Death of a Sales Man and How Author Miller Changed the Face of Tradgy
Most of people don’t think that tragedy can happen to them, most people are wrong; why should tragedy be reserved for royalty. Willy Loman can be considered a tragic hero in the sense that he does have a tragic flaw, he is losing the confidence of people in his life, and he is willing to lay down his life to secure one thing in a sense of personal dignity. Miller was able to fit the common man into a role normally reserved for only the highest royalty. This has considerably changed the face of tragedy. Miller has broken the boundaries of why no one has written a tragedy about the common man, he has also proven that a tragedy is based around more than the blood line of the protagonist, and finally he has shown that a modern tragic hero is easily relatable to a modern audience. Willy Loman has the classic definition of a tragic flaw. Throughout the book he has shown what Arthur Miller calls the tragic flaw, "his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity." This is prominent when he is in an argument with someone such as when he is fighting to get a job on the floor in his firm. There is no doubt that Willy’s “challenge accepted” ideology will get him in trouble.
The fact that Willy has a tragic flaw proves the Miller has succeeded in breaking the previous boundaries on what a tragedy is, namely that it's about a common man rather than royalty. This shows that even though "modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science" as Miller had put it, does not mean that the common man cannot experience tragedy in a similar matter to Macbeth, or Caesar. Miller said "For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy-or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied."
The fact that Willy has a tragic flaw proves the Miller has succeeded in breaking the previous boundaries on what a tragedy is, namely that it's about a common man rather than royalty. This shows that even though "modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science" as Miller had put it, does not mean that the common man cannot experience tragedy in a similar matter to Macbeth, or Caesar. Miller said "For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy-or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied."