Desire And Fear-Probing The Soul Of The Ordinary Men In Death Of A Salesman From Psychoanalytic Perspective

Arthur Miller(1915-2005) was one of the leading American playwrights of the twentieth century.More than any other playwright working today,Arthur Miller has dedicated himself to the investigation of the moral plight of the white American working class.With a sense of realism and a strong ear for the American vernacular,Miller has created characters whose voices are an important part of the American landscape.His insight into the psychology of desperation and his ability to create stories that express the deepest meanings of struggle,have made him one of the most highly regarded and widely performed American playwrights.Miller's masterpiece as it is,Death of a Salesman(1949) tells a story about a four-member family,in which each of them is busy all day shuttling between work and family in order to satisfy their inner desire and crankiness but has to lead a painful life under that society and their inward dread.Their behaviors pushed by their inner thoughts are fully and vividly displayed.They have so much in common with today's trivial and ordinary lives that they move our hearts and urge us to reconsider our own.This thesis mainly adopts Freud's belief in unconsciousness,and tries to explain the behaviors of the main characters in Death of a Salesman with their unconscious motives,which are desire,fear and sometimes mixed with Oedipal Complex.This thesis contains three parts—introduction,body and conclusion.In the introduction part,it briefly introduces Arthur Miller and his writing features, as well as Death of a Salesman and its reputation.In the body,this thesis costs two chapters to analyze the behaviors of characters with Freudian unconsciousness theory,from the perspectives of desire and fear,and try to find out what they are longing for from the society and the family and why they fear death and intimacy.Thus two chapters respectively contain two parts.Chapter one depicts characters' desire for social success and domestic love.Under the drive of social success,Willy tries to achieve a successful career,Biff unconsciously strives to earn being well-liked under his father's influence,while Happy struggles for a higher position in work.On the way to domestic love,Willy tends to enjoy wife's godly admiration,children's filial piety and other women's tenderly care,and Biff desires to be properly treated by his parents instead of being blindly appraised,while Happy longs for his parents' more attention to him,and Linda pursues material prosperity and husband's love.In chapter two,this thesis mainly states their fear for death and intimacy. Here,death is broadly spoken to refer to abandonment,ignorance,loss and the like.At youth,Willy lost his father who left the family and sold his flutes by traveling around the country,and that patriarchal loss leads to Willy's failure to define himself properly and accept any "change".Biff at high school time accidentally discovered his father's hypocrisy and since then he denied any good image of his father and converted his hatred to Willy to his love and protection for mother.Willy and Biff both suffer from being abandoned and to Happy and Linda who have no such being abandoned experience they are afraid of getting lost of what they have had.As to the fear for intimacy,it comes out from the sick mind that the more intimate with your friends,the more weaknesses you'll expose to them.Thus,in the play,every family member suffers from such a fear that they try to keep a distance from closeness,which in turn properly explains why Willy feels self-contempt,why Biff frequently changes his job,why Happy likes to fool around with his girlfriends,and why Linda treats Willy perfectly.By analyzing Lomans' behaviors,we see their desirous souls held back under the pressure of the relentless reality and their hearts surrender without pursuing and feeling the real happiness due to their inner fear.From this way,this thesis finally gets a conclusion that it is the unconsciousness of desire and fear that determines to behave them.The eternal topic of unsatisfied desires is fully stated in this play.Meanwhile,it also tells a story of the ordinary men of America during the Depression,which is so closely linked with the present Chinese affected a lot by the western value view,that by exploring their behaviors,we can better understand the play,learn a lesson and adjust our attitudes in our life.Thus,this thesis is meaningful not only for its literary value but also for its significance in reality.