A psychoanalysis of Arthur miller's death of a salesman in terms of Cathy Caruth's theory PTSD

Abstract EN

The field of psychoanalysis is an enormous domain to study and analyze related literary works especially in the genre of psychic trauma as this of close connection with the nature of human beings.

Accordingly, the modern American theorist Cathy Caruth (b.1955) endows the psychoanalytic theories with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder theory (PTSD) in which the focus is on the revelation of trauma after passing with a period of experience in which there are editing, filtering, inserting imagination, metaphorical expressions, using defensive mechanism, and alike.

The American dramatist Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) is the sample of this study in which the character of Willy Loman, a salesman, is the case on which Caruth's PTSD is studied.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the character of the protagonist psychologically in terms of the main symptoms or principles of the selected theory.

The major line of the study is based on several questions including: (1)What are the main principles of Caruth's theory found in the selected play? (2) How far is the protagonist depicted with the sample theory? (3) Is there a connection between the chosen play and the depended theory? In significance, this paper is expected to serve the field of literature by dealing with the art of drama and the field of psychology by focusing on the mentioned theorist and her theory, as well as it shows the connection between those two fields.

Structurally, the study begins with an introduction illustrating the theorist and her theory on the one hand and the playwright and his play, on the other hand.

Then it analyses the play according to the chosen theory.

The conclusion sums up the main findings.