Willy Loman Tragic Hero

Finally, Willy failed greatly at achieving the American Dream. People have come to the United States hoping for a life of happiness and success, at the same time, hoping to take pride in what they do and enjoy it. Willy did not achieve the American Dream. He had no pride in what he did, although he hid these emotions. I believe he was so embarrassed because he could not make a single sale or earn a single dollar that he began borrowing fifty dollars a week from Charley, and then pretended it was his salary. He lied to his family and to himself. He did not allow himself to do what he truly wanted to do because he believed that it was more remarkable to be supposedly successful. He therefore failed miserably at the true American Dream, exchanging it for an unattainable fantasy.

As the play’s titular character in Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is viewed by many as the definitive modern tragic hero of modern literature. He is a man struggling to gain upward mobility in a society designed to keep him in the trenches. The classic idea of a tragic hero is an important person who falls from a lofty seat in life. Willy, however, is just a common man trying to get to a place he can fall from. According to Arthur Miller, a tragic hero need not be a king or anyone of high rank. What’s important is the existence of the character’s “tragic flaw”, out of which creates the need to resist anything the character would consider a force attacking their being. Miller outlined the tragic flaw as a quality of a character that leaves them unable to accept anything that would affect or alter his/her status or self-image. While this flaw can create the tragic nature of a character, it does not necessarily create a tragic hero out a character. Willy Loman, though perhaps a tragic character, is not a tragic hero because he does not display the characteristic traits or actions associated with heroism.

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.

Willy Loman is a troubled and misguided man - a salesman and a dreamer with an extreme preoccupation with his own definition of success. Willy feels that physical impact is greater than the elements of his self-defined success. However, it is apparent that Willy Loman is no successful man, even by the audience's standards. He is still a travelling salesman in his sixties with no stable location or occupation, but clings on to his dreams and ideals. He compares his sons with Bernard, using him as a gauge of success. Nonetheless, he stays in the belief that his sons are better than Bernard. Willy recollects the neighbourhood years ago, and reminisces working for Frank Wagner, although he was also in the same condition then as now. He feels that the older Wagner appreciated him more, yet it was himself who voted Howard in. Arthur Miller presents Willy as a man with great bravado but little energy left to support it. He is always tired and has dementia, contradicting himself in his conversations and showing some memory loss, living in his world of illusions and delusions. He argues with Biff, both men without knowing why. The two sons of Willy display the physical appearance of adulthood, but their talk and attitude displays immaturity. Billy finds that he is a failure because of his lack of `success', while Happy thinks he is unfulfilled because he lacks failure.

     The single most weighted factor that edges Willie to his demise is his inability to make a living and achieve his “American Dream”. After being a salesman for many years, Willy just can’t cope with the fact that he hasn’t been successful at all. He believes that he is a terrific salesman. His imaginative thinking won’t let him accept the fact that he has become a failure instead of a wealthy businessman. Willy believes that to be well liked is the means to being

In Aristotle's Poetics, a tragic hero was defined as one who falls from grace into a state of extreme despair. Willy, as we are introduced to him, becomes increasingly miserable as he progresses from a dedicated, loving father, though not without flaws, into a suicidal, delusional man. The definition of a tragic hero, as stated in "Poetics," also describes a person who is influential and is of significance to others. Though, in actuality, Willy Loman may not possess these characteristics, he perceives himself as

Due to the fantasy world that Willy lived in, mostly caused by the American Dream, he pursued his career in sales. Based on the success of Dave Singleman, his mentor. His bad career choice caused most of his dissatisfaction with life. His sales career simply conflicted with his natural abilities and talents. I believe that he knew he should have been working in a different field, but his obsession with the American Dream would not allow him to realize that. When Willy dreamt of working with his hands he was the happiest. “Yeah. He was a happy man with a batch of cement. He was so wonderful with his hands. He had all the wrong dreams All, all, wrong.” According to the idea of the America Dream, manual labor did not comply. Sadly enough, Willy measured his self worth by the standards of the American Dream.

Willy Loman is one of the most controversial tragic figures in literature. This is due to the ongoing debate over whether he possesses the qualities to be considered a tragic hero. The argument is centered around the ideas Willy developed in his past. These past events are central to the meaning of the work, and without them, the play would not be as meaningful. The flashbacks apparent throughout the play negatively affect the main character.

The first major standard of tragedy set forth is:  “...if the exaltation of tragic action were truly a property of the high-bred character alone, it is inconceivable that the mass of mankind should cherish tragedy above all other forms.” All persons regardless of background, nobility stature, rank, or pretended or actual social division can innately empathize with the tragic hero. In the case of Willy Loman there

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.

Willy’s obsession with success leads to the start of him living in his own fantasy world. He lives in the past, for there was hope for him then, but now he is completely subject to failure. Willy’s demise could have been avoided had he changed his dream, and had he not conformed to society. In the end his dream did not pay off, and he ultimately fell victim to the American Dream, and the deceitful ideals of freedom that factored into the

He then gouges out his eyes and wonders of into the desert (#4). Willy Loman is the son of a middle-class man. He has been working as a traveling salesman for the last forty years. This is not the life of nobility. Nobility is someone that is of a high social class. A nobleman could also be a person in a position of high authority. Willy Loman was a peon of the firm that he was selling for. At one point, he may have been respected, but that time has come and gone. Willy Loman was not endowed with a tragic flaw. His failure in life came from the pretensions of the American dream. All he wants in life was to support his family and see his sons be productive in life. This is at time in American society when many people essentially worked themselves to death. Society cannot be a character flaw, because it represents everyone, not just a tragic flaw in a single man (#1). One could argue that Willy Loman’s tragic flaw was his pride. This was one of Willy’s flaws, but it does not cause his death. His pride kept him from accepting the job that Charlie offered, but it did not keep him from borrowing money from him. The excessive pride flaw did not cause Willy Loman’s death. The cause of Willies death was his desire to provide for his family. This was the American dream at its worst (#1). Willy never realizes that he made a few irreversible mistakes. The first mistake was how he raises his sons.

Willy wasnt all bad, he was just a confused man with alot of problems. His problems begin with not being able to make it to Yonkers on his trip around New England. Willys has been on the road most of the time for thirty four years. Hes physically and mentally drained. The reader cant help but sympathize with Willy as no one wants to end up in the position hes in. Willy has to borrow money from his next door neighbor to

More than that, he wanted to become that man that he admired who died “the death of a salesman” in his “green velvet slippers” whose funeral garnered many loving friends and family (Miller 81). Audiences can relate as they too have had an idol in their head that they have aspired to become. Seeing the aspirations of Willy warrants pity in the audience when they see what a failure Willy Loman becomes. Failure is what consumes Willy. He understands that that is his life. 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 discovery that a tragic hero does. Willy Loman never realizes the doom waiting for him at the end of his downward spiral. Even his attempts at suicide, and finally his one successful one, were misguided and were attempts to become something greater. No one shows up at the funeral besides his family. 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 . That is the American tragedy. Everyone is the American tragic hero with their own tragedy. Arthur Miller captures the Average man with the average family and average dreams, living an average life with no gain in the end.

The Presentation of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Willy Loman is presented as both a tragic hero and an unconscious victim in "Death of a Salesman". "Death of a Salesman" is very much based upon the American Dream, and whether we are slaves or conquerors of this dream. This is an idea that the playwright Arthur Miller has very passionately pursued both through Willy's own eyes, and through his interaction with the different characters in the play. Firstly, the definitions of a hero and a victim very much influence the way that Willy is viewed by the audience.