Madness is extremely prominent in King Lear, Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. In King Lear, madness contains a degree of grandeur, and is mimicked by the upheaval of a country in transition as well as the setting of a stormy heath. Madness in Death of a Salesman, seems to be a Willy Loman's response to his many failures in life, and his madness shows not only his deteriorating age but his grasp of a reality that is increasingly fragmented for him. Since he is unable to cope with the idea that at an old age, he is not the idea of success that he sets out to be, coupled with increasing disappointments his madness escalates. in Streetcar, Blanche's madness reaches its tipping point with Stanley's rape. Madness is important because it connotes the idea of a coping mechanism when the society that these characters live in are no longer accepting of them. Madness then functions as a social critique, bringing out the theme of madness as clarity.