It is a kind of romantic idealism, “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” Nick calls it. The yearn to obtain “the girl,” the last piece of Gatsby’s puzzle, seems unreachable and restrains him from reaching his own American Dream.įitzgerald takes into consideration that one will do almost anything for love, and places this theory upon Gatsby. However, this dream skews his character as the lens implies. In fact, Gatsby buys the mansion, throws the parties, wins popularity, and almost fulfills the American Dream all for Daisy. Gatsby must have his enormous mansion before he can feel confident enough to try to win Daisy. Tom and Daisy must have a huge house, a stable of polo ponies, and friends in Europe. The characters are Midwesterners who have come East in pursuit of this new dream of money, fame, success, glamour, and excitement. The American dream plays a large part throughout Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as well. Instead of being impressed, many people begin to question Loman’s sanity and the importance of his American dream. Willy’s dream continues to change his character completely, making him rely on past events, and live in the past as well. However, as Willy’s character tends to do, he exaggerates greatly to soothe his mind and hopefully the mind of others, resulting in his firing. Willy begins to tell Howard stories of Singleman, continuing with stories of Howard’s birth and the derivation of Howard’s name. This causes Willy to resort to his safety mechanism when the present isn’t tolerable, revert to the past. Howard turns down Willy’s request because he feels it would be an improper business decision. Still, Howard is a bottom-line businessman who sees Willy as a tired old man relying on his ability to talk rather than his ability to sell. However, Willy is confident that Howard will accept his request to work in New York. Willy does not like to deal with Howard because of Howard’s failure to appreciate him. Willy’s world begins crashing down around him when he has to confront Howard. Not being able to deal with this failure of his dream alters his character greatly. The fact that he is not able to satisfy his dream makes Willy’s life incredibly hard. Since Miller has the salesman dreaming of success but failing, Willy begins to lose his grasp on his dream, the most important thing he has in his life. Willy’s dream to be a success also relates the character to the lens using the element of characterization. This unfortunately makes Willie somewhat believe it as well. Since it is Willie’s dream to be successful, he puts on a front to make others believe that he is. The success Willie yearns for leads to the denial of his personal failure. According to him, his son has made him well known, and this makes him happy since being popular and well liked is his dream. He considers himself famous as a result of his son’s pride in him. In this scene in the past, Willy can hardly wait to tell the story to his buyers. For example, Willy’s favorite memory is of Biff’s last football game because Biff vows to make a touchdown just for him. Instead of acknowledging that he is not a well-known success, Willy retreats into the past and chooses to relive past memories and events in which he is perceived as successful. Willy’s version of the American Dream revolves around success and popularity, even if he is forced to deny reality in order to achieve it. Instead, Willy strives for his version of the American Dream, a main theme in Miller’s play. Willy is incapable of accepting the fact that he is a mediocre salesman. However, Willy Loman’s situation is most disturbing. While each member of the Loman family is living in denial in one way or another. This inspiring novel and play express this lens through the literary elements of theme and characterization. This statement is prevalent in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman as well as F. “Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” This quote from Thoreau basically states that the dreams of a character define his or her life, whether it be their characteristics or their lifestyle.
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