| Abstract | The American Dream was created by the first settlers who came to America. For them
the Dream was connected to God and religion, and they believed that if they worked hard
enough, God would elect them when the apocalypse came. Yet, when they began connecting the
Dream with the ability to succeed and accumulate material wealth, the Dream started to be
corrupted. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1940) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great
Gatsby (1925) both deal with this topic. Fitzgerald connects Gatsby's Dream not to material
wealth, but to the love of his life, Daisy. Just like the Dream, Daisy is desirable, materialistic,
selfish, careless, beguiling, and haunting. Fitzgerald also places emphasis on social status and
implies that the Dream stopped being achievable for an individual when it became corrupted.
Therefore, poor people never get their chance to achieve the Dream. Like Fitzgerald, who
emphasizes the detrimental effect of materialism, Miller also points at the corruption of the
Dream and its values. Through his main character, Willy Loman, he shows a man who believes
in all the wrong values of the Dream, which leads to an unsatisfactory and dysfunctional life of
both himself and his family. On the other hand, through the character of Charley, Miller depicts a
man who understands the system and therefore succeeds. Miller implies that some parts of the
Dream that were later created, such as individualism or competition, have caused the downfall
and the disintegration of society. He also implies that people need to start working together
towards greater good to be able to restore the true values of the American Dream. |
