Discuss Miller's Presentation of Self-Deception in Death of a Salesman.
Jonathan Ensall
Discuss Miller's Presentation of Self-Deception in Death of a Salesman
Throughout the play, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman distorts the truth. Often his lies and exaggerations are not immediately recognisable as symptoms of his self-deception because they appear true. For example, Willy's claim that he is, 'Vital (to business) in New England' is not disproved until he loses his job in Act II. In this way Miller establishes a complex pattern of self-deception throughout the play which the characters either condone or refute as suits their purpose.
There are, however, other presentations of Willy's self-deception that I find more straightforward. There is an immediately observable disparity between Willy's perception and reality when Willy physically enters his memories. He experiences what could be described as flashbacks however Miller asserts that, 'There are no flashbacks in, (Death of a Salesman) but only a mobile concurrency of past and present' Suggesting that Willy's delusional visions of the past are as real to him as his experiences in the present.
Miller introduces Willy's older brother Ben as a hallucination when Willy has to make important decisions. Willy idolises Ben, despite having only met him a few times during his adult life, because Ben has achieved easy and lucrative success. I view their interchanges as representative of the mental processes that Willy goes through in order to reassure himself that his choices are informed and objective. For example, in the play's final act Ben summarises Willy's decision to commit suicide as, 'A perfect proposition all around'. Despite the fact that Ben's judgement is just a function of his own opinion, Willy needs this affirmation to give the idea status inside his own head. He is not only deceiving himself that Ben is with him, but that Ben's opinions are more reliable that his own.
Willy's over-optimistic predictions for the future can be seen as self-deceptive as they have no basis in any reality in the present. For example, Willy convinces himself that he will be able to repay the money that Charley has given to him, despite having just lost his job. His opinion that his son Biff is, 'Full of all kinds of greatness', is based upon his memory of Biff's past successes as a football player and not on his present situation. In my opinion, Willy's over-estimation of his son's abilities arises not only from his subjectivity as a father ...
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Willy's over-optimistic predictions for the future can be seen as self-deceptive as they have no basis in any reality in the present. For example, Willy convinces himself that he will be able to repay the money that Charley has given to him, despite having just lost his job. His opinion that his son Biff is, 'Full of all kinds of greatness', is based upon his memory of Biff's past successes as a football player and not on his present situation. In my opinion, Willy's over-estimation of his son's abilities arises not only from his subjectivity as a father but his flawed personal value system. It is of paramount importance to Willy that Biff is, 'Well liked'. He says to Linda, 'How can a man with such personal attractiveness be lost?' However Willy is deluding himself that Biff's social merits hold any importance in the business world. Miller's timely re-introduction of the, now successful, character Bernard illustrates this point. Willy, after being sacked from his job, comes face to face with the evidence that his theories on success were misguided as Bernard was the boy who Willy told his sons 'Will not succeed in business' because he was, 'Not well-liked'. Bernard has succeeded in the traditional sense of the, 'American Dream', in that the amount of his success is directly proportional to the amount of his hard work. However, because his hard work has not brought him the same rewards, Willy deceives himself that there is a, 'Secret' to success.
Biff's 'Desire is to be outdoors.' ties in with other traditional American dreams such as the acquisition of territory and self-sufficiency. He travels west in order to try and, 'find himself' by escaping the distorting influence of his father's self-deception. Brian McCary writes, 'If there is any characteristic about the second half of 20th century which stands out, it is the broad popular acceptance of Biff's choice: to leave home to, 'find yourself'. This statement gathers more truth as Biff's situation is compared to the life of the writer Jack Keruoac. Not only did Kerouac's life coincide chronologically with Biff's, they shared many of the same ambitions. A prominent member of the, 'Beat Generation', Kerouac's disillusionment with his life in Queens, New York caused him to go West on a journey of self-realisation. Due to these similarities, it can be said that Biff Loman was the, 'theatrical herald' of the, 'Beat Generation' because his ambitions matched those which were surfacing in America at the time of the play's creation.
Despite disapproving of Biff's work it appears to me that Willy shares some of Biff's aspirations. As his futile attempts to plant seeds demonstrate, Willy desperately wants to become self-sufficient by working with the land. However Willy 'can't raise a carrot in (his) own backyard' because of local urbanisation. In Act I Willy insinuates that skilled manual labour is lowly by saying to Biff,
'Even your grandfather was better than a carpenter'
However by Act II his ambition has become to build a house in the country with a guesthouse for each of his sons. Willy is deceiving himself that he can ever alleviate his sense of being, 'temporary' whilst he is salesman, because he has no permanent, personal investment in the products he sells. However he is also deceiving himself that he will ever be able to fulfil his pastoral ambitions because his proud dreams of achieving commercial success and a high level of social esteem keep him in the city.
After Biff steals a pen from his former employer's office he experiences an epiphany, and gains a clearer understanding of his objectives. He says to Willy,
'Why I am trying to become what I don't want to be?'
Biff escapes his self-deception when he realises that being, 'a dime a dozen' worker allows him to have the things he values most in life, 'the work, the food, the time to sit and smoke'. He achieves a higher degree of self-knowledge and stability by doing what Willy cannot, accepting the limited extent of his own abilities, forming a clear understanding of what is valuable in life and refuting his 'phoney dream' of commercial success.
Whereas Bill Oliver's pen can be seen as a symbol of commercial success, the rubber pipe that Willy has prepared for his suicide can be seen as a symbol of Willy's self-deception. I view the other characters reactions to the pipe as representational of their attitude towards Willy's self-deception. Linda, always anxious to protect her husband from recognising his self-deception, tries to conceal it. Linda knows that Willy is suicidal; that he has been borrowing money from Charley and that he is not, 'the finest character who ever lived'. Although she views events around her with startling clarity, for example she is able to tell her son Happy that he is, 'a philandering Bum', she chooses to shield Willy from the truth she so clearly recognises. Happy's response to seeing the pipe, 'you crazy', suggests that his inverse mindset equates the acceptance of reality with madness.
Ronald Hayman writes that, 'Willy's downfall derives from his personal failure in relation to his values and from the failure of the values themselves' a hypothesis that is supported by Willy's final act of self-deception, suicide. Just as Willy sought the perceived success associated with wealth and acclaim in life, these same factors became the unattainable objectives behind his death and it is the play's final irony that Willy's most brazen act of self-deception is his own suicide.
