The elusive American Dream: an analysis of two plays

The American Dream has been a central theme in a vast number of works of literature, some supporting this ideal and others critiquing and commenting on it.  In this article, I will discuss how Edward Albee and Arthur Miller portray the theme of the American Dream in their plays The American Dream and Death of a Salesman, respectively. 

The American Dream is a one-act play by American playwright Edward Albee that premiered in 1961. According to the author, the play is about the American Dream gone awry. The roles of Mommy and Daddy are reversed: Daddy is emasculated, Mommy is sadistic and Grandma is bitter. Mommy and Daddy adopted a child, a "bumble of joy", who was tortured and disemboweled by Mommy for his unruliness and his inability to provide what Mommy and Daddy searched for: satisfaction. 

Twenty years later, the Young Man, the twin brother of the "bumble of joy", shows up at the house. He personifies the American Dream: he is clean-cut, a "Midwestern beauty", physically perfect, and willing to do anything for money. Despite his perfect exterior, the twin is empty inside. He becomes the perfect commodity that grants Mommy and Daddy the satisfaction they seek. The Young Man, the American Dream, is a product of the mutilation of his unruly twin brother. He is outwardly perfect but empty inside, with a beautiful exterior, much like Grandma's boxes. Achieving the American Dream requires the murder of the unruly self.

Grandma's boxes are a central element of the play: they symbolize the emphasis on exteriors and surfaces and the disenchanting secret hidden behind them. Mommy and Daddy constantly admire the beautiful wrapping of the boxes, without considering their interior. It was later discovered that the boxes contained obscene objects, like an enema bottle and Grandma's blind Pekinese.

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by Arthur Miller. It is considered one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. It follows the last 24 hours of the life of Willy Loman, a 63-year-old traveling salesman who is no longer able to make sales and is haunted by his memories. 

Willy Loman believes in the promise of the American Dream and is convinced that the key to success is being "well-liked". His dream is to be a successful salesman, admired and remembered in the cities he works in, wealthy and popular. In his pursuit of the American Dream, Willy attempts to build a home that conforms to it: a loving, devoted wife, two perfect sons, and a job as a salesman that allows him to earn a living through his "pleasing personality".

As Willy pursues the unattainable American Dream blindly, other characters represent different aspects of it. Ben, Willy's brother, is to Willy another kind of American Dream: gaining a fortune seizing opportunities, and conquering nature. Biff, on the contrary, represents another type of relationship with nature and rejects the American Dream altogether. He longs to live in the West and do manual labor for a living, rejecting Willy's materialistic American Dream. 

The two brothers, Happy and Biff, present opposite stances against the American Dream. Happy is completely selfless and indoctrinated by Willy, doomed to repeat his father's fate of pursuing the American Dream until his death. Biff, on the contrary, longs for self-discovery and identity, to detach himself from the grandiose expectations Willy placed on him. 

In Death of a Salesman, we also see the theme of deception and appearances. Under the façade of the happy American home, through Willy’s flashbacks, we see his affair with The Woman, kept secret between him and Biff. This disillusionment is what ultimately sent Biff’s life off the tracks: he had mapped out a future very much aligned with Willy’s vision of the American Dream, but after learning the truth about it, he chose to discard it. Happy, who bought into Willy’s promise of the American Dream, convinces his family that he has a good job when he’s actually assistant to the assistant. 

In both plays, we see the marginalization of old people: Grandma is reduced to whimpers and cries; Willy Loman is incapable of making a sale and is eventually fired from his job. Willy begged his boss, Howard, the son of his original boss, claiming he needed the money to survive and reminding him of the 30 years of his life that he devoted to the company, but Howard saw Willy as a liability because of his age and mental state.

Both Willy Loman and Daddy are emasculated characters in the concept of masculinity that is present in the American Dream. Daddy is infantilized and dominated by Mommy; she constantly tests his masculinity, and his attempts to demonstrate it are futile. Willy is emasculated in his inability to fulfill the role of provider of the house, having to borrow from Charley in order to pay his bills.

As Matthew C. Roudané pointed out very interestingly: “In Marxist terms, Willy completes his brutalization process by reducing himself to a commodity, an object, a thing, which enables him to make the greatest and last sale of his entire professional life:  the sale of his very existence for the insurance payment”. The same happens with the Young Man in The American Dream: his hollow and devoid self became the perfect commodity for Mommy and Daddy. The plays take different approaches to deal with the American Dream. Death of a Salesman is the tragedy of a common salesman in America. The American Dream, on the other hand, takes a more absurd approach.

Roudané, M. (1997). Death of a Salesman and the poetics of Arthur Miller. In C. Bigsby (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller (Cambridge Companions to Literature, pp. 60-85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCOL052155019X.005