Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman focuses on a man named Willie Loman in which his profession is sales and does adequately in terms of income, but his life is all but a failure. Willie does not live a good life because he has a mediocre job and his goals and dreams are not succeeded. He is a man who tries to pass himself off as a successful man but his life is not what he claims it to be. Willie is a man who does not have a true sense of himself and he is blinded by the realization of a terrible life he has. He does not even recognize how much his family loves and cares about him. Willie has no sense of what is real around him and he often tends to reject reality and this leads to the problems in Willie’s life in which can be evaluated from a Psychoanalysis perspective Death of a Salesman is a play that is psychoanalytic because of the numerous problems Willie faces with in his life in his life; problems that deal with his family and with himself. Willie’s problems are his repression, his troubling relationship with his sons and the American Dream.
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Willie problems of repression are regularly apparent in Death of a Salesman. Willie represses current memories to times when he was happier with his sons. Willie also represses his thoughts that could’ve made his family happier such as when he passed up a trip to go with his brother to Alaska at a diamond mine and his brother became rich from that venture. Willie also states numerous times that he had done well with his job and “knocked em dead” as he would say but he is just repressing the fact that he did not do to well. Willie uses “regression” which is a defense mechanism that means “when thoughts are temporarily pushed back out of consciousness and into unconsciousness” [6]. He always tries to claim that he lives the high life but that is him temporarily pushing the fact that others around him such as his brother Ben and especially his neighbor Bernard. He often resents others that are much more successful than him which is a good example of his regression. His daydreams are also a good example of his regression. He is in reality but on and off he frequently dips into a state of mind in times that were crucial in his life because he wants to forget the problems that he is currently facing. A psychoanalyst would describe Willies problem of repression and regression as what Freud would call fulfilling a “pleasure principal which means that people seek pleasure and avoid pain.” [Snyder, Lopez 1]
A scene in which Willie is shown using his pleasure principal is Willie’s daydream at Frank’s Chop House where Biff meets with Willie at the hotel. Willie was having an affair with another woman which would break the sanctity in Willie and Linda’s marriage. Biff meets with his father because he wants to tell him that he failed his math course and that he wants his father to talk to his teacher for him to pass math. Biff then finds out that there is another woman in the room with his father. When Biff is upset and cries about finding another woman in his room, Willie always tries to change the subject, and then tries to pass the woman off as a buyer staying in another room that needed a shower in his room because her room was being painted. This shows that he just wants to avert the problems him and his son has. Willie promises Biff that he will talk to his math teacher but Biff tells his father to forget it and that he tells Willie “You’re a phony little fake!” [Miller 3]
The issue with this line is that Biff begins to lose faith in his father and because of Willie trying to seek that “pleasure principal” with having an affair with another woman, Biff decides to not make up the math test and not go to college which makes Willie himself responsible for Biff’s failures. Freud would agree that the psychoanalysis behind this is that Willie seeks pleasure and that he wants to get away from his problems at home. He does not like to face problems head on and rather decides that he will get away from all that and avoid the problems he has in his life. Willie basically has lost in touch with reality and Willie agrees that Biff’s finding out that he had an affair is the reason that Biff has failed to fulfill what he had wanted his son to do. Biff in turn despises him after finding out about the affair and he does not want to fulfill the expectations that Willie had in store for him.
Not only does Willie affect Biff but he also affects his other son Happy. Happy is always into to women and his intentions to have relationships with women is also the same reason why Willie decided to have an affair with another women; reasons such as healing his repression through the “pleasure principal.” Since Biff gains more attention from his father, Happy feels left out from his father’s attention which is a problem he faces in his life. Although Happy has had a much more fulfilling life than Biff he shares the same problems that Willie has. He uses his “pleasure principal” to have affairs with numerous women. Happy also shows a sign of self-delusion as Willie shows since he lies about his success in his respected area of work. In one scene Happy tells Biff that he has had an affair with an engaged woman.
Happy’s affairs with women and his views on them can somehow stem from the idea of the Oedipal Complex. “The Oedipal Complex is when a boy is fixated on his mother and competes with his father for maternal attention, that a son feels that he has a rivalry towards his father over his mother [DiYanni 4][5].” Biff gets more attention from his father because he is the older one and he is the star of the football team, so Biff is number one to Willie. Since Happy did not have a strong influence on his father, he could have had a stronger influence towards his mother. It is possible that Happy feels that his father does not really interact with Linda so he feels that it is his responsibility to be closer with his mother than Willie is. That Happy is competing for his mother affections more than Willie is trying to do. Since Willie is lost in touch with reality and having affairs, he does not have a stronger influence on Linda than Happy has. The engaged woman that Happy has an affair with could represent Linda. Since Happy feels indifference towards Willie and Biff’s relationship he uses the engaged woman as a repressive strategy to get away from his jealousy towards Willie and Biff. Since
Happy says that he would like a woman like his mother, the engaged is woman is “Somebody with character, with resistance like Mom.” Meaning that in a way Happy has that kind of sexual attitude towards his mother. Happy also says that he has an overdeveloped sense of competition with the other guy that is engaged to wed the woman. The fact that he has affairs with other women because of the competition could mean that since he has indifferent feelings towards Willie, he takes those feelings out on the other men and that those men engaged to be wed to those women would represent Willie. Happy feels that in a way having sexual relations with those women is like getting back to the men, and that he could imagine that Linda is those women and Willie is those men.
The Oedipal Complex does not apply to just Happy, but Biff also. Near the end of the play, Willie decides to take the family car for a drive and subsequently crashes the car and commits suicide. Biff’s life has been a failure in Willie’s eyes and that Willie feels he has left his family down, especially Linda. Willie decided to kill himself because he now realizes that his life is all but a failure and there’s no need for him to be alive. He kills himself out of love, as crazy as it seems. By crashing the car and killing himself, his family will collect the insurance money collected from his accident and death. He died for the love of his son and he wanted him to have a better life since he has failed in his eyes. Despite losing respect from his son and viewing him as a failure, he still loved him so much that he killed himself. This scene pertains in a way to an Oedipal Complex because Willie has now handed his wife Linda to his sons. It is now Happy and Biff’s chance to take care of their mother. Although no sexuality will be between the two, Linda’s care is now at the hands of her two sons. It is Biff and Happy’s responsibility to decide what to do with the money and make sure that Linda is safe. It is now like both of them are married to her. Another reason why this is somehow an Oedipal Complex is because it was Biff that killed his father. Willie killed himself because he loves his son too much that he did not want to be a failure. Biff messed his mind up and that led to Willie committing suicide. So in a way, the case is that the son kills his father and takes over the life of his mother.
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The American Dream has destroyed Willie with both his family and his personal self. The American Dream was an idea of success for Willie and that he wanted this goal so much. He always tries to sell this idea of achieving the dream and living a happy life with his son Biff. But when Biff found out about his father’s affair in the hotel scene, he began to lose his trust on his father and where Willy ultimately lost his son’s respect for him. This is the time where the American Dream had begun to make Willy lose it psychologically and lose himself in reality. Willie at this time was now unable to sell the idea of the American Dream to Biff and now this causes Willie to lose trust on the idea of the American Dream.
The American Dream ultimately becomes the problem of the Loman’s because Biff mistrusts his father and this leads to Willie leaving his family. The American Dream is also a problem for Willie because it makes him seem delusional. He always thinks he is successful and dislikes his neighbor Bernard. Bernard had a much more successful life than Willie, his son his smart and successful and this enables a strong dislike from Willie. Since Bernard is actually living the American Dream himself, Willie still tries to regard himself more superior to Bernard and that he is living the American Dream not Bernard. Since Willie was too busy worrying and focusing solely to achieve the American Dream, it causes him self-delusion which results in his repression and his poor relationship with his family.
With his idea of the American Dream, Willie was being selfish and it caused him to have a falling out with his family. Willie realized that he was not achieved the American Dream and that he has failed with his own life. Having lost respect from Biff and no connection with Linda and Happy, he feels that his life has no meaning and that he has nothing to live for. The idea of the American Dream has killed him psychologically and because the American Dream has mentally broken him down, it ultimately leads to his suicide. Willie feels it was his fault for letting his family down and giving them a mediocre life so he kills himself so that his family will collect the insurance money and live a better life than what Willie has provided upon them. Since he realized he failed with his own life he did not want his sons and his wife to continue to have a failed life that they have always lived.
Death of a Salesman can be viewed as a Psychoanalytic play because Willie faces so many problems that damage his life. His repression ultimately leads to the loss of respect from his Biff. His repressive action also affects his son Happy. Willie repressiveness leads to tarnishing the relationship he has with his sons. Because Willie was delusional and always striving for the American Dream, it leads to his own self downfall which causes himself to commit suicide. Willie’s mind is the ultimate subject for the Psychoanalysis of Death of a Salesman. The way his mind thinks leads to the problems he faces with his family and his own personal self and this is how Death of a Salesman can be viewed in a Psychoanalytic perspective.
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