Building Castles in the Air: An Attempt at Living in Them

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is a fast paced drama. In this play, he manages to bring out the elements of the American Dream. Miller illustrates the materialism shrouding the American dream. The effects of the American Dream may not be as profound in the present as they were in the time after the World War II. Today, the United States of America has the option of criticism and an in-depth self-analysis that saves people from the post-war tensions and immense contradictions. At the time of the setting of the play, there was a lot of denial, and this saw the rise of the ilk of artists and writers who fought for self-realization and created an awareness of the importance of “self.” Miller’s play, The Death of a Salesman, set in the post-war period, 1949, exemplifies the necessity to see the American as a myth because it does not have the capacity to encompass the innate human weakness such as doubt and insecurities and also economic changes. He illustrates this through his character Willy Loman who held the American dream as his unshakable tenet and his faith in it resulted in his tragic death. …show more content…
Miller shows how this dug roots in Biff in an instance after Bernard, Charley’s son comes visiting then leaves, Willy, without any conscious asks if Bernard is “liked”, and the two boys’ reply is “liked”, however, not “well liked”. One moment he is jealous of Charley and the next he blows his own trumpet as being better accepted by people than Charley. This inconsistency stems from a Willy’s inability to stay focused, and he instead lives a life full of excuses for failure. Also, according to Flax “Rationality without belief in the objectivity of disciplinary jeopardizes social order” (138). Willy’s knowledge was placed on the power of dreams, and this made all he did and believed in to become pathetically