ENGLISH ELECTIVE PROJECT

Name : Che Guevara S.A

Class : XII
UID : 6933595/026
Batch : 2020 – 2021
School : Good Earth School

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How is Willy Loman a Product of Capitalism and the American Dream in
the play - “The Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller?

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my principal Ms. Meena for giving me the opportunity to work on this
topic.

I would also like to convey my thanks to my Elective English teacher, Ms. Yojna Chanana
for her immense help and insightful guidance in the completion of my project. It is only due
to her efforts that my project could be completed successfully.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their valuable insights and guidance, without
which the project would not have come to fruition.

This report is submitted as a part of the practical examination included in the curriculum of
ISC to be held in the year 2020-2021.

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How is Willy Loman a Product of Capitalistic America and the American Dream
in The Death of a Salesman?

Introduction:

‘The Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller is a wonderful play which premiered in 1949
and showcased the life of Willy Loman, a salesman reaching the twilight years of his life, in
the backdrop of Capitalistic America. When I first read this play when I was in 8th grade, I
loved the way Arthur Miller wove an intricate and gripping narrative, however I did not
quite comprehend the deep implications and nuanced narrative that it possesses. I chose this
topic in order to evaluate Willy Loman, not as a mere character in the play, but rather, the
role of Capitalistic America and the American Dream in his character and the major role it
played in the development of his perspectives, internal turbulence and conflict and finally, in
his ultimate eclipse.

Set in the 1940s, ‘The Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller showcases the life of 63-year
old salesman Willy Loman. The narrative showcases Willy’s discontent and disillusionment
after spending the better half of his life working in a dead-end job as a salesman. In the play
we can see that Willy is constantly in a turbulent state of mind, caught in a constant state of
reminiscing on his past. His memories, which are depicted in the play in interloping
sequences, consist of his dreams and confrontations that have had a profound impact on him
and have led him to extreme self-blame and loathing. He has alienated himself from his
family and friends and believes in a delusional perspective that holds his sanity together.

The second act of the play showcase his final day wherein his demons finally pushed him
over the brink and his failures and guilt finally catch up to him causing the fabric of his
sanity to finally unravel, causing him to commit suicide by jumping in front of a moving car.
The play cannot be evaluated superficially as a tragedy, rather upon deeper review, one can
understand that this is the depiction of the role of the farce that is the American dream and
the role of Capitalism in the eclipse of a living individual, dying in obscurity, a mere shell of
the man who he once was.

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Analysis of Willy Loman:

Willy Loman is the protagonist of the play. He is a 63-year old salesman who has worked for
the same company for 34 years and his loyalty was not recognized nor rewarded in his
twilight years as he was now struggling to get by and faced with another pay cut. His sons
have also not succeeded in attaining the success and recognition that has eluded him all his
life and one is a womanizer stuck in mediocrity, and the other a drifter with no sense of
purpose. His life is in shambles, in a constant struggle to make ends meet, having to depend
upon the generosity of his neighbor.

Throughout the play we learn of the complex individual that was Willy Loman. He is
constantly in pursuit of the American Dream, an illusion that is the driving principle in
American society. He is extremely discontent and disillusioned with the way his life turned
out, the success he had achieved with regards to his career and his societal status, and the
way his sons have turned out. He feels as though everyone around him is moving up in life,
tasting success and material wealth wherein he is stuck at rock bottom regardless of what he
tries. This delusional thirst for success as a result of his complete and utter belief in the
American Dream, haunts him throughout the play, causing internal turbulence that ultimately
overwhelms him.

Superficially viewed, he might seem like just another individual with self-destructive traits,
caught in the dangerous jaws of delusion, but his obsessive patterns of thinking indicate that
he was facing a deeper internal struggle. This brings about the question whether he was
indeed suffering from depression?
Was Willy Loman a mentally ill individual who was sinking in the depths of depression?
Can his illness be attributed to his ultimate death? Can his entire identity be devolved to the
fact that he was ill, hence attributing his struggles as an effect of his illness? The answer is
no.

Willy Loman is an active metaphor for the sociopolitical ramifications of American

Capitalism. It showcases how capitalistic society can drive individuals to the point of mental
instability, to the point of extreme and utter disillusionment that ultimately leaves the person
a mere husk.

However, it is important to note that Arthur Miller, in an interview with the NY Times stated
that “Willy Loman is not a depressive. He is weighed down by life. There are social reasons
for why he is where he is.” The play represents the struggle of the common man against the
disguised oppression of capitalism. He did not want to take the relatability of Willy away
from the people by labelling him as a depressive individual.

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However, arriving at a compromise, we can agree that Willy Loman was both a man
suffering from depression and also a victim of capitalism. Both ideas sustain the other as the
depression that Willy suffers from was a consequence of the system that created an
environment that fosters it and the system sustains itself by exploiting the individuals for
their labor, ultimately commodifying them. An examination of the role of the American
Dream will cement the psycho-social understanding of Willy Loman and his actions and
struggles as products and consequences of the oppressive capitalist society.

The American Dream and Capitalist America:

The renowned psychologist Adolf Meyer put forth the idea that a man’s condition was
affected by his social background. During Willy Loman’s lifetime, that is the 1940s,
America was caught in the grips of mass production and rampant capitalism. This era in
American history, made individuals lust after unrealistic dreams of success and material
prosperity. This desire to attain success and wealth was referred to as the American Dream.

The American Dream was coined by James Truslow Adams at a time when America was
going through one of the darkest periods in its history, the Great Depression. In his book,
The Epic of America, Adams described the American Dream as “that dream of a land in
which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each
according to ability or achievement.” It was linked with prosperity and the impetus to
achieve success. They believed that achieving economic prosperity through hard work would
allow them to realize the American Dream. It essentially became the fundamental component
of the identity of the American middle class.

The connection between the American Dream and Capitalism was important in order to
sustain the system. In order to drive capitalism, the American Dream served as a tool to fool
the average American into thinking that individual success was possible if they work hard
enough.

The pressure to achieve the realization of this dream places an immense amount of
psychological burden on the individual and their mental state. Self-blame and guilt were one
of its important effects. People were conditioned to believe that their state was only their
responsibility and they cannot blame any other external source. This misplaced sense of self-
accountability led to people blaming themselves for the failings of society and they attributed
the pressure of society to their own lack of hard work.

The society hailed the exceptional common man who had achieved miraculous success and
was a rare case, as the norm. This alienated the individual from others and they became
obsessed with their failure to realize the unrealistic levels of aspiration. The mental
instability and depressive state of Willy Loman can be attributed as the effect of the immense
psychological strain that is a consequence of the unrealistic levels of ambition and aspiration
set by the American Dream.

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Willy Loman as a victim of the American Dream:

The Death of a Salesman showcases the life of a man who was greeted with nothing but
failure at his attempts at achieving the American Dream that he was conditioned to believe
in. Willy Loman is the representative of the millions of Americans who fail to achieve the
success that they were led to believe was attainable. Willy effectively captured the
disillusionment and defeat that millions of Americans faced in their pursuit of the elusive
illusion that is the American Dream.

When evaluating Willy’s mental state, we can state that he is indeed suffering from
depression. His constant feeling of worthlessness, guilt and fixating on his past mistakes and
failures and his self-loathing and blame are all characteristic symptoms of depression.
He blames himself for not being a successful salesman, and for not having raised his sons the
right way. He mistakes the failings of society to be his personal failings and engages in
constant crucifixion of himself.

In capitalistic society, the individual loses his value as a human being and is commodified.
He himself becomes a product of capitalistic society and when a product is of no value to the
capitalists, he is cast away. The individual is alienated. The same happened to Willy when he
was cast out by his boss Howard, who decided that there is no room for him anymore in the
company. Willy offers no value to the company and despite his 30 years of loyal service, he
is discarded like any other broken good. Willy blames himself for his dismissal and
constantly wrestles with understanding why it turned out the way it did.

Willy’s unrealistic desire to possess everything, material wealth, the love of his sons, to be
the envy of those around him, is also one of the reasons for his discontent. He desires to be
recognized and liked and he constantly looks for external validation. Achieving all of the
things is an impossible feat and he was finally met with disillusionment and defeat. This is a
result of the unrealistic levels of ambition and aspiration cultivated by the American Dream
and the unrequited dreams of the people who fail to succeed.

An important thing to note was the immense competition that was the result of the American
Dream. Willy states in Act 1, that “The competition is maddening”. He struggles to find his
own success and constantly compares himself to those around him and feels frustrated as he
believed that he was a failure and those around him were moving up the ladder.

One important such comparison is when he talks about his brother Ben’s success and how
“The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes
out, the age of twenty-one and he was rich!”. Willy’s idolization of his brother as the
epitome of success makes him constantly compare himself with him. He measures his life’s
success in terms of monetary wealth, and feels that his life was an utter failure as he
compares his 30 years of unwavering loyalty and hard work to his brother’s success and feels
as though he amounted to nothing.

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Elia Kazan, the director of the original 1949 production of Death of a Salesman stated that
Ben was “the embodiment of Success, Authority, Daring, Manliness, Enterprise,
Fearlessness, Self-sufficiency,”. Ben was the pallbearer, the poster boy of the success
achieved by the American Dream. Willy struggles with his identity and place in society as he
does not fit into the archetypal construct of a successful man in society. He constantly tries to
emulate his brother and struggles to focus on his own personal successes and rather crucifies
himself for his failure in achieving the same level of financial success as his brother.

He believed that the exceptional man, the one in a million, the one who accomplishes
everything, to be the norm in society. This causes a lot of friction as he is dissatisfied with
his career and is alienated from those around him, including those who want to be his friend
despite being snubbed by him such as Charley, his neighbor. Willy is envious of Charley and
the success his son Bernard has attained, who he viewed with contempt when he was a child,
but now with nothing but respect and envy. In contrast, he is dissatisfied with the way his life
turned out and felt guilty that he had failed his family.

The way he brought up his children, Biff and Happy should also be evaluated in this context
as he personally feels responsible for their failure in life. He passed down his perspective
that to be successful, one needs to be well liked and that hard work is not going to bring the
riches and fame.

“I always felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing..”

This warped perspective was passed down to his children one of who turned out to live in
mediocrity, the other a drifter with no purpose in life. He feels disillusioned and defeated
when he is confronted with the reality of his choices in life.

A very important part of the play is the exchange between Willy and Bernard where he
finally opens up:

“Bernard: But sometimes, Willy, it’s better for a man to walk away.
Willy: Walk away?
Bernard: That’s right.
Willy: But if you can’t walk away?”

This exchange depicts Willy’s struggle to come to terms with his realization that all that he
has known in life, all that he has believed in, was a lie. He struggles to accept that his
unwavering belief in the American Dream, his unquenchable pursuit for his idealized version
of success was greeted with nothing but defeat. He fails to see his own personal successes in
his pessimistic outlook, and struggles to cope with it. He is overtaken by self-loathing and
blame for things that he is not responsible for, which deepens his depressive state and
eventually leads to his pitiful death.

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Conclusion:

Thus, we can see how the unrealistic ambitions and unrequited dreams which are a
consequence of the American Dream, cause the erosion of a human being to a mere shell of
his former self, doomed to die in a pitiful state, in alienation and obscurity. This play is a
scathing deposition of the farce that is the American Dream, and a critique of the dark side of
American Capitalism.

Willy Loman is just one among the many millions of Americans who fail to live up to
society’s unrealistic construct as to what constitutes success and live in constant turmoil for
the failings of society. Willy Loman is one of the products of a society that commodifies
human beings, erodes the value of humanity, values monetary profits more than living
human souls.

The reason why I mentioned earlier that Willy Loman was an active metaphor for the
struggle of the common man against the oppressive capitalistic society was because, the
same holds true today. 70 years from its writing, the text is still a testament to the monstrous
failings of capitalistic society. Willy serves to be a representation of the millions who are
living in abject poverty in an exploitative, parasitic society that sucks a human being dry of
every shred of humanity they possess and discard them once they have fulfilled their use as
fodder for the capitalists. The final death of Willy Loman, is not suicide, but societal murder.

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Bibliography:

1. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/death-of-a-salesman/themes/the-american-
dream#:~:text=Willy%20Loman's%20version%20of,impossible%20standards%20of
%20this%20dream.

2. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/28/weekinreview/ideas-trends-get-that-man-some-
prozac-if-the-dramatic-tension-is-all-in-his-head.html

3. https://daily.jstor.org/james-truslow-adams-dreaming-american-dream/

4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303051535_The_Plight_of_the_American_
Dream_Capitalism_and_Depression_in_Arthur_Miller's_Death_of_a_Salesman

5. https://literaryyard.com/2017/11/17/arthur-millers-death-of-a-salesman-a-victim-of-
capitalism/

6. Arthur Miller – Death of a Salesman

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