The Loman Family’s State of Mind : A Psychoanalytical Reading of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

This essay will analyse the members of the Loman family of Death of a Salesman from a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective. The purpose is to understand what goes on inside the mind of these characters through Freud’s structural model of personality, the Id, Ego and Superego. The members of the Loman family are no longer happy with their lives. It becomes evident that the family members were not always acting rationally and never took appropriate measures to improve their happiness. They do not know why they are feeling the way they feel and act as they do. The thesis is that by looking at the Loman family through Freudian psychoanalysis of the personality and its defence mechanics, we will get an explanation as to why the family is acting the way that they are, and what might have led them to this point