“If the proper study of mankind is man, man’s inescapable problem is himself-what he would like to be, what he is, what he is not, and yet what he must live and die with.” –John Mason Brown (Brown 207)

The Two Sides of America and Willy Loman
America is a madman. America became a man who fell off his rocker and is free to roam the earth to disturb the minds of those who inhabit it. The American dream is often considered a fantasy by those who criticize it. Capitalism sometimes may not be all that it is cracked up to be when you get down in the dirt and start building. Even when you begin to believe you are moving forward you can be eternally unsure of the direction you are moving. At this point, the race to the top can drive you crazy. In Arthur Miller’s play A Death of a Salesman, the central character Willy Loman embodies the American dream and he is certainly mad. In the story, Willy works as a growing salesman who is getting older and tiring from travelling for work for small returns. His hard work goes unrewarded as each paycheck goes right into the house which always needs to be serviced and mended. This house as it gets to be paid off after 25 years finally becomes owned by the family who ironically may soon not live in the house together. Willy’s family consists of his humble and caring wife, Linda, and his two handsome and able-bodied sons Happy and Biff. The story centers around the external conflict of Willy pushing Biff to be what he wants him to be and Biff’s internal conflict of what it is he would like to do with his life. Death of a Salesman is considered by many to be a tragedy as the play’s events lead to the ultimate suicide of its central character. The play does not lend itself to be a tragedy in a normal sense but a tragedy for all who have succumbed to or at one time believed in the American dream. William Hawkins claims in his review of