Illusion, Disillusion, and Disillusionment in 3 Plays: A Doll's House, Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun

In each of A Doll's House, Death of a Salesman, and A Raisin in the Sun, the main characters suffer from illusion, become disillusioned, and come to a tragic end because of the disillusionment. In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora Torvald abandons her family to escape the restrictive confines of patriarchy, marriage, and economic control of women typical of her society. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, after years of maintaining illusions about himself, his family, and the American Dream, succumbs to disillusionment and ultimately commits suicide. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Younger Jr.'s disillusionment over living in a racist society where opportunities for African Americans are limited nearly breaks apart his family before he is rescued by their love. In this sense, Nora and Willy's fates are more tragic than Walter's, but the illusions and disillusionment of all three of these characters serve as specific criticisms of society by each of the authors of these respective plays. This analysis will show how illusion, disillusion, and disillusionment serve to affect the characters in these three dramas, as well as the social critique offered by Ibsen, Miller, and Hansberry respectively.

Far from being an equal in her own right, an illusion Nora believes comes with marriage, Torvald's treatment of his wife creates disillusionment in Nora. Nora believes men have controlled her all her life and expected them to

time then so when you finally paid for them, they're used up" (Miller 73). Ultimately, Willy will become disillusioned when he realizes his life's efforts have done little more than use him up, with little reward. His son Happy is an unscrupulous business man and his other son Biff hates his father for his past sins. Linda tells Biff she knows Willy is trying to kill himself. She tells him he is "only a little boat looking for a harbor" and that he is "a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him" (Miller 56). What happens to Willy is he realizes that in a capitalistic system as a means of production he is worth more to his family dead than alive. Never having been able to succeed from hard work and sacrifice, Willy decides to kill himself so his family can have his life insurance money. In this sense, Miller's use of illusion and disillusionment is a critique of the American Dream and capitalism, which he views as using people up or exploiting them. As Miller (1727) wrote in his essay "Tragedy and the Common Man," "The wrong [in society] is the condition which suppresses man, prevents the flowing out of his love and creative instinct." Miller's views on the "wrong" in society could

Category: Arts - I