REALITY IS NOT THE DEATH OF A TYPICAL SALESMAN BUT THE REVELATION OF EXISTENTIALIST AMERICANISM

Abstract

The present paper focuses on the cherished American dream, the reality and the reality manifested. The two have always been poles apart. But with this there is another reality i.e., the willingness of followers to be conned. The best of American Dream is divulged in the Death of the Salesman by Arthur Miller. The more we study profoundly, the eccentric character of a typical salesman Willy Loman, the more unpredictability of the American dreams unfolds itself, layer by layer. That Salesman is not of one cadre of society, rather he has in himself several other strata too. He is typified for middle class, lower middle class and even those who wish to be of any class, to be one with the society. Even, through his character we can make psychoanalysis of people of such character, demeanor or the profession existing all around us. But will it be the psychoanalysis of the man himself or the psychoanalysis of the American Dream personified.  Loman’s dysfunctional family, and his own life too, show the seething impressions of standardized life – explicitly, norms of American Success Formula. The tragic death he meets in the end, fixedly focuses on the death of the American Dream itself. But the most drastic aspect of it is the Existentialism, pervaded into the lives of these people taking them to the unrealistic goals.