Blurring The Lines In Death Of A Salesman

Blurring the lines is a technique often used to add more realism to texts; if the characters aren't fully good or bad they are more human and more life-like. So therefore many writers use this to create an increased feeling of tragedy as the reader or audience can now relate to their characters more because of their human-like faults. Both Keats and Miller ruthlessly blur the lines to add realism but also to make their readers and audience consistently question who the characters can be characterized as, a victim or a villain. Miller also uses the blurring of the lines to show how mental health affects a person, that it leads to a raging fight between the “sanity” and the not. In Lamia Keats questions what love is and if the lier or the honest
According to Janet Witalec his love of money “keeps him from acknowledging the value of human experience” Willy is obsessed with the American dream and he puts his own value on money. He attempts to control every part of his life so that it fits in with the dream. Linda mending her “stockings” is seen as a trigger to him because in the 40s women who mended their own stockings weren't women who lived in wealth. WIlly is a victim of society, a common man who loses his life to be more. The American dream brings hope but throughout this play Miller shows us how it also brings death. According to Leonard moss Willy’s death wasn't “not simply an escape from shame but as a last attempt to re-establish his own self confidence and his family's integrity”. His death meant that he would have helped the future of his family through insurance money. Even in his suicide his covetous feeling for the dream and for wealth hinders his feelings of empathy. Miller criticizes the dream as Willy hurts everyone to reach it even in death. This is the closest we get to a villian in death of a salesman as everyone is a victim of the society as of the time. However it also brings up the question that is Willy a completely innocent victim of society? Or did his own actions and wanting bring about his downfall? As unlike the other characters such as Biff, who doesn't believe in the dream and he “doesn't know how to do it”. Biff breaks the cycle we see in Willy’s character, his decision to realise the illusion and the futility of the American dream means that he made decisions, that he will live. But Willy makes the decision to keep lusting after the American dream. So if society is meant to be the villain then Willy is nothing but a willing