Death Of A Salesman 
 and 
 The Price
 
by Arthur Miller
 
A Comparative Character Study
 
When people accept an ideal to live by it can be a glorious
and noble thing unless they become so obsessed with the
ideal that it becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize
their dream.. This is especially true for two characters in
Arthur Miller's plays " Death of a Salesman" and " The
Price". In these two plays Miller portrays two lower-middle
class men , Willie Loman and Victor Franz, respectively,
who each live by an ideal that ultimately is
self-defeating. Willie lived to pursue the American dream
rather than living the American dream and Victor lived to
serve and be decent rather than living a noble and decent
life. They pursed their ideal rather than living it and
thus they are unable to succeed. 

Willie Loman, in " Death of a Salesman", has lived his life
in pursuit of the American dream. Traditionally the
American dream meant opportunity and freedom for all, and
Willie believed that. However, hard work could not earn him
everything that he wanted or thought he deserved. Willy
judged himself and those around him by their material
accumulation, as is demanded by capitalism and the
protestant work ethic. The ethic demands accumulation and
work as signs of favor in the eyes of god. Thus in order to
please god and himself, he had to accumulate wealth and
objects. The consumer oriented society in which Willy lives
will not allow him to live the American Dream. Willy is
fascinated by accumulating things. His desire for goods
makes him want objects that he neither needed nor could
afford. Willy thinks that he needs to buy his wife a new
refrigerator and new stockings even though she is content
with what they have. As he tries to live the American dream
he venerates those who have been successful at doing so,
like Thomas Edison, B.F. Goodrich, and Ben, his successful
brother. Furthermore he punished those who did not work
towards that ideal or accomplish it ,such as Biff, his son,
and most importantly himself. The extreme to which he
followed the dream brought him to disillusionment and lose
sense of reality. Willy created a reality for himself where
he "knocked 'em cold in Providence," and "slaughtered 'em
in Boston."(p.33) The ultimate result of his
disillusionment is his suicide. It is ironic that he dies
for his ideals although they are misconstrued. 

The problem with Willy's ideals, which ultimately kills
him, is that he has lost sight of achieving the true goal
of the American Dream; happiness and freedom. He struggled
to achieve something that he could not; he did not have the
talent to be a salesman. He became so obsessed with living
the dream that he was unable to be content with his talents
in carpentry and with his family. There is also a manner in
which he pursues the Dream. He is a salesman, a profession
that is associated with trickery and illusion. He could not
pursue a noble dream by doing something that is based in
deceit. His quest was cursed from the start and the fact
that he lived the quest and not the dream made it worse. 

Similarly in Miller's "The Price", the main character is a
man who tries to live for an ideal and not the ideal . In "
The Price", Victor becomes so obsessed with sacrificing for
others that he ultimately fails to please himself . By not
achieving for himself, he hurts those he is trying to help,
his family. Victor devoted his life to serving others at an
early age. When he was younger he went to the police
academy, a profession that is marked by self- sacrifice for
others. Furthermore he put his brother through medical
school even though Victor had more potential in the field.
While his brother Walter was in school Victor cared for
their aging father at a great expense to Victor
economically and emotionally. During the time period
portrayed by the play Victor is still selfless as he
constantly calls and tries to make arrangements to include
his brother in the business deal to sell off their family's
estate. Although Walter does not return Victor's numerous
phone calls, Victor still refuses to keep the whole amount
of money for himself.. He has a greater need for that money
and deserves it, because of all his earlier sacrifices for
Walter's sake, but he will not take it. 

With all that sacrifice one would assume that Victor's
family would be pleased; however, his sacrifices hurt them
greatly. Those that he was sacrificing most are hurt most
in the end. That is to say that his inability to please
himself and to struggle to achieve his goals hurts his
family. His wife Esther becomes disgusted by his inability
to achieve and his not pursuing medicine caused him to
remain a part of the lower- middle working class. Just as
Willy does, Victor too, adopts a quest for himself;
however, he pursues that quest to the point that he loses
sight of his original goal - to please others, and ends up
hurting them. 

Both men have decent and noble intentions; however, they
both live to fulfill those intentions rather than living
and fulfilling the intentions. As a result they both fail
to accomplish what they had intended, hurt the ones they
love, and themselves. Willy's obsession with acquiring
wealth and being a salesman made it impossible for him to
do so. Victor's insistence on helping others made it
impossible for him to provide the life his wife wanted and
deserved . Both men failed because they became so involved
in living by impossible standards that they could never
reach . These failure had harsh penalties in both
circumstances.