This essay aims to analyze how and why Willy Loman, in the play Death of a Salesman, employs defense mechanisms from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. Anna Freud’s research on defence mechanisms, along with Sigmund Freud’s original work on psychoanalysis, will be the primary source for the analysis. The psychoanalysis conducted during this essay examined Willy via the defense mechanisms of repression and regression, and concluded that Willy often uses these mechanisms, especially when his interpretation of the American Dream is threatened. The character in question uses these Freudian concepts to protect his ego from realizing that he cannot live up to his own expectations regarding the American Dream. Willy's psyche cannot accept the fact that he is unable to reach the dream. Instead, he attempts to achieve the American Dream via his son, which ultimately fails as well. Willy cannot handle the fact that neither he nor his sons can adequately fulfill Willy’s underlying desires. His mind gradually becomes poisoned by the American Dream, which leads him to have an onset of neurosis and subsequently his death.
Viggo Back (Thu,) studied this question.