Tragic Hero In Death Of A Salesman

In the play Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller focuses on the tragedy of a middle class family in the 1940’s. Aristotle defines Tragedy as, “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, a s having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;... in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” Death of a Salesman is a tragic play, because the Loman family experiences the financial struggle of being a middle class family and the Loman children are a failure to the family. The definition of a tragic hero is a dramatic character who makes a personal choice that results in his or her downfall. Miller’s definition

It is obvious that Willy Loman does not fit this trait, because he constantly lies to his family. Willy doesn’t realize that his lies are turning his image of a perfect family into a fantasy. One of the biggest lies that he told his family was about his job. When it came to his job Willy loved bragging about how much he made and where he went. His family didn’t know that he had lost his job and was having an affair. Willy’s mistake of piling on lies after lies drove his family to struggle to pay off certain payments and made his sons became a mirror image of himself. In an NPR interview, Philip Seymour Hoffman discussed his portrayal of Willy Loman on Broadway. Hoffman was asked about what he thought the context of the play was about. Hoffman replied to this question by saying, “Ultimately, to me, it's about, you know, a family, the tragedy of a family. So I think that that makes it kind of classic; you know, the idea that you have a vision of what you're supposed to be or what your life is going to be or where your kids are going to be, and that that doesn't work out” (Hoffman).This proves that despite Willy’s efforts the perfect family that he wants will never happen since he keeps making the same

In Death of a Salesman, Willy’s affair, his advice that he gives to his sons about their education, lying about his job, and his mental problems all contributed to his suicide at the of the play. In one of the scenes of the play Happy and Biff, Willy’s sons, talk about their relationship with their father. Happy believes that Willy wants does certain things so that Biff has the best life that he could possibly have. In the play Happy says,”He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about Dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s — happening to him. He — talks to himself.” (12). In the end Willy believed that if he committed suicide then all of these events would be erased and that he could make a better life for his son Biff. This ultimately failed, because Willy doesn’t realize that this was due to his actions not by things happening to