Willy Les In Illusion example essay topic

An overwhelming desire for personal contentment and unprecedented reputation can often result in a sickly twisted distortion of reality. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, a man well-known for his intellect and wisdom finds himself blind to the truth of h life and his parentage. Arthur Miller's play, The Death of a Salesman, tells of a tragic character so wrapped up in his delusional world that reality and illusion fuse causing an internal explosion that leads to his undoing. Each play enacts the a man attempting to come to grips with his harsh reality and leaving behind his comfortable fantasy world. In the end, no man can escape the truth no matter how hard he may fight. In choosing the fragility of illusion over the stability of reality, th characters meet their inevitable downfall.

At the moment of his birth, Oedipus receives a prophecy from the Delphic Oracle which states his destiny, 'to grow up to murder his father and marry his mother (Sophocles 22). ' Shocked and dismayed by this horrific prophecy, his parents King Laius and een Jocasta of Thebes try to elude this inevitable curse by turning the infant over to a loyal servant, a Theban shepherd, to take Oedipus to 'a woody dell of Cithaeron' to be killed (63). After riveting his ankles together and leaving him to die of th elements, the old shepherd has a change of heart and hands the child over to a traveling shepherd from Corinth to take back to the childless King Polypus and Queen Merope to raise as their own son. For the next twenty years, Laius and Jocasta rule in Thes believing their son to be 'done away with (69). ' Unfortunately, Hera sends a drought associated with a sphinx to bedevil Thebes. A desperate Laius travels back to the Delphic Oracle for a reading while, in Corinth, Oedipus grows to manhood believing Py bus and Merope, the King and Queen of Corinth, to be his real parents.

Soon, he too learns of his dreadful fate and seeking to avoid it, he flees Corinth. As fate would have it, along the road, Oedipus crosses Laius' path in a chance meeting and after army being 'jostled off the road' by Laius, feels 'in furious and land [s] him a blow' that kills him, unwittingly fulfilling the first half of the prophecy (54). Traveling on to Thebes, Oedipus saves the city from the drought by solving the riddle of. Declared the new King of Thebes, he marries the widowed Queen Jocasta - his mother, unknowingly fulfilling the second half of the prophecy. For the next two decades, Oedipus rules successfully in Thebes until Hera sends a second drought to plague he city. After sending his brother-in-law, Creon, back to the Delphic oracle for a reading, Oedipus learns that the second drought will not be lifted until the city of Thebes 'discovers and banishes the just blood of Lauis' assassin (26).

' An over-confine, yet unknowing King Oedipus takes charge of the investigation, and in doing so, condemns himself. From the beginning of this unfortunate play Oedipus the King, Oedipus takes many actions and makes many choices leading to his own downfall. He could have endured the plague, but out of 'compassion for his suffering people,' he has Creon go to Delphi. When he learns of Apollo's word, he could have calmly investigated the murder of the former King Laius, but in his hastiness, he condemns the murderer saying he will be 'cut off from every fellowship of speech and contact, sacrifice and sacrament... trust out of every home, the very picture of pestilence' and in doing so, unknowingly curses himself (32). Oedipus chooses to ignore multiple warnings of the truth of his life and parentage. He chooses to ignore the ruinous prophecy of his 'destiny to muir his father and marry his mother' because he feels he can escape the prophecy of the gods (22).

Oedipus attempts to defy the gods by fleeing his homeland, Corinth, but instead flings himself directly into the hands of fate. Oedipus ignores another warning of truth in disregarding the words of Tiresias. He believes he has successfully escaped his own destiny and therefore, Tiresias' words mean nothing, but Oedipus couldn't have been farther from the truth. In a few moments, Tiresias prides Oedipus with everything he needs to know concerning his fate by saying, 'the rotting canker in the state is you... you and your most dearly loved wrapped together in a hideous sin - blind to the horror of it' (37). Despite this obvious proclamation truth, Oedipus 'being his own worst enemy' chooses to wallow in his pleasant fantasy, that he has escaped his inevitable fate (38).

Oedipus' own foolish decisions ultimately lead to his downfall in this tragic play. Oedipus chooses to kill Laius. He cases to marry Jocasta. He chooses to forcefully and very publicly assume the mission of discovering the identity of Laius' killer saying ironically, 'I shall not rest until I've tracked the hand that slew Laius... [because] such ties swear me to his side if he were my father' (32). He proceeds on this mission and chooses to ignore the warnings of Creon, Jocasta, Tiresias, the messenger, the shepherd, and anyone who attempts to stand between him and the truth; and he chooses to blind himself. In the en Oedipus' most foolish choice prevails throughout the play, the choice of illusion over reality, ultimately causing his demise.

The play, Death of a Salesman tells the tragic story of Willy Loman, a little man sentenced to discover his smallness rather than a big man undone by his greatness. Willy, a sixty-three year old family man, the father of two sons, has worked hard all h life as a salesman, 'way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine,' Willy sustains himself with the illusion that he has countless friends, and that everything will always be all right, and the success of he and his sons, Biff and Happy will be unprecedented (Miller 138). The extreme to which Willy takes this illusion causes him to create his own reality where he, 'knock [s] 'em cold in Providence,' and 'slaughter [s] 'em in Boston' and where 'five hundred gross in Providence" becomes " two hundred gross on the whole trip' (33). Willy, it seems, lives to please other people, especially his sons Biff and Happy, by way of his successes in numerous areas.

Willy constantly brags about his successes in his business, his family life, an his finances, to anyone that will take a moment to listen. Willy wholeheartedly maintains this fantasy life until the company he works for tells him that 'they no longer want him to represent them' (83). Only at this time does Willy begin to see the his overwhelming failure in life. Willy searches for happiness not only through his illusions but through having an affair with a young woman who tells him, 'you do make me laugh... you " re such a wonderful man' (38). This woman tells Willy everything wants to hear but nobody will say about him. When Biff discovers Willy with this woman in a hotel, he realizes the truth about him and his family, that they have lived their entire lives hiding from reality and shielding one another in their fight to asp illusion.

Despite Willy and Biff both beginning to realize the truth, neither of them choose to face it until the end of the play when all these events fuse in an explosive scene of father-son anguish, finally ending with Willy's self-destruction. In Death of a Salesman, Willy constantly chooses to bypass the truth with his frighteningly accepted delusions. Everyone around him becomes so accustomed to Willy's lies, that they too accept and support them regardless of how ludicrous they may be. Th people around him even go so far as to encourage his illusion because when he begins to face reality, they deny it to him saying things like, 'you " re the handsomest man in the world... nobody laughs at you' and 'the boys simply idolize you' (37). Willy les in illusion not only by lying about the present but also, living in the past. Willy constantly flashes back to happy times in his past such as 'Biff simonizing the car,' an affair with a younger woman, and of course the re-appearance of his ambitious nd rich brother, Ben (28).

Willy believes if he had only 'went with Ben to Alaska,' he too would be happy and well-off (52). Willy makes the decision of fantasy over reality with each and every tale and exaggeration he comes up with. With each and everyone of his tales of success he buries himself deeper and deeper into his chasm of self-destruction. Not only does Willy condemn himself by this choice however, but condemns those around him, particularly Biff and Happy. Just as Willy chooses to ignore th truth, he likewise imbues this spirit in his boys, who also forever deny the harshness of reality. Willy constantly pushes the boys calling them 'lazy bums' and continually asking about 'how much money [they " re] making' (15).

This constant pushing may b Willy's pathetic way of trying to live vicariously through his sons. Perhaps this pushing, his last attempt at truly achieving success, rather than dreaming up stories to tell. However, Willy never achieves success because of the simple fact that he c hoes to bring down his life and the lives of those around him by choosing illusion over reality. In the end, this tragic choice leads to Willy's collapse in a final, heart wrenching and self-destructive cry for help. In choosing the fragility of illusion over the stability of reality, people meet their inevitable downfall. No one rs on has what can be classified as a perfect life.

Everyone has conflicts in his or her life they must face at one time or another. The way people choose to deal with these conflicts can differ just as much as the people themselves. Some people feel thee ed to attack the problem, to get it out of the way, while some choose to ignore the problem, preferring the comfort of fantasy over the harshness of reality. The tragic characters of Oedipus and the memorable failure, Willy Loman serve as living proof at bypassing truth instead of facing it will ultimately lead to one's undoing..