Examples Of Tragedy In Death Of A Salesman

American Tragedy Aristotle defined tragedy in his respected piece Poetics that defined the tragedy and many other forms of literature. Many tragic heroes such as Oedipus Rex and Romeo and Juliet fit well into this mold of a tragic hero as defined by Aristotle. For example, they were flawed but well intentioned and their lives ended in a catastrophic death. Those plays, and many others in the genre, had all the elements of a tragedy: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. They were fantastic displays of misery that aroused pity and fear in the audience. In Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller, the character Willy Loman is an average modern American man with a superficial American Dream: to be liked, to succeed over everyone

Dreams they spend all of their miserable lives clinging onto for dear life. All that keeps a person going is that bright shining light at the edge of the horizon in the distant future where they are great and loved and respected and revered. For Willy Loman his dream was to become a salesman, all his adult life was a feeble attempt to climb up in the ranks of his department. He wanted to become that man that he admired who “----”. Audiences can relate, they too have had an idol in their head that they have aspired to become. This detail garners pity in the audience when they see what a failure Willy Loman. He hasn’t achieved his dream and he knows it. He understands. But in his deep deluded mind twisted with broken memories and false hopes he can never truly accept it. He never has that point of discover that a tragic hero does. Willy Loman never realizes how the doom that awaits for him at the end of his downward spiral. Even his attempt at suicide wasn’t even great. “--(Linda can’t cry)---” it was so expected and almost a mundane willy move that it blends in with the rest of his sepia colored life. No one shows up at the funeral. He is not great like a tragic hero. Willy Loman is a nobody, he is only a tragic hero to himself, just like everyone in the audience. Everyone sings the song of their own tragedy here in America, land of the vain. That is the American Tragedy. Everyone is the American Tragic Hero with their own tragedy. It is something

The family that the play centers on live in a small world. Nobody truly cares about them other than themselves. When Willy Loman’s son Biff goes to discuss a buisness deal