WILLY: I got as far as a little above Yonkers. I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee…I suddenly couldn’t drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y’know?
LINDA: Oh. Maybe it was the steering again…Maybe it’s your glasses.
– Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman, Act 1. A physically and emotionally drained Willy arrives home early to his wife Linda after struggling to drive and being a danger behind the wheel of his car. He deludes himself into blaming the coffee. Linda feeds her husband’s self-deception by putting it down to the car’s steering or his spectacles. From the very opening of the play, it appears that everything is not OK with Willy. This exchange is foreshadowing of his death in a faked car accident so that his family can collect Willy’s life insurance. We also witness Linda making excuses for her husband’s mistakes and acting as if nothing is wrong with him. Thus Linda acts as an enabler of the dysfunction in the Loman family, by ignoring and brushing aside her husband’s mistakes and mental problems.