The play, The Death of a Salesman contains several significant themes. One such obvious theme is the theme of the American Dream, which we have all mentioned countless times. The theme of the American Dream involves the idea that hard work will produce wealth and great advantages in life. However, the positivity of this theme is not displayed in the play, rather the failure of the American Dream is displayed through Willy's life. Willy's life is shown to have a miserable quality along with large amounts of failure, including in his sons. The failure of Willy's pursuit for the American Dream wonderfully segways into another theme.
A great, but unfortunate theme, in The Death of a Salesman is that parts of life don't always turn out to be the way they present themselves. Willy's entire life show this theme through his constant troubles at home and at work. Although Willy constantly pursues his American Dream through great work and ownership of a house and even a car, Willy's life still contains cracks here and there. Willy's house and his possessions are in states of needed repair such as his car, his ceiling and his car. Furthermore, his career life is failing him and ultimately making him miserable. The unfortunate course of Willy's life shows how his initial thoughts of hark work to gain great advantages are not only different from what he imagined, but almost completely opposite.
One more theme of the Death of a Salesman is the fact that everybody has only a limited amount of time in life and that it is important to keep track of your time. Willy, as usual, is the character in the book that goes against this theme. Willy keeps no way to manage or track his time, therefore he has little bearing on where he is in life. Although Willy is getting old, especially in his career, he fails to recognize this fact and insists on continuing his work despite the loss of his good reputation and credibility. Therefore, due to Willy's loss of time, his life is slowly deteriorating without his realization.
