Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Willy Loman is NOT a Tragic Hero

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Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Willy Loman is NOT a Tragic Hero

In The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, it is argued weather that Willy Loman is a tragic hero. There are cases for both classifications of Willy. By definition, a tragic hero is a person born into nobility, is responsible for their own fate, endowed with a tragic flaw, and doomed to make a serious error in judgment. The tragic hero eventually falls from great esteem. They realize they have made an irreversible mistake, faces death with honor, and dies tragically. The audience also has to be affected by pity or fear for the tragic hero. In order for Willy Loman to be a tragic hero, he has to fulfill all of these descriptions. Willy Loman fits into some of these descriptions but not all. Therefore, Willy Loman is not a tragic hero (#2).

The descriptions of a tragic hero that Willy Loman do not fits in are: he is not born in to nobility, he is not endowed with a tragic flaw, and he never realized that he made an irreversible mistake. Oedipus is the epitome of a tragic hero. He exemplifies all of the descriptions of Aristotle’s tragic hero. First, he is the son of a king and queen. Oedipus is also responsible for his own fate. He does kill his father and marry his mother, both willingly. Oedipus’s flaw is that he is to prideful. His pride caused the death of his father, by him not getting out of the road, and caused his exile because he insisted that the killer be found. He falls from the greate...

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