Hollie Selby
Explore the theme of Dreams and Escapism within Death of a Salesman and Road.
Death of a Salesman was written in 1949 in New York, right on the brink of a consumerist explosion. The American Dream that people had spent his life in pursuit of was suddenly altered and became highly materialistic. This left people, such as the character of Willy Loman, questioning their life and feeling secluded from this new wave of materialistic dream and the abandonment of self sufficiency. Along with this, other plays such as Cartwright’s Road was written and set in eighties Britain, in a northern Lancashire town. This was a time of high unemployment, particularly in the North, under Thatcher’s conservative power. The working class were hit hard and many declined into poverty, any dreams at this point would appear hopeless faced with recession and a government that showed no remorse to the characters depicted in Road. Both were faced with times of dramatic change that both sets of characters could not adjust to cope with, which is where escapism is used.
In the introduction of the play, Miller proves to his audience that dreaming is evident in Death of a Salesman. “An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality”. By using the phrase “rising out” this indicates that this dream is a way of escaping, this sets the scene and tone of the whole play and how Willy is in a constant dream, unable to acknowledge the reality of his existence. The structure of the play is constructed like a stream of consciousness throughout, adding to the overall theme. Parallel to this, the structure within road is fragmented to emphasise the state of life within Road and also to represent the broken relationships. The characters within Road make no effort to disguise the misery and reality apparent in their lives and portray it at face value through various monologues, which although are not structurally reality orientated the messages within them are. They are full of hopelessness and failed dreams and so for many; escapism is taking refuge in sex and alcohol to numb the despair and even starvation in an extreme case, as being a way out. However, some characters experience escapism through hallucination and Skin-Lad turned to religion to resolve his despair.
