Death of a Salesman - Dreams

2131 Words9 Pages
In the light of Biff’s view of Willy Loman in the Requiem that ‘he had the wrong dreams. All wrong’, discuss the importance of dreams in the play. Death of a Salesman is a play written by Arthur Millar in 1949 and has a different perspective of the prosperous American Dream. Dreams are the very essence of the play and the majority of the time, dreams affects the characters behaviour, most notably Willy Loman. The protagonist of the play is Willy Loman, the father and a salesman failing to make money. Dreams describe the characters past, but also have significance in ‘real time’ of the drama and they act as a catalyst for scenes to begin and it allows the audience to gain a different perspective of the play, which are Miller’s intentions and they are essential for the progression of the hopes and ambitions of the characters. Stage directions and minimal scene changes allow Miller to exploit realism throughout the play. Furthermore, the drama created by Arthur Miller provides us with a different view of the American Dream in the light of the Loman family. This play focuses on hopes, ambitions, dreams and the American Dream as I will discuss in the following essay. In a sense, through his main character Willy Loman, Miller examines the myth of the American Dream and the shallow promise of happiness through material wealth. During the 1920’s a euphoric period came about when people dreamed of becoming wealthy and invested heavily in the stock market. This term was dubbed The Roaring Twenties. In 1929, the Wall Street Crash brings the Roaring Twenties to an end and in 1930 came the American depression, which created mass unemployment, homelessness and starvation. The time period also has a big effect on the action of the play. It's the late 1940s, meaning that we've just come out of WWII. The country is all gung-ho about rebuilding itself and getting everyone – yes,
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