a Salesman. Once again this theme is relevant to Willy. What a surprise. Anyways, Willy Loman is just an average American chasing his dream. The AMERICAN DREAM! However, Willy does not even know what he is looking for. His brother Ben did not help him either. Ben is constantly filling Willy’s head with nonsense about walking into jungles and being rich. Of course that is not the main idea but the part about being rich is. Willy simply wants to become rich in a snap. For about 99% of the population this does not happen.* This is Willy’s downfall. He keeps chasing something that he cannot reach and this makes him a failure. Also Willy teaches this to his sons and then they become failures. This makes Willy a failure as a father as well. Basically Willy’s life boils down to one huge, massive failure. This is really too bad for Willy because he has a great taste in cheese, as shown in act 1. Willy will be an everlasting symbol as a failed attempt to capture the American Dream.

*Fact courtesy of Kevin Fitzgerald himself

P.S I <3 Mr. Bresnick

Death of a Salesman

Willy Loman, from Death Of A Salesman, is a very unsettled character. He’s unsettled because his life is not that great. He works up to twelve hours a day and is only making seventy dollars a week. He does not think too highly of himself and others do not think highly of him. He is getting by in life but is not happy. However, he tells his sons how well respected he is. Willy tells is sons that buyers love him and always ask for him right away. Willy talks so highly of himself to his kids that he almost believes everything he says is true. In reality it is not. Despite that he tells Biff and Happy that they need be masculine in order to make it in life. Willy buys them a punching bag to get them big. Willy basically applauds Biff for stealing the football from his school and praises him for girls falling for him. This is not what Willy should be teaching his sons. He should be telling them to chase their dreams. Instead Willy is telling them to chase his own dreams. He wants his sons to have the dreams that he never had and for this Willy is failing at being a father.

Willy has a lot of inconsistencies. He is always contradicting himself. The truth behind the matter is that Willy is going crazy. It is very sad but nothing can be done about it. Linda, Willy’s wife, acts as if nothing is even happening. She just aims to please her husband. If Willy ever says anything strange Linda just says otherwise. In a way she is fueling Willy’s craziness. She makes his talking to himself seem almost normal. Over and over again she tells Biff to not go near him and just let him be. Linda is harming the man she loves the most. Instead of helping him see reality she lets him relive his past life. This is unsafe and is damaging to his health. Willy cannot continue to live in this false reality and Linda has to sow him that. With her help things could start to get better.