In both Six Characters in Search of an Author and in Death of a Salesman, truth, reality and illusion appear as being central themes, yet each author to chose to express and explore them in a different manner.

In his play, Pirandello uses his characters to explore the differences between the reality of daily life and the reality of Art. His characters do not appear as being unreal figures, but rather as a “created reality”which in essence could be said to be a reality that has been given form by an author. The characters do not truly exist until they have been written down, which is when their reality becomes immutable. When they become the “immutable fantasy” that they are meant to be, they become more real than the actors. Actors, because they are not characters, will change. Their reality one day will be seen as as illusion the next day. Characters are static and will never undergo change. They are true. This is shown by the masks that each of the characters wear. Each one of them carries within himself a drama that is his own, and therefore their mask represents it.

Through the actors and their attempt to recreate the ch

aracters’ reality, Pirandello is in fact exploring what illusion really is. The actors are there to reproduce reality: they have to “make believe” and give nothing more than an illusion of reality because “the requirements of theater have to be respected”. This also entails that some aspects of reality cannot be show onstage. This is the case with the scene between the stepdaughter and the father. He can’t undress her like in their reality because in theater, “the truth goes just so far” and neither can they whisper, because the audience must be able to live their reality. They must speak louder and still give the illusion of reality. By “make believ[ing]”, the scene becomes less true.

Miller uses Biff as the character who forces the truth about who the Lomansreally are onto his father.Unlike Pirandello, it doesn’t seem like Miller makes a distinction between truth and reality. Biff is disillusioned, realizing that “[They’ve] been talking in a dream for fifteen years”. Biff brings out the truth and presents it to his father. “Pop, I’m a dime a dozen and so are you” The Lomans aren’t special at all, and this is the truth that Willy refuses to see. Illusions are dangerous, and they are what bring about Willy’s downfall. By believing so fervently in his illusions, thinking that they are true, his life became nothing more than disappointments, and he was soon filled with a sentiment of inadequacy and thinks that “a man’s worth more dead than alive”.

Miller s

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