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Griffin Barich
12 January 2015
Ms. Garrett
English 3
Arthur Miller and the Two-Faced American Dream
The American Dream is a concept widely used throughout American culture. Arguably,
none use this idea more than the great American playwright, Arthur Miller. Miller pessimistically
interprets the American Dream through the tension of two aspects of the American Dream. One
of these facets is characterized by an aggressive materialism, the demand to have better goods
than the neighbors, and the other is typified by a greater hope for all of mankind to reach its
potential. Through the contrast of an American success versus an un-American success and the
comparison of two types of American Dreams, Miller uses his pieces of theatre to explore and
eventually devalue the merits of this hallowed concept.
The dichotomy of Ben and Willy and their career paths is used by Miller to stigmatize the
American Dream. Willy Loman has done everything in his power to try and obtain his idea of an
American Dream; he buys all of the stuff that society tells him to buy and is seemingly happily
married, but he is still unhappy enough to kill himself. Ben is used to represent to Willy an
alternative life that Willy could have had. Willy aspires to achieve the American Dream, the idea
of a self-made man climbing the ranks to be successful. When Ben left for Alaska, and found
diamonds in Africa, he accomplished a non-American Dream because he succeeded without the
decades of hard work that the dream insists upon (and he didnt even do it in America). Willy
took a safer route and became a salesman, but Ben, being a part of Willys imagination and
subconscious, reasons that, the jungle is dark but full of diamonds (2.906). If Willy had risked

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everything and not strived for a conventional family, he would have become successful. Through
this Miller is able to demonstrate to his audience that the American Dream in the case of the
everyman, Willy Loman, easily can lead to ruin, while Ben, who achieves success in a more
unorthodox manner, lives to bask in the glory of his achievements.
An important conundrum in Death of a Salesman comes from the mystery of whether
Willy even achieved the American Dream which, depending on the answer can change the
meaning of Millers intended impact. James Truslow Adams stated that the American Dream is
that dream in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone It is not a
dream of motorcars and high wages (Library of Congress, par. 1). If this definition rings true,
then Willy has not accomplished the American Dream. His life is not better because of what he
has, but rather worse because of it. Furthermore, his kids are left with a similar fate; Happy
promises to a dead Willy, The only dream you can have [is] to come out number-one man
(Requiem.25). This dream, for Willy, is what led to his demise. Unless, Willy was operating
under a different American Dream, the one shown in the popular culture of materialism. This
idea of an American Dream can be traced to a 1916 comic named Keeping up with the Joneses
where a couple tries to obtain goods that the Joneses also have in order to act as if they are of a
higher class (Schneider par. 10-12). If this is the American dream,to keep up with the Joneses or
in his case Charley, Willy will never reach the American Dream because, for all, it is
unobtainable. Through this facet of the American Dream, Miller establishes that the American
Dream is impossible and that it is futile to reach for it.
In Millers other works he also launches into critique of the American Dream, especially
in All My Sons. This play takes the story of two families who have been close throughout their

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lives and shows how greed splits the two families apart. Miller uses greed as the driving force of
the materialistic American Dream and the reason for all of the suffering in this play. At one point
in the play, Chris calls his father, the guilty businessman, an ignoramus, to which his father, Joe
Keller, replies, Well somebodys gotta make a living (2.132). Through this Miller implies that
to work and to be a part of the rat race is to be an ignoramus. Through Chris, Miller demonstrates
a similar character to Ben in that he will still be happy even though he has no part in the
American Dream. In Millers New York Times response to the reaction of Death of a Salesman,
he mocks American society saying, Only the passive are "flawless" (Miller par. 6). Only
through passivity, can one accomplish the American Dream. If one puts their head down and
works like Willy Loman did or like Joe Keller did, then and only then can he or she achieve the
American Dream.
In Millers New York Times essay, All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, he scrutinizes
the value of the American Dream and comes to the conclusion that this idea is unattainable, and
even if it was, most would not appreciate it. Miller uses both of the two faces of the American
Dream, Adams definition of optimism and the materialist interpretation, in his plays to help
better realize the characters. Through these characters, and his essay, Arthur Miller offers a
caution to his audiences about believing too blindly in the American Dream.

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Works Cited
Library of Congress. What is the American Dream?. USA, n.d. Web. 10 January 2015.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1949. Print
Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1947. Print.
Miller, Arthur. Tragedy and the Common Man. The New York Times 27 February 1949. Web.
Schneider, Daniel. F.Y.I. New York Times, 15 February 1998. Web. 10 January 2015.