Dave’s funeral touches Willy much and affects him deeply. Willy dreams of being a Dave-typed salesman that when he is alive, he can achieve success in his career and when he is dead, people holds a grant memorial ceremony to commemorate his performance and conduct. However, the reality is that Willy is fired when he is 61, and after his death, only Linda, her sons, Charley and Bernard are present at his grave. His dream of success like Dave is just an illusion. “Willy is such a poor man that he is stimulated by the success dream but never savors the taste of real success”.(刘继新 99)
　　IV. Willy Gets Lost in the Choice of Life and Death
Willy’s agitation during his last days stems from a two-fold sense of failure that he no longer satisfies the demands of his own selling job, and he is unable to make his beloved son Biff succeed in his career. He is strongly concerned about the once magnificent young football star who is now at 34 drifting from one temporary ranch job to the next. Willy cannot walk away from Biff’s problem as Bernard suggests, nor can he accept Linda’s view that “Life is a casting off.” Being over 60, Willy is doubtless tired physically. The sample cases are heavy. The 700 drives are arduous. And many business contacts, developed over the years, are vanishing as the men of his era die or retire(Nourse 115).
　　Life seems meaningless. At this time, suicide is like a diamond shining in the dark. To live or to die, that is a question which hovers in Willy’s head all the time. Willy loses himself in the choice of life and death. “Willy cannot easily accept his dream is broken. He prefers to kill himself to realize his dream and to maintain his dignity.”(李万钧389)
　　Willy is emotionally involved with Biff because his son’s success or failure is also his. “why cannot I give him something,” he asks Ben,” and not let him hate me?” “Since he does not achieve success of competition when he is alive, he would rather commit suicide to earn $20,000 premium. Or at least, it can relive his guilt that the Boston affair left Biff bitterly disillusioned.”(Roudance 60) And his great final moment of joy and triumph occurs when he exclaims,“ Isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!”(Miller 699)
　　Compared with life, Willy would rather choose death. It is the last chance that Willy attempts to realize his twisted ambition and the American Dream in the modern society. On the one hand, he hopes that he can use his life to purchase success for Biff. On the other hand, he wants to restore his dignity and self-value by death.
　　V. Conclusion
　　Arthur Miller developed the modern tragedy, and he chose the common people as the material of his play. Death of a Salesman discloses the existing plight of the unimportant man Willy Loman. Willy follows his faith blindly, pursues the realization of the American Dream and lives in his self-designed ideals throughout the life, which are all out of tune with reality. The conflict of reality and dream tortures Willy and makes him disturbed and perplexed.
　　Willy lives under tremendous pressure from familial and social realms of the American life, and he cannot survive his frustrated psychology. He is gradually lost in the boundary of the present and the past, in the mixture of illusion and reality, and in the choice of life and death. He cannot find the orientation of the road and the outlet of life. His death is unavoidable. His tragedy reminds us to wake up from memories and fantasies, and establish the correct values.
　　
　　参考文献：
　　[1]Mi11er,Arthur.Death of a Salesman[M].Scott:Foresman Company,1989.
　　[2]Nourse,Joan Thellusson.Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and All My Sons[M]. New York:Simon&Schuster Inc,1997.
　　[3]Paine,Thomas.Illusion Versus Reality in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.Las Vegas:Art and Humanities Literature Helium Inc.
　　[4]Roudane,Matthew C.Death of a Salesman and the Poetics of Arthur Miller[J]. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1997.
　　[5]李万钧.欧美名剧探魅[M].福州:海峡文艺出版社,1987.
　　[6]刘继新.文化透视下的美国梦[J].西安外国语学院学报,1999,7,(4).
　　[7]马云可.一位普通美国人的悲剧原型[J].四川外国语学院学报,2005,21,(2).
 

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