In the play, Death of a Salesman, Willy’s hallucinations about his past life and brother Bernard convey his psychological problem of living in the past. Throughout the entire play Willy’s illusions are intertwined with his present life. By seeing into his mind, the reader sees why Willy is the way he is and where he comes from. Willy’s dream is to be a wealthy, well liked business man. Reputation seems to be everything to him, even towards his boys Happy and Biff. For example, they look up to him and see him as the perfect, held together father when they are little and Willy sees them as becoming just like him as he says, “you guys together could lick the civilized world” (67). We see how proud Willy is of Biff in his dreams as he brags about him saying “he has nerves of iron” and that he will become a football star (55). It is in these dreams that Willy is happy and proud because he is the one who is on top and looked upon. However, when Biff discovers that his father’s life was all a lie when he catches him in an affair, he loses all admiration. This could then be seen as the decline of Willy’s state of mind as he loses the trust and respect of his first son.
In addition to the reputation and popularity that Willy seeks for, he also looks up to success and wealth, especially in his brother Bernard. Whenever Willy seems to see his dead brother it is when things go terribly wrong with his job or he is distressed about money. Willy hallucinates about his brother because he found and became everything Willy had wanted to be. Although Willy had always wanted the life of his brother and had pretended to find the riches and success in business, he ultimately had failed to go out and grasp it. Therefore, the reader also sees that Willy’s mental state is a result of failure and abandonment.
Ultimately, Willy is trying to live his life through his kids because he did not achieve his own dream of success and riches. It is his own distress and disappointment that drives him deeper into a sense of madness when his kids don’t follow and become what he has wanted them to. Now, not only does Willy fail to prosper in his own life but he also fails when trying to prosper through the lives of Happy and Biff as they do not want the same things as him. Through Willy’s psychological state his fears become reality when he kills himself and no one comes to his funeral. He dies without riches, without a high reputation, and without success and honor.
They really are a manifestation of his inner thoughts, aren't they? Like, these illusions are not ones of past realities, but of Willy's subjective psyche. The rosy hallucinations illustrate his own tendency to "lie" to himself about the way things were, and how "perfect" things had been, while the "Ben" hallucinations remind him of how he's failed to achieve what he set out to do... The "other woman" hallucinations have the feeling of a nightmare to them and enter in at the peak of his feelings of failure. Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteGreat employment of the psychological lens Kelsey-- this is exactly the direction you'd want to move in, writing from this perspective. I'll give you guys a list of psychological terms to use if you choose this lens for your research paper which will bolster your analysis, but you're definitely getting the sense of this particular viewpoint!
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