Theme Of Tragedy In Death Of A Salesman

The play Death of a Salesman is a tragedy written in 1949 by Arthur Miller. A tragedy is a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. Following that definition, Death of a Salesman is a tragedy because there is an unhappy ending with Willy’s death. Death of a Salesman is also a tragedy because of several tragic events that occur before Willy’s death, such as him losing his job, and Biff’s discovery of Willy’s infidelity. A tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle, is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction. Arthur Miller himself believed the common man was a tragic hero. A quote from an essay he wrote for the New York Times states, “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense askings were. On the face of it this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry,which bases its analysis upon classific formulations, such as Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instances, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar emotional situations.” With Aristotle’s

The name of that recognition, as determined by Aristotle, is anagnorisis. Some evidence from the text to back this up is when Willy is having his conversation with Ben at the end. During the conversation, Willy brings up the idea of him killing himself, Ben tells him how cowardly the act would be, and how it would make his family feel, but Willy was too affixed on his dream of Biff’s success that he did not recognize that he was, in fact, a coward in committing suicide. Throughout the play, it is easy to see when Willy has no idea of the reach of his actions when dealing with his sons, which further proves the claim of him not having the