Death of a salesman willy's mental illness

Egotism or Mental Illness? Analyzing the Mind and Motivations of Willy Loman

Characters in fiction are always more than what we see on the page. In that way, they are

mirrors of us; we tend to make snap judgements about people based on how they look, what they

say, how they treat people, without pausing to consider what the underlying motivation or

emotion might be. One of the leading causes of disability in the United States is mental health

(Gaspar 2). Whenever someone is put in the situation of talking about mental illness, they try

their absolute best to change the subject to avoid any confrontation. Arthur Miller gives us a

character who is struggling with an issue that is uncomfortable for most people to talk about, and

neither Miller himself nor his protagonist may possess he language for addressing mental illness

that we discuss and diagnose more freely today. Miller shows us how his protagonists’ mental

situation and characteristics impact his work environment and family, as none of them has

language or coping mechanisms for addressing these problems. Willy Loman, regardless of the

time period in which he is presented, remains an eternal symbol of the taboo trauma of mental

illness in a man’s existence.

Being a salesman requires Willy Loman to travel to different places to get the job done.

He recently has not been able to make it to his destinations because he finds himself driving off

the road (Miller 1021). Willy claims he “…can’t seem to keep his mind to it” (Miller 1021). His

faithful and reassuring wife, Linda, is doing her best to avoid her husband’s reach in trying to say

that something is mentally wrong with him. She scrambles up a couple of exaggerated excuses as

S****** 2

to why Willy came back home early before making it to his destination. Linda first blames the

steering on the car (Miller 1021), but when her husband denies, she then continues to put the

blame on his glasses (Miller 1021). After Willy shoots down those beliefs, she suggests her

husband needing to rest his mind (Miller 1021).

While Willy is informing his wife on his mental issues, he continues to admit to having

“strange thoughts” (Miller 1021). Linda completely steers the conversation in a different

direction to keep from discussing his perceptions. What she fails to notice is Willy’s cry for help.

The strange thoughts Willy is having later expose themselves as hallucinations or delusions,

which are two symptoms of psychotic depression (Gournellis 19). Studies show that patients

with psychotic depression have a “decreased functional connectivity between the hypothalamus

and the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex compared to patients without psychotic symptoms”

(Oudega 2). The hypothalamus is the control center of the brain, and the subgenual anterior

cingulate cortex is the regulation of emotion; “…the communication between the hypothalamus

and the subgenual cortex is disrupted in patients with major depression with psychotic features”

(Sudheimer 849). Throughout the play, Willy continues to see apparitions of his dead brother and

daydreams of his life when he was younger.

Very rapid mood swings can potentially divert people away, because some people do not

have the patience to keep up with the unexpected changes of emotion. Although it was never

made certain throughout the play that Willy had a bipolar disorder, let alone any other mental

illness, he showed multiple signs of having it. One evening when Willy and Linda were

discussing their son, Biff, and his plans for his future, Willy begins getting lost in his thoughts.

Linda, unsurprisingly, tries to bring him out of it by changing the subject to a new type of cheese

she had bought. Willy snaps back to reality and immediately questions his wife as to why she

S****** 3

would get him a different kind of cheese when she knows he likes a specific kind (Miller 1023).

Poor Linda thought her husband would want a change. With tensions rising, an unhappy Willy

claims he does not want a change and questions why he is always being contradicted (Miller

1023). He then continues to complain about the environment and living situation, forgetting what

he was mad about in the first place. At the end of his little rant, he goes back and says “…How

can they whip cheese?” (Miller 1023). The two topics of whipped cheese and the environment

have nothing in common, but that is the power of bipolar disorder. It is “…one of the most

common psychiatric illnesses with cyclic changes in mood from mania or hypomania to

depression or vice versa. In bipolar disorder, the patient’s cognitive and behavioral abilities are

affected…” (Vedanarayanan 22).

Regardless of the time period in which this play takes place, mental illness is still looked

down upon. Nobody knows how to appropriately talk about the subject or what the treatment

plans are for it; therefore, Willy Loman goes about his dissatisfied life undiagnosed. A man like

Willy does not have the tools or coping skills to understand what is happening to him, let alone

express his state of mind. Since Willy goes untreated, it leads to him having suicidal thoughts,

attempting suicide multiple times, and then eventually succeeding.

There is a study shown that the highest risk of suicide in elderly people was associated

with “…diagnoses of affective psychoses, adjustment reaction, and depressive disorder” (Ho

364). Unfortunately, at the time, Willy was not able to be properly diagnosed with having any

mental health issues. His first attempt at suicide was by crashing his car (Miller 1049). Linda was

informed that her husband’s car accident was not entirely an “accident” (Miller 1049). She was

telling her two sons, Happy and Biff, of their father’s endeavors and how there was evidence of

his actions from their insurance inspector. There was a woman at the scene of the accident and

S****** 4

“…she was walking down the road and saw his car. She says that he wasn’t driving fast at all,

and that he didn’t skid. She says he came to that little bridge, and then deliberately smashed into

the railing… (Miller 1050). Not entirely phased by his actions, Biff continues to suggest that his

father “…probably just fell asleep again” (Miller 1050), but what he did not know about was his

second attempt.

Willy’s second attempt at suicide consisted of a rubber pipe (Miller 1050). Linda went

down to the basement one day to find a fuse box since the power went out and “…behind the

fuse box—it happened to fall out—was a length of rubber pipe” (Miller 1050). Willy’s intentions

were to stick the rubber pipe in a gas line in the basement and inhale through it. Distraught by

learning this new information about her husband, Linda periodically went down to the basement

when Willy was out of town for his job and hid the rubber pipe. But when he returned, she

placed the pipe back where she originally found it because she did not want to “insult” him

(Miller 1050). A study was conducted in “elderly people who died of suicide and had a history of

suicidal behavior were more likely to…suffer from major psychiatric disorders…” (Ho 369).

Willy’s final and successful attempt at ending his life was by speeding off and crashing his car,

again (Miller 1098).

Even though Willy expressed the symptoms of having psychotic depression and bipolar

disorder, he was never diagnosed. He had nobody to talk to and nobody to relate to. Fortunately,

we have treatment plans to go by today. For instance, “For elderly people with a past history of

suicidal behavior, psychiatrists should treat major psychiatric disorders aggressively and social

workers should be involved to help elderly resolve social problems such as being a burden to

family, loneliness, and social isolation” (Ho 373). Had this been available in Willy’s time, he

might have not been as motivated to end his life.

S****** 5

But regardless of the time, the discussion of mental illness has always been a touchy

subject to deal with. The struggling character Arthur Miller gave us should be a guide for us to

help future situations similar to his, instead of immediately seeing the worst in people based off

of their actions. People who struggle like Willy should not have to stay silent about how they are

feeling or what they are thinking about for society’s sake. The outcome of Willy Loman can be

preventable for many other sufferers if the world can see the importance of discussing mental

illness and mental health rather than being sensitive to the topic.

S****** 6

Works Cited

Gaspar, Fraser W., et al. “Rates and Predictors of Recurrent Work Disability Due to Common

Mental Health Disorders in the United States.” PLoS ONE, vol. 13, no. 10, Oct. 2018, pp.

1-14. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0205170.

Gournellis, R., et al. “Psychotic (Delusional) Depression and Suicidal Attempts: A Systematic

Review and Meta-Analysis”, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, vol. 137, no. 1, Jan. 2018,

pp. 18-29. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/acps.12826.

Ho, Roger C. M., et al. “Elderly Suicide With and Without a History of Suicidal Behavior:

Implications for Suicide Prevention and Management.” Archives of Suicide Research, vol.

18, no. 4, Oct. 2014, pp. 363-375. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13811118.2013.826153.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. The Norton Introduction to Literature, edited by Kelly J.

Mays, portable 12th ed., W. W. Norton, 2017, pp. 1018-1099.

Oudega, Mardien L., et al. “Exploring Resting State Connectivity in Patients with Psychotic

Depression.” PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 1-12. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209908.

Sudheimer, Keith, et. Al. “Decreased Hypothalamic Functional Connectivity with Subgenual

Cortex in Psychotic Major Depression.” Neuropsychopharmacology, vol. 40, no. 4, Mar.

2015, pp. 849-860. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1038/npp.2014.259.

Vedanarayanan, Lavanya, et al. “Identification of Factors Affecting Treatment Outcome in

Bipolar Disorder.” Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 61, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 22-26.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_346_18.