Death of a Salesman and The Price When people accept an ideal to live by it can be a glorious and noble thing unless they become so obsessed with the the ideal that it becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize their dream. This is especially true for two characters in Arthur Miller's plays Death of a Salesman and The Price. In these two plays Miller portays two lower-middle class men , Willie Loman and Victor Franz, respectivelly, who each live by an ideal that ultimately is self-defeating. Willie lived to pursue the American dream rather than living the American dream and Victor lived to serve and be decent rather than