<i>Death of a Salesman</i> and the poetics of Arthur Miller

Roudane, Matthew

doi:10.1017/ccol052155019x.005

Cited by 11 publications

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“…She does not tell him that she knows about the rubber pipe she found in the kitchen to preserve his dignity as a great man. As Roudané (1997) explains Linda contributes to Willy Loman's truth-illusion matrix though she knows that he has been trying to kill himself (70).…”

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The Agony of Deceit, Self-deception, and Pretense: A Comparative Study of Selected Twentieth-Century American Drama of Deceit

Mahfouz

2011

Neophilologus

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This study sheds light on the fake shelters that masters of deceit and pretense in modern and contemporary American drama take refuge into flee the harsh realities they are entrapped in and the agonies they suffer as a result of being deceitful. The study discerns four types of deceit that pervade the entire modern American dramatic canon: familial, political, aesthetic, and economic deception. Though these masters of deceit resort to using different forms of deceit, they all seem to unconsciously use self-deception or pretense as a psychological coping mechanism. The theoretical background of the study is based on the contemporary poetics of deceit stated in Loyal Rue's By the Grace of Guile, Anthony Abbot's The Vital Lie and Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death.Keywords Agony Á Deceit Á Pretense Á American drama Á Contemporary Á Modern Á Psychoanalysis Influenced by their European counterparts, particularly Luigi Pirandello, Henrik Ibsen and Bernard Shaw, American playwrights have portrayed different types of characters inclined to deception. American dramas of deceit depict several types of dramatic deceit that range from the harmless to the most wicked and destructive. To portray the meaninglessness of modern life and man's insignificance, littleness and nothingness in a money-spinning world inimical to happy survival, some characters in modern and contemporary drama have been reduced to insignificant figures helplessly trying to achieve the integrity and dignity of their personalities as

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confidence: 99%