Common Man Tragic Hero Death of a Salesman Term Paper

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As Northrop Frye states, tragic heroes are “the inevitable conductors of the power about them...instruments as well as victims.” Tragic heroes experience great pain and suffering themselves, through which the audience members can contemplate their own faults. More than that, tragic heroes can bring about the destruction of others including those they love. Examples from classical literature like Oedipus and Hamlet provide obvious examples of how tragic heroes cause the death or destruction of their loved ones. Willy Loman, the classic though common tragic hero, also becomes a conduit of despair in Death of a Salesman.

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman epitomizes the tragedy of the common man. In Miller’s essay “Tragedy and the Common Man,” he writes that classic tragic flaws are “not peculiar to grand or elevated characters,” (1). A common man like Willy Loman can be every bit as much of a tragic hero as Oedipus or Hamlet because the common man is “as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were,” (Miller, “Tragedy” 1). In addition to possessing a tragic flaw such as hubris, blindness, or willful ignorance, the tragic hero is also characterized by the destruction he leaves in his wake.

Loman’s actions, or lack thereof, contribute to the tragic vision of the play as a whole.

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Lacking charm or social skills, Willy Loman fails to achieve the American Dream. Willy has been beaten down by frustration, and has allowed bitterness and anger to get the better of him. Worse than that, Willy Loman passes down his pessimism, poor attitude, and underachievement to his children. It is one thing for Willy himself to fail, and quite another for him to be unable to inculcate better values in his children. The Loman children, Biff and Happy, lie to others and to themselves, just like their father.

Towards the end of the play, the delusions in the family have completely gripped and torn apart the household as a result of the poor example Willy set for his sons. “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house!” Biff exaggerates, to which Happy responds, “We always told the truth!” (Miller Death 97). Both brothers use hyperbole to show how out of touch they each are with reality, and with the truth. Willy Loman has passed down his dysfunctional cognitive biases to his sons, creating a web of….....

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