The Fall of Alger's Success Myth in Arthur Miller's Play

• Author: Marsela Turku
• Position: Aleksander Moisiu University Durrës, Albania
• Pages: 241-245

241

IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania

Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol. 1 No. 3

November 2015

ISSN 2410-3918

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

The Fall of Alger’s Success Myth in Arthur Miller’s Play

Dr. Marsela Turku

Aleksander Moisiu University Durrës, Albania

Abstract

Alger’s theory supported the idea that the key to success lies in the character. His heroes rise

to the top by being devout (but not pious). They are likeable chaps with a ready quip and a

vigorous sense of humour. Alger’s belief that all people are equal in God’s eye, implied that

opportunities offered to people are equal, thus their success lies inside their personality, their

personal magnetism, their virtues, their gifts. Therefore it is only our character that seals our

success or failure. This theory not only prevailed before the twentieth century, but also was a

model that many people believed and created their way of living. Arthur Miller in his play

Death of a Salesman examines the fall of Alger’s success myth in modern society through the

main character. Willy’s restless and uneasy psychological aspect is the main aspect where

Miller based this tragedy. In this paper we will focus in the Alger ’s myth theory, its influence

in the play and the tragedy it provokes by not changing the attitude.

Keywords: myth, Alger’s theory, failure, American dream.

Introduction

According to Max Weber, the myth of success has its roots in the seventeenth-century

bourgeois England and later this idea entered America by being referred to as the

“land of opportunity.” This land offered unlimited and equal opportunities for

everyman who tried his luck and in a short period of time the successful man become

the idol, the one to be followed and admired. This ready-made formula offered and

nourished by a considerable number of important writers, philosophers and politicians

of the time indoctrinated the American people with the myth of success and the

people who could achieve it. The Americans believed that material success was to be

taken as a sign of God’s blessing and reward of the virtue.

The clergyman whose name is mostly linked with the myth of success is probably

Horatio Alger. Between 1868 and 1926 his books sold ten millions of copies.

He developed a formula for his dream of success that Lynn defines as:

Like many simple formulations which nevertheless convey a heavy intellectual and emotional

change to vast numbers of people, the Alger hero represents a triumphant combination- and

the reduction to the lowest common denominator –of the most widely accepted concepts in the

nineteenth-century American society. The belief in the potential greatness of the common

man, the glorification of the common man, the glorification of individual effort and

accomplishment, the equation of the pursuit of money with the pursuit of happiness and of

business success with spiritual grace: simply to mention these concepts is to comprehend the

brilliance of Alger’s synthesis (1955: 6-7)

Alger’s theory supported the idea that the key to success lies in the character. His