Happy Loman’s Significance In Arthur Miller’s “Death Of A Salesman” Essay

The definition of the American Dream is an important theme that is woven throughout the attitudes and actions of Arthur Millers causas in his play The Death of A Salesman. talented Loman, a character dominated by his material greed and desire to crush anyone standing(a) between him and the almighty dollar, conciliates a skewed eyeshot of that Dream, a perspective shared by an increasingly large amount of Americans. Through his unsatiable appetite for power, lust, and wealth, Happy Loman embodies the modern capitalist American Dream. And through his without end discontentment and incessant feeling of unfulfillment, Happy also embodies the fallacy and shortcomings of that Dream. atomic number 53 could consider Happy Loman to be a success. He may not be the president of his company (in fact he is one of dickens assistants to an assistant buyer), scarcely at roughly thirty years of age, he has a steady job and a place of his own. And hes moving up in the demesne, hes getting so mewhere. And in that respects nothing wrong with this. American society and capitalism in general is based on the Puritan individualist work ethic, which states that exhausting work breeds success and happiness.But Happy isnt win because he works hard, because hes well liked, or because hes exceptionally legal at what he does. Hes succeeding through the neo-American shortcut to happiness, the modern American Dream, which encourages cut-throat competition at both level. Happy, much like millions of other Americans, is moving up in the world by defeating his competition, by destroying all of those in his way. On page 23 and 24, he says, All I can do now is bide for the swop manager to dieHes a good confederate of mine. Happy desires more gold, more power, and more responsibility potently enough that he is willing to lose a good friend of his, just to get his job.His job. Not a job. Another reason wherefore Happy symbolizes the new American Dream is his obsession with ruini ng the lives of others in order to discontinue himself. I dont know what gets into me, peradventure I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something he says on page 25. Happy can get any muliebrity he wants. Yet he deliberately chooses to sleep with the wives andfiances of his co-workers and bosses as a way of defeating them in some nonexistent competition for power. Therefore, disdain the fact that they may be ahead of him in the business world, Happy can find solace in the fact that he went and ruined his bosses spouses. Isnt that a crummy characteristic? he asks Biff. Of course it is, but it doesnt stop Happy from doing it over and over.Happy may represent the quintessential American in the aspects mentioned above, but what truly cements his position as the epitome of the neo-capitalist is his pervading feelings of unhappiness and discontent. When Happy speaks of possibly becoming the new trade in manager, he says that he would do the same thing that the old m erchandise manager did build a mansion of a house for himself, and so sell in in two months. He says on page 23, Its crazyits what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. Yet when Biff asks if he is content, Happy retorts, Hell no. When speaking of women, whom Happy appears to be incredibly fond of, he says, I keep knockin em over, and it doesnt mean anything. And why is Happy discontent? Because he defined the American Dream, his American Dream, in terms of notes and power, instead of happiness and self-actualization. He will never be content, and incomplete will anyone else who shares his Dream.When goals are determined in denominations of currency, then they can never be reached, because no one can possess all the money that exists in the world. Whats better than a Toyota? A Lexus. Whats better than a Lexus? A Ferrari. Whats better than a Ferrari? A ground-effect machine? A yacht? 2 yachts? A goddamn jumbo yard? It never ends. And thus, the American Dr eam can be crushed under(a) the weight of a dollar bill when it is improperly defined. The Dream becomes farce, a crock, a hoax, an old wives tale, an urban legend, an orange that consists of nothing but the peel, a person whose soul, whose brains have been sucked out of his nose by little aliens wearing wing-tipped shoes, carrying attach cases, and driving hovercrafts with the future wives of their bosses in the passenger seat. But it doesnt have to.