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Struggles Faced in Death of a Salesman and Fences

g a financially stable household. Now he struggles to keep a steady income. Willy understands society’s emphasis on the importance of a profitable worker. Linda says, “A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He works for a company for thirty-six years this March, opens up unheard-of territories to their trademark, and now in his old age they take his salary away” (Miller 1713). Willy works his whole life with a stable job, which is suddenly jeopardized. Willy struggles internally with feelings of worthlessness because of his job situation. In his interview with the Paris Review, Miller says Willy believes a man who experiences “failure in society and in business has no right to live” (2035). In her work titled Marxism and the Early Plays of Aurther Miller, Helge Nilsen states, “Human beings are sacrificed to economic interests in ways that are not only immoral, but even criminal in nature” (2038). Society places a huge emphasis on a person’s economic status, and Willy begins to struggle with this immensely. Willy falls victim “by the free play of economic forces,” and this is a main conflict theme in the play (Nilsen 2039). In Fences, the character Troy also faces conflict with society. His conflicts are not necessarily based on economic problems, but rather on feelings of injustice brought on by the white race. Troy believes the white man is out to destroy the black man. The audience sees Troy’s attitude toward white men in the following:I told that boy about that football stuff. The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football. I told him when he first come to me with it. Now you come telling me he done went and got more tied up in it. He ought to go and get recruited in how to fix cars or something where he can make a living. (Wilson 1838)Troy discourages his son, Cory, from playing football because he thinks sports wi...

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