Archetypes In Willy's Dream

After the death of her brother Polyneices and father Oedipus, Antigone’s collective unconscious retreats into an inner conflict between life and death, paralleled in her the derivatives of her name, Anti-gone equating to against birth. Her sense of self is compelled towards in the identities of the dead, particularly exemplified in her morals embedded in her family’s honour. She becomes the epitome of the living death, whereby manifestations of love in marriage and children have been forbidden for her. Because of this she has no race to concern over and thus her life decisions become a sacrifice to serve the dead.

Thus, the archetypes that code Antigone’s collective unconscious are idolisations rendered from the dead, namely Polyneices and …show more content…
They broke the mould when they made her”. Yet, Happy’s impotence arises from the repressed characteristics within Willy’s psyche, namely his insecurity and fostering of injured pride, manifesting as the rationale behind Willy’s lost opportunity and dualistic nature. Happy’s denial of Willy’s authentic failed self “that’s not my father” parallels Happy’s continual emulation of Willy’s veneer foreshadowing Happy’s demise and thus the cyclical detriment of the myth.

As the most idealised, mythologised anecdotal figure for Willy Willy’s father is fabricated from vague childhood memories. Thus he becomes an allegorical amalgamation of the luminaries of America’s heroic age, the untamed westward-bound pioneer the artisan, inventor and entrepreneur. Despite Willy’s desires for his tangible success paralleled in the mythic allusions “That’s why I thank Almighty god you’re both built like Adonises”, Biff mirrors this by rejecting the middle-class restraints of the American dream after Willy’s infidelity, instead espousing the Western drifter