A Literary Analysis of a Death of a Salesman

Introduction:

State the topic: In Death of a Salesman, the American Dream is shown to be corrupted. Willy Loman, the protagonist of the play, is shown to have an exceptionally difficult time with his American Dream, which is to see his kids do better than him.

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Talk about Willy’s American Dream and what he has to do to achieve it: Throughout Willy’s life, he wanted to see his kids, Hap and Biff, thrive and succeed in life. He wanted to see them thrive to the point where they were doing better than him. For this to happen he had to find a good paying job and teach them all the right qualities he thought they needed to do well in America of the 1940’s. Unfortunately for Biff and Hap these qualities ended up being superficial ones. Unsurprisingly, they did not go very far in life, ending back up with him. This is around the time when he starts to break down and fathom the whole depths of his failures, and his wife Linda starts to notice his multiple suicide attempts.

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Talk about how Willy’s kids are doing worse than him: After Willy’s two kids, Biff and Hap, were set free to roam America and start to live their dreams, they quickly wound back up at Willy and Linda’s house, and started to live with them again. Biff has had thirty or so small, unsteady jobs since he left right before the war, and Hap is trying to folow his fathers footsteps, but not doing a very successful job.

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When Biff is talking about how he feels a failure, he asks Hap “You’re a success, aren’t you? Are you content?” to which he replies “Hell no!”. I believe that a great majority of the reason Biff and Hap are so unsuccessful is that Willy imbued the wrong qualities to them. He taught them that only the superficial qualities were important, and they grew up thinking you could beat all your problems to death with their fists.

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Talk about his job:

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Talk about his inability to retire:

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Talk about his inability to find a new job:

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Talk about the low incomes:

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Talk about how the working class is barely scraping by:

Conclusion:

Write the conclusion.: