The value of a dream in Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the SunHow do you evaluate a dream? This question arises when reading Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Although the two novels are very different, the stories and characters share many similarities. The Death of a Salesman is about a family's difficulty in dealing with unfulfilled dreams. A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a family's struggle to reach agreement on a shared dream. In each of these stories, there are conflicts between the dreams that each character is struggling to realize. In Death of a Salesman, Happy and Biff are unsure of where they stand in life and seek only simple, already tangible things. at hand. Biff: “I don't know what I'm supposed to want,” and Happy: “I don't know what the hell I'm working for,” means they both feel like they haven't made any progress. All they want to do is work with their hands, shirtless and with their backs to the sun. Neither Biff nor Happy have fought to get to where they feel safe, otherwise they wouldn't admit these things. And they both also rejected the truth; Biff saying, "It doesn't matter. Don't put it all in my hands" and Happy saying, "Don't put it all at my feet." Happy also wants to believe that everything is fine; Happy is fine, as long as he can convince himself that everyone around him is fine. Towards the end of the story, when Biff accuses everyone of lying, Happy exclaims, "We've always told the truth!" but early on he admitted to Biff, "You see, Biff, everyone around me is so false that I constantly lower my ideals." Willy Loman wants his dreams so badly that, in his... paper... to survive. The young people never left the house; the house was the only place of action. He was the mainstay, even if he wasn't great. They made it the pillar with their pride and their faith. Willy Loman died with a certain sense of honor and dignity. He knew he would make his family finally and truly proud, and more importantly, he knew that Biff loved him, and always had. There is no such thing as a wasted life, as long as there are dreams that cloud reality and, possibly, make them possible. Works consulted: Bloom, Harold. American literature of the twentieth century. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Draper, James P. Black Literature Criticics. Detroit: Gale Research Incorporated, 1992. Hansberry, Lorraine. A raisin in the sun. New York: Signet, 1988. Miller, Arthur. Death of a salesman. New York: Viking, 1995.