Willy Loman As A Tragic Hero

In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s character, Willy Loman, is desperately trying to achieve the unattainable American Dream. Throughout the play, Willy encounters many challenges that have derailed his course and his perseverance drives him and his family insane.

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the author conveys the reader about how a person lives his life when he or she cannot live the “American Dream.” Willy Loman, the main character in the play is a confused and tragic character. He is a man who is struggling to hold onto what morality he has left in a changing society that no longer values the ideals he grew up to believe in. Even though the society he lives in can be blamed for much of his misfortune, he must also be the blame for his bad judgment, disloyalty and his foolish pride.

The play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, takes issue with those in America who place too much stress upon material gain, at the expense of other, more admirable human values. Miller uses flashbacks to provide exposition, to foreshadow the upcoming tragedy, and most importantly to reveal character traits. An analysis of the main character, Willy Loman, illustrates the underlying theme that the concern over material success breaks down the bonds between men that form the basis of a smooth-functioning society.

In the play “Death of a Salesman”, by Arthur Miller, the primary theme can be seen as a conflict between man and society. In which the ambition to achieve the “American Dream” controls the life of Willy Loman and the influences he has. When success is not reached, sends Willy’s mind on a mental ride.

Willy Loman, the central character in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, is a man whose fall from the top of the capitalistic totem pole results in a resounding crash, both literally and metaphorically. As a man immersed in the memories of the past and controlled by his fears of the future, Willy Loman views himself as a victim of bad luck, bearing little blame for his interminable pitfalls. However, it was not an ill-fated destiny that drove Willy to devastate his own life as well as the lives of those he loved; it was his distorted set of values.

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

Arthur Miller, A play writer in the twentieth century, wrote a play entitled Death of a salesman that won him the Pulitzer Price just a year after its release. In the play Miller expresses the life of a 60 year old salesman that undergoes through lack of success in his life and sees the same thing happening ,to his two grown sons now in their mid-thirties, as the American dream faded away being replaced by capitalism in the late 1940s. The play starts of by introducing Willy Loman, the protagonist, and tells the story of the final twenty four hours in Willy’s life all the way to his death and funeral. Between that time laps the audience is able to see Willies past thanks to his constant daydreams, along with his sons past and wife and

Arthur Miller’s play Death of A Salesman demonstrates the life of a man facing troubles within himself and society. A tragedy is the imitation of an action that arouses fear and pity. This play could be considered a tragedy because it depicts the downfall of a perfect family and outlines the deterioration of a man’s life. A tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle, is someone who exemplifies great importance or heroic qualities; however, Arthur Miller views the tragic hero as someone who struggles heroically with life. Using Arthur Miller’s definition, it can be determined that Willy Loman is a tragic hero. Even though Willy Loman does not fit the classical view of a tragic hero, he is in fact a modern day tragic hero because of his error in judgment, a reversal of fortune, and his excessive pride.

In Death of a Salesman, author Arthur Miller, presents the Lomans, a dysfunctional family. The father of the Lomans, Willy, is the main character of the story. I feel like Willy is the true tragic hero. The definition of tragedy has changed over the course of time with its origins dating back as far as 350 BC, when the Greek philosopher Aristotle introduced the concept of hamartia, a man's fatal flaw. Arthur Miller took Aristotle’s teachings into consideration when writing Death of a Salesman, especially the elements of a tragic hero.

In Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, Willy Loman is far from Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. However, Aristotle may recognize him as a tragic hero is that he’s an everyman. His life isn’t what he imagined it would be, but he keeps at it. His work isn’t defining him anymore, “but they passed me by. I’m not noticed” (Roberts, 1194). One way Aristotle would not consider Willy Loman a tragic hero, is in his final moment, Willy never has moment where he realizes his mistakes. Willy Loman is aware of his shortcomings but he doesn’t acknowledge all of them. A tragic hero, in my opinion, would be someone who dies for the love of someone who doesn’t love them. Or someone who dies for their country, only to have that country fall to fascism

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, Miller probes the dream of Willy Lowman while making a statement about the dreams of American society. This essay will explore how each character of the play contributes to Willy's dream, success, and failure.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was written in 1949. Based on the play, we must determine if the main character, Willy Loman, is considered a tragic hero. Aristotle defines a tragedy as “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself;” Based on this definition, Death of a Salesman portrays a tragedy through the death of Willy Loman and his downfall as a salesman and a father. A tragic hero is a character in a tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat. Arthur Miller believes the common man makes the best tragic hero because he portrays all the characteristics of a tragic hero, just without the royalty trait. Men go through emotional situations similar to those of a king. I believe Willy Loman is a tragic hero. Although he does not fit the classical definition of a tragic hero, due to lack of royalty, he does fit three Aristotelian characteristics based on the modern day definition. Willy Loman is a tragic hero because he a reversal of fortune takes place due to an error in judgement, shows excessive pride, and the discovery or recognition that the reversal was brought about by the hero's own actions.

Arthur Miller wrote many plays in his time, but one in particular, written in 1947 and directed in Beijing in 1983, was the “play that established him as a great American playwright” called “Death of a Salesman”. This play was about the difference between a New York family’s life in reality and what they dreamed it would be. An old man, by the name of Willy valued popularity and his friends way more than skills or even a real personality. His goal was to die a man that had all of these things, and he ends up killing himself in the end. Miller’s goal was to “take the audience on an internal journey through the mind, memories, fears, anxieties of his central character.” “Death of A Salesman” has been very popular for over a decade, performed internationally, and was even produced into movies (Kristofoletti). Many people remember this play because of how inspiring it was, also because it did not compare to any other of the ones he had ever written.

  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.

According to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, tragedies are best equipped to be based on a protagonist that is renowned and prosperous, so his good fortune can be dramatically changed. In contrast, Arthur Miller’s essay “Tragedy and the Common Man” states “that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings ever were.” He proves in his modern essay that the characteristics and emotions of the common man and the highly placed are entitled to be similar. Miller even identifies emotions of a average person and how they result in a better tragedy than those who are highly ranked. In his play “Death of Salesman” he demonstrates that the normal life of a sales man can still make for a great tragedy and that his protagonist, Willy Loman, is worthy of a tragedy.