Nichole Hermann
Questions of identity are at the heart of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, and Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman. Both authors created characters who were searching for the American dream with deeply flawed souls. The characters, James Gatz, known as Jay Gatsby, and William Loman believed that the pinnacle of personal happiness and social success, was the American dream which is defined as possessing great wealth and status.
In order to achieve wealth and status, both characters put on a façade. First, both Fitzgerald and Miller’s characters worshipped a person from the past. Secondly, the authors created characters who had low self-esteem and so strove to be well liked by everyone. Thirdly, the authors created characters who never truly earned their wealth or status nobly but lied to build what they had gained.
These points summed up how the quest for American dream for the characters diminished their inner character and identity. To understand this quest for identity some background concerning the titles of the novel and play, plus the author’s literary goals should be mentioned. F. Scott Fitzgerald had written The Great Gatsby during the 1920’s, known as the Jazz Age or the Roaring twenties. World War I had ended and the moral certainty of our nation was destroyed. Fitzgerald had created a character, Jay Gatsby, who was searching for the American dream with no morals by taking up the occupation of a bootlegger, a forerunner of drug running, which was illegal and looked down upon but which paid extremely well. Gatsby’s extreme wealth and extravagant parties had given him great status which is partially reflected in the title.
Miller’s Death of a Salesman, focused on how individuals followed the value system given by society . Miller’s Willy Loman, was a character who was concerned with the appearance of individuals and not their inner characteristics or thoughts. Willy Loman also had to be not only liked but well liked by everyone in society.
The protagonist of The Great Gatsby, James Gatz, had been born into a poor family of whom he was embarrassed. At the age of seventeen, James met a wealthy man, Dan Cody. Viewing Dan Cody as an idol, James strived to be as wealthy and assumed a new identity, Jay Gatsby. Jay pretended to have an Oxford education. That was a lie to fit in a social class where he did not belong and to gain Daisy Buchanan’s love. Daisy was a woman from Jay’s past who he thought he had loved, but his understanding of who she was as a person was an illusion.
Daisy was a beautiful woman who came from a wealthy family. Jay was a young man who had lied about his status but when he in fact became wealthy, using illegal means because Daisy earlier was forbidden to marry him because he was poor, Daisy still did not commit to him.
This left Gatsby wealthy but with low self-esteem and lacking love, trust and friendship despite his having gained a reputation and cachet for having thrown parties where hundreds would attend. Being so empty, Gatsby would not mingle with his guests. He tried to fool himself that he was well liked for himself and not his wealth. Ironically, at the end of the novel at his funeral, only his father who Jay had abandoned appeared proving that Jay Gatsby’s new identity was an empty one for it never brought the love and true respect he so craved.
In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman was a normal common man, but that was intolerable to him. Willy strived to be a major social figure. Early in his career, he had known a successful salesman, Dave Singleman. Dave was not only liked; he was well liked by all his clients. Adoration and wealth was Willy’s American dream, out of which he constructed his identity. Willy also tried raising his two sons to follow his American dream. The main conflict in the play was that Willy’s sons, especially Biff, did not live up to Willy’s standards. Willy had always thought that Biff would succeed due to his exceptionally handsome appearance and because he was well liked.
But Biff’s confidence in his father and himself was shattered when he had found Willy with another woman. Biff had always believed and admired his father for his supposed success. Biff’s confidence was never the same and he no longer viewed his father as a role model. Parents are children’s primary role models and when that is lost, the children are lost in life. The problem Willy had was that he was never well liked nor a successful salesman. Telling lies to save face with himself and his family deluded Willy. A man with such pride, Willy never allowed his family to know his self-esteem was destroyed. Willy had tried to convince himself with his lies that he was not a failure. Due to his powerful self-hatred and guilt of his past memories, he becomes emotionally ill and has flashbacks of his past. For example, one of the most morbid flashbacks was a delusional conversation he had had with his deceased brother Ben. Willy had felt he was worthless. He ultimately decided to commit suicide for the life insurance money. At the play’s conclusion, t his funeral, as with Jay Gatsby, only his immediate family showed up. These were the people who really knew him as the true Willy Loman.
The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman are tragic stories that revolved around an individual trying to find his identity. The main characters of each, Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, are men with low self-esteem who were dead to who they really were on the inside. Despite each man’s success, Jay and Willy viewed themselves as failures. With extensive lies, their new identities, and illusions, they felt they could fool themselves into happiness. Both stories end tragically in murder and suicide but the real tragedy was that these were men who tried fooling themselves that they were well loved by society, but in reality were truly loved by family whose love they ignored or dismissed when compared to that of the larger society.