Sunday, September 14, 2014

Can Willy Lowman be considered a tragic hero in the play "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller?

Miller wrote a now-famous essay called "Tragedy and the Common Man." In it, he argues that the high tragedies of classical and neo-classical drama feel remote to modern audiences because we lack the nobility associated with heroism in those early works. He writes, "I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." It was once believed that only kings possessed enough to evoke the tragic feeling in an audience when they lost everything. However, Miller argues, the experience of loss is not unique to royalty.
Miller continues: "As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing — his sense of personal dignity."
By this definition, Willy Loman is certainly a tragic hero. He is certainly deeply flawed, and he finds himself out of place in a changing world, confused about how he (and his family) have fallen so far and how they were unable to live up to the promise that seemed like destiny in his flashback scenes. He cannot admit failure, cannot accept working for Charlie, and dies rather than facing unemployment.
Lastly, Miller writes,

In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his “tragic flaw," a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the character, is really nothing—and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status.

The play concerns itself with the discrepancy between what Willy believes is his rightful status and the status conferred upon him by a business world that does not value him, a son who no longer worships him, and a time that has passed him by.
As such, he is equal to Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, Dr. Faustus, and others who will do anything to get (back) what they believe they deserve.

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