Disillusionment of the American Dream.doc

一个美国梦的破灭disillusionment of the american dreamcontentsabstract.1key words.11. brief introduction of author arthur miller22.literature status of death of salesman.23.general plot of death of salesman34. character analysis.45. structure of this play66. american dream and arthur millers death of a salesman6 6.1 a dream fllowed by willy and his family66.2 analysis of american dream76.3corruption of the american dream.86.4 history of the american dream.96.5 the american dream today.106.6criticism of the american dream.117. themes, motifs and symbols of american dream117.1 themes of american dream.117.1.1 abandonment127.1.2 betrayal127.2 motifs127.2.1 mythic figures12conclusion.13reference.14disillusionment of the american dream摘 要：推销员之死中的威利洛曼是个普通的推销员,通过对其生命最后2 4小时里心理活动和性格发展的描述,向我们描写了小人物威利洛曼的渴望和自我毁灭,并由此抨击了重表象不重实质、以金钱为尺度、诱使人们不择手段去出人头地的美国梦。威利到处存在,他代表当代世界各地各种制度下的我们自己。威利的悲剧就是资本主义制度下的普通人的悲剧。 关键词：美国梦 悲剧 普通人 abstract: willy loman is an ordinary salesman in “dath of a salesman”. the play death of a salesman show us willy”s dreams. confusion and disllusionment through the last twenty-four hours of his life it also criticizes the american dream which only stresses money and apperence. willy is everywhere. his tragedy is also the tragedy of the ordinary people under the capitalist system.key words: american dream tragedy common people disillusionment of the american dream1. brief introduction of author arthur millermiller was born in manhattan, new york, on october 17, 1915. his parents were jewish immigrants who had come to america in search of prosperity. his father, isadore, ran a successful garment business for a number of years, while his mother, augusta, was a schoolteacher. following the failure of his fathers business in 1928, millers family moved to brooklyn, which would serve as the setting for a number of his plays, including death of a salesman. his fathers failure and subsequent withdrawal from the world of business had a profound effect on the young miller, one that has direct. his father, isidore miller, was a ladies-wear manufacturer and shopkeeper who was ruined in the depression. the sudden change in fortune had a strong influence on miller. this desire to move on, to metamorphose - or perhaps it is a talent for being contemporary - was given me as lifes inevitable and righful condition ,2 he wrote in timebends: a life (1987). the family moved to a small frame house in brooklyn, which is said to the model for the brooklyn home in death of a salesman. miller spent his boyhood playing foorball and baseball, reading adventure stories, and appearing generally as a nonintellectual. if i had any ideology at all it was what i had learned from hearst newspapers4 he once said. after graduating from a high school in 1932, miller worked in automobile parts warehouse to earn money for college. having read dostoevskys novel the brothers karamazov miller decided to become a writer. to study journalism he entered the university of michigan in 1934, where he won awards for playwriting - one of the other awarded playwright was tennessee williams.2.literature status of death of salesmanarthur millers death of a salesman is considered by many to be both the playwrights masterpiece and a cornerstone of contemporary american drama. subtitled certain private conversations in two acts and a requiem, the play was first produced in 1949 and struck an immediate, emotional chord with audiences. the work garnered numerous honors and awards, including the pulitzer prize and the new york drama critics circle award and enjoyed a lengthy run (742 performances) on broadway. in the decades following its premiere, death of a salesman has become one of the most performed and adapted plays in american theatrical history. much of this success is attributed to millers facility in portraying the universal hopes and fears of middle-class america. through his main character, willy loman, miller examines the myth of the american dream and the shallow promise of happiness through material wealth. he uses willy as an example of how undivided faith in such a dream can often yield tragic results, especially when it goes largely unfulfilled. audiences have continued to respond to this theme because, in some incarnation, the american dream has persisted; a viewer can watch death of a salesman and relate willys situation to their own compromised ideals and missed opportunities. more than a cautionary tale, however, millers work is also revered for its bold realism and riveting theatricality, a play that deals in weighty emotional issues without descending to melodrama.3.general plot of death of salesmanarthur millers death of a salesman is a 20th - century play about willy loman, a man who has dreams for him and for his two sons. willy loman has been a traveling salesman for the wagner company for thirty-four years. once long ago, willy met a salesman named dave singleton who would go into a town and pick up a phone and would be able to place many orders without ever leaving his hotel room. when this man died, people from all over the country came to his funeral.but as the play opens, willy has just come back home after having left for new england that morning. he tells his wife, linda that he just cant seem to keep his mind on driving anymore. he asks about his son, biff, who has just come home for a visit after being away for a long time. willy thinks about biff when biff was a senior in high school some fourteen years ago. biff was playing in a great football game and people were coming from all over the country to offer him scholarships. but then something happened after that year, because biff has never found himself. later, they find out that biff had failed math and had gone up to boston to find his father and explain the failure to him. when he reached willys hotel room in boston, biff found his father having an affair with strange women. after this episode, biff seemed to hold a grudge against his father and could never again bring himself to trust willy.now after some fourteen years, biff returns home. he and his brother happy try to think of some job biff could get and settle down in new york. they think about a man that biff used to work for named bill oliver. biff thinks that he will ask mr. oliver for a loan of ten thousand dollars to begin a business of his own. they tell willy about their plans and willy thinks that together the two boys could absolutely conquer the world. willy explains that the important thing in life is to be well liked and to have personal attractiveness.the next day, willy is to meet the boys for dinner in a restaurant. he is so pleased to have his boys with him that he decides to ask young howard wagner, the present owner of the firm for which willy works, for a job in new york city. but howard tells him there is no room for him in new york and then explains to willy that he cant represent the firm in new england anyone because he has been doing harm for the firm. thus, suddenly willys day has reversed. he is now without a job and has to go to an old friend, charley, to borrow enough money to pay his insurance premium. then they find out that willy has been borrowing fifty dollars a week from charley for quite some time and then pretending that this amount is his salary. even though charley offers willy a good job in new york, willy refuses because he says he cant work for charley.biff and happy meet in the restaurant and biff explains that he has been living an illusion. he tells happy that he has stolen himself out of every job that he has ever had and he wants to make everyone especially willy understand that he is no longer bringing home any prizes. but when willy arrives, he tells the boys that he has been fired and he refuses to listen to biffs story. willy simply pretends that biff has another appointment the following day. willy gets furious and is about to make a scene. suddenly when willy goes to the bathroom, biff out of frustration, leaves the restaurant. happy, who has picked up two girls, follows him and leaves willy alone. later that night, biff comes home and finds willy out in the back yard planting seeds and talking to his brother ben. but this is only in willys illusions because he has not seen his brother for many years and ben has actually been dead for some nine months. biff explains to willy that it would be best if they break with each other and never see one another again. he tries once again to explain that he is no longer a leader of men and that he is a common person who has no outstanding qualities. but willy refuses to believe him and tells biff once again how great biff could be. biff becomes frustrated because willy refuses to see the truth. he finally breaks down and sobs to willy to forget him. then, willy thinks that biff is still a child who still needs him. he then resolves on suicide because with twenty thousand dollars, biff could be such as magnificent person. thus, willy commits suicide. but at his funeral, we see that willy died a forgotten mean because no one came to his funeral.4. character analysiswilly loman-despite his desperate searching through his past, willy does not achieve the self-realization or self-knowledge typical of the tragic hero. the quasi-resolution that his suicide offers him represents only a partial discovery of the truth. while he achieves a professional understanding of himself and the fundamental nature of the sales profession, willy fails to realize his personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life. he cannot grasp the true personal, emotional, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman” or “low man.” willy is too driven by his own “willy”-ness or perverse “willfulness” to recognize the slanted reality that his desperate mind has forged. still, many critics, focusing on willys entrenchment in a quagmire of lies, delusions, and self-deceptions, ignore the significant accomplishment of his partial self-realization. willys failure to recognize the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy. despite this failure, willy makes the most extreme sacrifice in his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow biff to fulfill the american dream.bens final mantra“the jungle is dark, but full of diamonds”6turns willys suicide into a metaphorical moral struggle, a final skewed ambition to realize his full commercial and material capacity. his final act, according to ben, is “not like an appointment at all” but like a “diamond . . . rough and hard to the touch.”4 in the absence of any real degree of self-knowledge or truth, willy is able to achieve a tangible result. in some respect, willy does experience a sort of revelation, as he finally comes to understand that the product he sells is himself. through the imaginary advice of ben, willy ends up fully believing his earlier assertion to charley that “after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”biff loman-unlike willy and happy, biff feels compelled to seek the truth about himself. while his father and brother are unable to accept the miserable reality of their respective lives, biff acknowledges his failure and eventually manages to confront it. even the difference between his name and theirs reflects this polarity: whereas willy and happy willfully and happily delude themselves, biff bristles stiffly at self-deception. biffs discovery that willy has a mistress strips him of his faith in willy and willys ambitions for him. consequently, willy sees biff as an underachiever, while biff sees himself as trapped in willys grandiose fantasies. after his epiphany in bill olivers office, biff determines to break through the lies surrounding the loman family in order to come to realistic terms with his own life. intent on revealing the simple and humble truth behind willys fantasy, biff longs for the territory (the symbolically free west) obscured by his fathers blind faith in a skewed, materialist version of the american dream. biffs identity crisis is a function of his and his fathers disillusionment, which, in order to reclaim his identity, he must expose.happy loman-happy shares none of the poetry that erupts from biff and that is buried in willyhe is the stunted incarnation of willys worst traits and the embodiment of the lie of the happy american dream. as such, happy is a difficult character with whom to empathize. he is one-dimensional and static throughout the play. his empty vow to avenge willys death by finally “beating this racket” provides evidence of his critical condition: for happy, who has lived in the shadow of the inflated expectations of his brother, there is no escape from the dreams indoctrinated lies. happys diseased condition is irreparablehe lacks even the tiniest spark of self-knowledge or capacity for self-analysis. he does share willys capacity for self-delusion, trumpeting himself as the assistant buyer at his store, when, in reality, he is only an assistant to the assistant buyer. he does not possess a hint of the latent thirst for knowledge that proves biffs salvation. happy is a doomed, utterly duped figure, destined to be swallowed up by the force of blind ambition that fuels his insatiable sex drive.linda loman and charley-linda and charley serve as forces of reason throughout the play. linda is probably the most enigmatic and complex character in death of a salesman, or even in all of millers work. linda views freedom as an escape from debt, the reward of total ownership of the material goods that symbolize success and stability. willys prolonged obsession with the american dream seems, over the long years of his marriage, to have left linda internally conflicted. nevertheless, linda, by far the toughest, most realistic, and most levelheaded character in the play, appears to have kept her emotional life intact. as such, she represents the emotional core of the drama.if linda is a sort of emotional prophet, overcome by the inevitable end that she foresees with startling clarity, then charley functions as a sort of poetic prophet or sage. miller portrays charley as ambiguously gendered or effeminate, much like tiresias, the mythological seer in sophocles oedipus plays. whereas lindas lucid diagnosis of willys rapid decline is made possible by her emotional sanity, charleys prognosis of the situation is logical, grounded firmly in practical reasoned analysis. he recognizes willys financial failure, and the job offer that he extends to willy constitutes a commonsense solution. though he is not terribly fond of willy, charley understands his plight and shields him from blame.5. structure of this playthe play is therefore structured in such a way as to show the pleasures of the past and how these aspects of the past contribute to the agonies of the present. in other words, we see in the scenes of the past how willy has so built his life that he has now finally trapped himself in an inescapable situation.this emphasizes the difference between illusion and reality. one central problem of the play is willys inability to distinguish between illusion and reality. thus, the structure, which involves a rapid transition to the past, shows willys being caught in his illusions and also show how he brings these illusions over into his present life, especially as he calls upon his brother ben to help him.6. american dream and arthur millers death of a salesman 6.1 a dream fllowed by willy and his family within the tragic play, death of a salesman, willy loman destroys himself trying to achieve a dream. yet, the dream that destroys willy is not one that he has chosen. willy loman does not choose this destructive dream because he does not know himself, willy loman does not choose a dream at all, one is forced upon him by society. willy loman spends the expanse of the play trying to achieve wealth, fame, and the like of others. these ideas epitomize the american dream, to become a successful, well-liked businessman. willys true dream, however, was very different from this. throughout the play you can see evidence that willy feels trapped by this dream that he feels obligated to fulfill. society has dictated to willy that the american dream is the dream, and no other dream is acceptable. because of this dictation, willy abandons his true dream of living on his own, in the country, where he can support himself by farming, and living from the land. the proof of willys true dream appears in short scattered bits. god, timberland! me and my boys in those great outdoors! yes, yes! linda, linda! he cries exuberantly at the idea of moving away from the city. by the idea is quickly killed by the society surrounding him.5you wait, kid, before its all over were gonna get a little place out in the country, and ill raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens. once again, society surrounding willy crushes this dream, his true dream, forcing it back into the subconscious of willys mind, where it remains for the duration of the play, only surfacing at a few times, when the dream that willy is trying to fulfill becomes so horrible that he remembers that he had anoth