Shattered Ideals: A Marxist Analysis of the American Dream as Ideology and False Consciousness in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Abstract

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) offers a penetrating critique of American capitalist ideology and its psychological consequences for the individual. This paper implies a qualitative thematic textual analysis, guided by Marxist literary theory, to examine how the American dream functions as a hegemonic ideology and how false consciousness shapes Willy Loman’s self-perception, family relationships, and ultimate destruction. Textual evidence is drawn from key dialogues, character interactions, and recurring motifs, including the pursuit of material prosperity, nostalgia, self-delusion, and the collision of illusion with reality. The analysis proceeds in three stages: (1) identifying ideological structures embedded in the text, (2) tracing how these structures are internalized by characters, and (3) examining the psychological and relational consequences of that internalization. The findings demonstrate that Willy equates personal worth with economic success and social status, generating a destructive cycle of self-deception, family estrangement, and psychological disintegration. His inability to perceive the structural forces that govern his life exemplifies the operation of false consciousness as theorized in the Marxist tradition. This paper argues that Miller stages the American Dream not merely as private aspiration but as a mass ideology with profound psychological and relational costs that remain urgently relevant to contemporary debates on inequality and consumerism.

Keywords: American Dream, Marxist criticism, false consciousness, capitalist ideology, Death of Salesman