Literature Review
These following books, research works and song are the primary and secondary sources of the concept of American Dream and other related information analyzed this paper.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby questions the American obsession with wealth, pointing out many of the flaws inherent in an idea of “success” built around wealth. The wave of wealth and prosperity in the American 1920s led to a widespread criticism of materialism and consumption. The American Dream: A History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, by Jim Cullen tells about his version in American Dreams and supports the structure of this report by providing necessary information. “American Dream” by Casting Crowns is the lyric that pays particular attention to how the American Dream becomes a nightmare of Americans.
Kenny Rowland commented that “Miller had a relationship with the idea of the American Dreams. For the example, in Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman as the main character had problems and it was self-inflicted, it is because he wants to live in American Dream. If he had changed his standards or just have been content with his life, his problems would have been limited in amount and proportion. Willy’s problem usually caused of his chase towards the American Dream”. “The crime at its center,” notes Bigsby, “raises in stark form the clash between self-interest and human solidarity” (78). He goes on to explain that the play is “about a man who places survival above responsibility to a group, pragmatism above the ideal, loyalty to family above responsibility to society and The Death of Salesman reflects the American Dream.
Charles R. Hearn in The American Dream in the Great Depression depicts that The Great Depression brought about chaos in the American society of the thirties and provoked changes in people‘s values and beliefs, in their way of life and attitude to the American dream, to their ethical and moral implications of the American dream of success apparently uniting all Americans. Depiction of American Dream in All My Sons by Nabila Tanvir has been very helpful to develop my writing which covers the reality of American life and their vain dream of success.
The above mentioned philosophy and reviews help to identify and evaluate how far Death of a Salesman and All My Sons imitate the American Dream and clarify that the American Dream might be dying.
Methodology
This study intends to learn and analyze the implications and representation of the concept of the great American Dream in the literature of America. The concept of American Dream draws from the myth of the regaining of Paradise in the here and now in the soil of Promised Land ‘New England’ or the ‘New Eden’. The paper looks into the vitality of the dream as well as the inevitable cynicism that is indivisible to it and thereby attempts to interpret the character of protagonists in Death of a Salesman and All My Sons. This study takes into account certain classic texts that have over the years come to be the mouthpiece of its times and that of America. The texts chosen are Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Charles R. Hearn’s The American Dream in the Great Depression and other texts that attempt to foreground the study of the representation of the American Dream.
As these plays are social plays, New Historicism and Modern criticism approach are easily applied to character development and the recurrent themes of the plays.
Modern criticism may discuss the situation properly to consider post-war era, capitalism and bourgeious whises which reflect in American Dream; what Willy Loman seeks but never reaches, that contrasts with low life and verifies his tragic downfall and imitation of life’s reality. There is no boundary to limit different approaches, as long as they prove helpful to clerify the downfall, they are applicable.
Results
This paper explores that Willy Loman and Joe Keller are unable to read the ethics of American Dream. Misinterpretation of the concept of American Dream make them suicidial and deserted their families. Material Goods, money and individual gains seem life to them. Post-war depression and emerging capitalism create obsession in the private life. Moral degradation, individual greed and devaluation of protestant ethics cause unhappiness and uncertainity in life. To grab money and power people usually forget their familial and social responsibilities and become illusionist to face the reality of life. In capitalistic American society, only they can survive those who have material goods. Survival for the fittest is the common phrase of capitalists. The impact of capitalisim makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. It is very questionable whether the capitalists are happy or not achiving the pursuit of American Dream. Yet, the illusion of the American Dream is that attaining material prosperity defines success. Failing to accept the significance of hard work in achieving the American Dream is another characteristic of the illusion. Actually they victimized themselves and their ambition ends in vain. They greets nothing but death in the day of recknoning.
Discussion
Miller stresses out deception, obssesion, prejudices and illusion, to show the reality that all characters experience in the wake of the American Dream. He has stirred up some basic issues in his plays: the individualistic social responsibility, private responsibility and distinction between personal and public affairs. The important elements of American Dream here are: separated houses; the dream of home possession, dream of the first-class life and the dream of equal opportunity. In The Death of Salesman and All My Sons Miller depicts the ideals of the American Dream. He also illustrates what can take place when the dream is bogus or distorted. The American Dream is a serious problem for Willy Loman and his family because of his prevent of success, wealth and status. He believes in the prejudices that success is based on the popularity, personality and personal attractiveness. Joe Keller being a successful dreamer of American Dream he failed to keep a smooth harmony among his family members. To ensure the dream of success he forgot the social and national responsibility. These are the deceptions that Willy and Joe are preoccupied with. Miller tries to portray the concept of the American Dream that Americans crave for money, possessions, pursuit of happiness, etc but how many can say that they are really happy once they achieve this goal. There is no standardization of being well-off. Many of us consider money as the only way of rating how prosperous one is, but money the only way to achieve the American Dream is a big question.
In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's determination to live up to his American Dream and to seek material happiness only takes his life. Willy Loman embodies the primary target of this falsity of the American Dream. Like most middle-class working men, he struggles to provide financial security for his family and 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 defeated spirit. Miller chose the job of salesman carefully for his American Dreamer. A salesman must sell his personality as much as his product. Willy Loman falsely believes he needs nothing more than to be well liked to make it big. His definition does not differ greatly from mine although while trying to pursue this dream, Willy Loman's mind slowly drifted further and further away from reality. The American Dream is the idea that any man or woman can make his or her own fortune, despite his or her past. Willy Loman is trying to achieve success through this thought, believing that being "well liked" and working hard will be enough to ensure his success. Willy was wrong. The Marxist approach definitely suits Death of a Salesman because it is about social and economic ideas and understanding the world and about capitalism taking advantage of the working class. Primarily, Willy Loman is a middle class business man whose dream is for him and his son to become successful and rich. At the end of the play, he commits suicide because he cannot change his life. Moreover, Biff fails the whole time and Willy is disappointed with him because he does not try to succeed as his father did. As a result, Willy believes that he is responsible for his son’s failure. Willy does not realize that his son does not have the same dreams as he does: “He had the wrong dreams, all, all wrong” (Miller 138). As a result, Willy Loman is controlled by superstructure; he does not try to free himself and regain his power. In other words, Willy has two choices: Either succeeding or failing. He was in the dark side of the American Dream. Charley states “He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. A salesman is got to dream, boy.” (Miller 104)
Willy Loman has done everything that the myth of the American Dream outlines as the key path to success. He raised a family and journeyed forth into the business world full of hope and ambition. Nevertheless, Willy Loman has failed to receive the fruits that the American Dream promises. His primary problem is that he continues to believe in the myth rather than restructuring his conception of his life and his identity to meet more realistic standards. The values that the myth espouses are not designed to assuage human insecurities and doubts; rather, the myth unrealistically overlooks the subsistence of such flaws. Willy Loman bought the sales pitch that America uses to market itself, and the value of his faith is fatal death.
Willy Loman's obsession with the dream directly causes his failure in life, which, in turn, leads to his eventual suicide. The pursuit of the dream also destroys the lives of Willy Loman's family as well as he acted like a coward, taking his own life just to get some insurence money to his family.
All My Sons is an outstanding study of the human condition, responsibility and the consequences of action. In the aftermath of World War II, two families struggle to come to terms with the cruel reality of what they have lost and achieved as an effect of the conflict. The play examines mistakes made, tragedies that may have been avoided and a huge number of lies, told to cover up and lessen the pain. As the play unfolds, so does the web of falsehood and deception. Despite its success, All My Sons came under scrutiny and Miller was charged of being anti- American. During the war Joe Keller and his partner turned out airplane parts for the U.S. Army, but one day, being orderd by Joe his partner shipped out cracked cylinder heads, in the belief that the fault would be discovered in time to prevent their use. But they were used in planes, resulting in the deaths of twenty-one pilots. It is a serious war crime and subversive to the nation. After a trial, the partner was sent into jail but Joe is exonerated. Being proud of his practicality, Joe Keller believes that it doesn’t get any better than achieving his version of the American dream – earning good money and spending it on material things: steaks, new houses with long driveways, dining and dancing.
Arthur Miller scrutinizes the American Dream and very much condemns wartime profiteering, using the themes of the play to explore these social questions and the ethics surrounding such issues. Chris’s anger at his father for violating this principle of responsibility, and his loathing of himself for being complicit in the violation, brings out more of the ideas Miller is trying to address:
This is the land of the great big dogs, you don’t love a man here, you eat him! This is a zoo, a zoo. (Miller 86)
Joe Keller, saving his own life, ultimately lost it. Chris is burdened by a sense of shame stemming from his family situation and his experience in the war. He struggles with the ideals of a brotherhood of all humanity when pitted against the strong desire for family, stability, and providing the best the material world has to offer for one’s own. He feels guilty about accepting the nearly free ride from his father when contrasted with those who gave their lives for him, for each other, and for the good of the country in the war. He wants to be held to a higher standard, and he holds others, like his father, to that higher standard. When faced with the actual choice of doing the right thing by the community and at the same time severely transgressing family loyalty, however, he admits his own cowardice. Instead of pursuing social justice, he retreats and tells everybody he is going away. All My Sons seeks to strike a balance between the idea of providing for oneself, and one’s responsibility in the larger societal context. As Chris struggled to understand his father’s actions, Joe Keller still felt he had done no wrong. He believes in the prosperity of family above anything else.
Nothing’s bigger than that. And you’re going to tell him, you understand? I'm his father and he's my son. If there’s something bigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head!” (Miller 81)
The conflict in the play All My Sons is embodied by two different sets of values. The older generation represented by Joe Keller and Kate strongly believed in family values and Pursue of the American dream at any cost. In contradiction, Joe Keller and Anne express the younger generation’s ethics and ideals clearly shown in the thoughts of idealism that money is not the most important thing in life. Chris Keller expected his father to be better than most men, and is shamed when he learns of what his father has done. Chris says to his father,
What the hell do you mean, you did it for me? Don't you have a country? What the hell are you? You're not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what are you? (Miller 76)
The Americans are suffering from such tragic and panic situations which come on their way in the pursuit of the financial progress and prosperity. The people have become so materialistic and morally vacant that they don’t have any scruples in their hearts while committing crimes with the self-deception and denial approaches how they think that they are doing rightfully rather than confessing their crimes. Accorrding to Robert Sylvester,
Since All My Sons was an attack on war profiteers and Death of a Salesman is in a sense a criticism of the American way of life, Miller has been accused of communistic tendencies. He expects to be similarly accused following production of other plays he is planning, for they are variations on the same theme – man’s need to examine himself and his relationship to society. (Sylvester 17)
These plays are tragedies about the diferences between a New York family’s dreams and the reality of their lives. Their misguided notion has ruined their lives and families, but they never acknowledge. The last time they realize the truth, they fail and commit suicide. Like Joe Keller finally realizes that there is more in life than family and money. He realizes that his actions killed his son and many other people’s sons. Therefore Joe Keller sees that his responsibility to his country and society makes all the boys that died all his sons.
Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. (Miller 89)
Through Willy Loman and Joe, Arthur Miller attempts to create a typical American family of the time, and, in doing so, the reader can relate to the crises that the family is faced with and realize that everyone has problems.
Conclusion
Human quality, morality, peace of mind, familial bond and social solidarity are stained and ruined in order to achiceving American Dream. It puzzles human life and enslave people to it derailing humanism. Miller appears to be arguing strongly in favour of a certain positive relationship between the individual and society, against injustice, exploitation, competition, prejudices and vested private interest. He reveals human nature in a particular social context and aims at bringing out the wider, human significance of individual destiny — a significance which is objective and universal. Happiness and success in life are relative matter. American Dream became nothing more than a nightmare in quest to fulfill the real dream of success. Salvation of human soul, communal peace and faternity are impossible without sacreficing the rat-race mania of grabsing dream of success in the reality of life. The reality of the American Dream is that people are capable of succeeding. However, success necessitates one to work hard and be committed to both his or her professional life and family life.
Recommendations
It is now clear that the belief of American Dream results in the tragedy of life. The fruit of American Dream is venomous that kills the life of Willy Loman and Joe Keller. They fail to understand the ideals keeping pace with the race of life in reality. Capitalism ensures only the material gains thwarting spirituality, Where happiness and success are abstract matter. After doing a close study regarding the subject matter I want to put some recommendations here. They Are:
The truth of American Dream should be well-defined and interpretated properly sothat people can understand it easily and they can translate it into action in life.
Dream of success should be based on protestant ethics — hard working, determination, persiverence, liberty, equality, faternity and persuit of happiness etc.
Ideological change should be taken place in the modern capitalistic society.
Materialism should not be the goal of one’s life. No materials like money, ornament, luxrious apartment, car etc can ensure peace of mind.
Individual greed is regarded as a great sin which begets death in life.
Humanism along with marxism and socialism should be given more priority to capitalism.
No –ism is greater than humanism and so it should be more idealistic to the betterment of humanity.
Opium of capitalism should not be subversive to the democratic economy and social peace.
Suicide should not be the solution of failed life rather it creates so many problems.
To persue American Dream needs to free the society of all kind of prejudices and so give everybody living in the society the same chances and possibilities.
Finally, it is substantially established that a man can’t enjoy life happily with just monetary achievement, there should be some communal order which controls any kind of chaotic condition of mind of individuals within the society to lead a peaceful and honest life.
Works cited
Bigsby, Christopher. “Introduction.” All My Sons. Arthur Miller. New York: Penguin, 2000.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner’s, 1953.
Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. New York: Penguin, 2000.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking, 1965.
"Pursuit of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman." 123HelpMe.com. 16 Jun 2012
<http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=162160>.
Sylvester, Robert. “Brooklyn Boy Makes Good.” Conversations with Arthur Miller. Matthew
C. Roudané, ed. Jackson: UP of Mississippi. 1987.
"The American Dream in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." 123HelpMe.com.16 June
2012 <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=14633>.
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