Willy Loman is a tragic hero. He fears that while he hopes to be viewed as a good, decent human being, others might not agree. He wants to believe that he's a well-liked, decent person who doesn't make mistakes. The truth is that he makes mistakes (many that haunt him), and that he is human. Willy does not consider his flaws normal and severely regrets his shortcomings. As he sees it, Willy raises his children poorly and doesn’t do well in business, though he wishes he did. Willy also cheats on Linda, deeming her to be a commodity of which he takes advantage. "The quality in such plays that does shake us... derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in the world" (Miller, "Tragedy and the Common Man").
Willy's "underlying fear of being displaced" is the real, personal tragedy. He yearns to do things right; but the fact is, he has many past incidences that haunt him. Throughout the play, Willy drifts in and out of a dream. He is continually haunted by memories of his dead brother Ben who, prior to his death, struck it rich in the jungle. He also has flashbacks of occasions that haunt him relating to other aspects of his life. For example, the sequence when Biff