Willy Loman as Tragic Hero of Death of a Salesman
Willy Loman, the title character of the play, Death of Salesman, exhibits all the characteristics of a modern tragic hero. This essay will support this thesis by drawing on examples from Medea by Euripedes, Poetics by Aristotle, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, while comments by Moss, Gordon, and Nourse reinforce the thesis.
Death of Salesman, by Arthur Miller, fits the characteristics of classic tragedy. ?.... this is, first of all, a play about a man's death. And tragedy has from the beginning dealt with this awesome experience, regarding it as significant and moving.? (Nourse). The first defining point of a tragedy is the hero. The traits for a tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle in Poetics, are social rank, hamartia, ability to arouse pity, peripeteia, hubris, and anagnorisis. Will Loman's classification as a tragic hero has been debated because he lacks the high social rank and nobility to be considered so. Arthur Miller chose to argue this, however, by stating that Willy Loman was ?a very brave spirit who cannot settle for but must pursue his dream of himself to the end,? (Moss, 27) reasserting the character of a modern hero as noble, not in position ...
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Nourse, Joan T. Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' and 'All My Sons.' New York, 1965.
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Elements of Literature. Ed. Edwina McMahon et al. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1997.
Sophocles. "Oedipus Rex." Elements of Literature. Ed. Robert Scholes, Nancy Comley, Carl H. Klaus, and David Staines. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. 714-757.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991.
Clinton W. Trowbridge, "Arthur Miller: Between Pathos and Tragedy," Arthur Miller, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1987)
Many dilemmas throughout the recent decades are repercussions of an individual's foibles. Arthur Miller represents this problem in society within the actions of Willy Loman in his modern play Death of a Salesman. In this controversial play, Willy is a despicable hero who imposes his false value system upon his family and himself because of his own rueful nature, which is akin to an everyman. This personality was described by Arthur Miller himself who "Believe[s] that the common man is as apt a subject for a tragedy in its highest sense as kings were" (Tragedy 1).
In the book Death of A Salesman, author Arthur Miller shows how cruel life can be through the life of Willy Loman, the main character. His feelings of guilt, failure, and sadness result in his demise.
Effect upon arrival of qi, literally meaning pain is eliminated instantly when needling sensations are acquired after needle-insertion, is a familiar clinical fact when acupuncture is used for kinds of pain. Of course, such quick responses are not resulted from changes of humoral factors. There were similar successes duri...
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine involving the insertion of super fine needles superficially into the skin to correct the energy flow in the body. Many people believe this practice is painful, while others see it as a waste of time, or useless. Testimonials prove this to be false, but those who have not tried the practice are skeptical. The long history of acupuncture has lead to many misconceptions about the process. There are many benefits to acupuncture that can be shown through an understanding of its process.
Acupuncture originated in China and it has been practice for more than 2000 years now. This modality is considered the main treatment within the traditional Chinese medicine. Its main concept is the conviction that the body possesses hidden channels identified as meridians. These channels allows for the flow of energy which is considered a vital life force through all the body. Acupuncture modality believes that when this energy becomes obstructed or imbalanced, sickness and symptoms can build up. It is only when this energy becomes unblocked by stimulating focal points in the meridians that health can be achieved again (Cherry & Jacob, 2010).
In the Death of a Salesman, the man who wrote this play, Arthur Miller, challenges the idea of a modern American Dream, and how Willy Loman, the main character, is the perfect candidate for this day’s Tragic Hero. A Tragic Hero, originally defined by Aristotle, must be centered around five main characteristics: hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, hubris, and the character's fate must be greater than deserved. After a life of pursuing a successful-enough salesman career, Willy finds himself in a new world: the modern day. Now, jobs are looking for people with degrees behind their name, and Willy has nothing to show for himself, unacceptingly. Another splinter in Willy’s leg is Willy struggles to keep a job at his old age, and his sons aren’t
In Arthur Miller’s essay about “Tragedy and the Common Man,” he argues that the common man is as appropriate a subject for tragedy as the very highly placed kings and noble men. Mankind keeps tragedy above all forms because they are given the same mental abilities as the nobles. In “Death of a Salesman”, Willy Loman is a common man and a middle class worker, enough saving to provide food for his family. So if the tragic hero can be a common man, does Willy fit in that category? Even though he is a common man he fails to live up to the standards of being a tragic hero because he never accepts nor admits to his own errors. He, therefore, loses his dignity. One of his biggest errors is his failure of be a good father.
Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman”, primarily focuses on the flaws and failures of Willy Loman, Millers’ main character in this story. Willy’s distorted and backward views of the American Dream, paired with his inability to let go of the past lead him down a road of regret and in the end his biggest failure which was his wasted life.
The Chinese healing art of acupuncture is one that can be dated back at least two thousand years. Some authorities maintain that acupuncture has been practiced in China for even four thousand years. Though its exact age is vague, what is certain is that up until the recent twentieth century, much of the population of the world was uninformed about acupuncture, its origins, and its capacity to promote and maintain good health. Even today in relatively "advanced" nations such as the United States there are many who hold acupuncture under the stereotype of a new or radical medicine, one which would almost always be a second choice after more familiar Western approaches to handling illness.
In post-Depression America, the United States endured internal battles in political ideologies between capitalists and Marxists, which is the focus of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. According to Helge Normann Nilsen, author of “From Honors At Dawn to Death of a Salesman: Marxism and the Early Plays of Arthur Miller,” the Great Depression had a profound impact in forming the political identity of Arthur Miller: “The Great Depression created in him a lasting and traumatic impression of the devastating power of economic forces in the shaping of peoples’ lives” (146). This lasting effect on Miller is embodied in the character of Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman whose life collapses from the strain of his competition for wealth, demonstrated by Nilsen as she claims the fault lies in the “Impairment of [Willy’s] conscience and sanity by intolerable economic pressures” (155). Because of his focus on material success, which Marxists view as a critical flaw in capitalism, Willy loses his sanity battling the corruption within himself and the American free market system. I believe, however, that while Miller embraced and promoted Marxist values and that the messages in Death of a Salesman are directed at capitalists, Miller was not condemning all aspects of capitalism. Although his portrayal of Willy may seem politically biased, Miller’s portrayal of Charley as a generous and kind man contradicts the notion that Death of a Salesman is purely Marxist propaganda. Miller, therefore, was not denouncing capitalism, but calling instead for reforms within the existing system.
Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller is about a salesman named Willy Loman and his family. The Loman family story switches between the past and the present time during the play. The play explores the constant day-to-day struggle that many families face, and how this challenge takes a toll on the head of the household. Willy Loman continuously strives for a happy life. The way in which Willy goes about obtaining a happy life ultimately leads him to commit suicide. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller suggests that Aristotle’s theory on obtaining a happy life is correct.
The tragic hero is defined by Aristotle as "a great man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake” (Aristotle n. pag.). There are a few principles that Aristotle believes to form a tragic hero: the protagonist should be a person of power and nobility, who makes a major error in judgment and eventually comes to realization of his or her actions (Aristotle n. pag.). In Arthur Millers’ play, Death of a Salesman, he has twisted Aristotle’s belief of a tragic hero, and has created his own. Although Miller has twisted Aristotle’s belief, Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, has a tragic hero (Oedipus) that follows the flaws, dignity, and acknowledgment of the truth that Aristotle believes in to make a tragic hero. It is essential for them to recognize their position and role in the play. Due to the fact that Willy Loman and Oedipus experience tragic flaws throughout their respected plays, they both have nobility, and they both realize the fact (anagnorisis) that they made an error in their life (hamartia). Through their fatal mis-steps, their pride and ego, predominately affect their familial lives, which in turn causes them to realize the truth that they are tragic heroes.
So, Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, is a tragic hero because of his aspirations to be great, his tragic flaws, and his tragic downfall. Tragic heroes are very important to many texts such as Willy was to Death of a Salesman. Victor Perry explains that a tragic hero, “shows a magnified version of the consequences of that fatal flaw, as a hero 's life can be 'writ large '.” Audience members can oftentimes relate to these tragic heroes which also adds to their importance. They connect the audience to the
Works Cited:.. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991.
According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is one of noble upbringing who undergoes a reversal of fortune. The hero must then realize that their peripetia is a direct result of their own tragic flaw. King Lear in William Shakespeare’s King Lear and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman both share the tragic flaw of being blind to reality, but Lear fits the remainder of Aristotle’s description more accurately. It is evident that Lear holds these tragic qualities because he is born of a noble birth, receives pity, and is able to see the truth. On the contrary, Willy Loman lacks these same characteristics. As a result, he fails to accept his mistakes unlike Lear did, proving that the one who more precisely