The Original title of the play was Inside his head. In what way does Miller enable the audience to see inside Willy's head?

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The Original title of the play was Inside his head. In what way does Miller enable the audience to see inside Willy's head?

Arthur Miller chose to write, in the contemporary tragedy Death of A Salesman, about the story of an ordinary man driven by his own interpretation of the American dream. What characterizes this play is the way he does this : Miller breaks the boundaries of classical conventions of playwriting by allowing the audience to enter, visually as well as emotionally, Willy’s mind in order to permit a better comprehension of the latter’s inevitable tragic fate. Hence, the mingling of past and present in the play, essential in this role, and the way it affects Willy’s view of the world and life in general, will be analysed.

From the start of Act One, as the setting of the play is announced, an analogy between Willy’s interior and his exterior, his environment, is made : “An air of dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality”. It seems that the house embodies the essence of Willy’s character : his dreams and the illusions they bring about. Miller warns us : “the entire setting is […] in some places, partially transparent”, this is representative of the gaps, the holes, in Willy’s mind allowing past and present to merge in the play and eventually bring him down. Present is shown as being limited by fragile imaginary boundaries, breaking down as soon as the past emerges, bringing to light the frail presence, if not the absence, of a clear separation between past and present in the character’s mind from the start of the play. Miller’s aim is to erase any gap between a remembered past that would be evoked through words and a present that would be performed on stage. Thus the characters exist both in the present and in the past (for example, Biff and Happy are seen as teenagers and adults during the play).

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As a result, in Willy’s mind, past and present exist on the same level, he perceives himself both in the present and in the past,  showing a certain sense of schizophrenia in his personality. He is led by contradictions, saying for example at one point that his son Biff is a “lazy bum” and, very shortly later, that “there’s one thing about Biff – he’s not lazy”. Overwork, worry and repressed guilt have caused Willy’s mental collapse and in this state of nervous breakdown, the notion of time is fading away. There is an evolution : the function of memory ...

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