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Though critics such as Sheila Huftel characterize Willy Loman's "fall" as only a fall from "an imagined height," it is nevertheless still a fall, which makes Willy Loman, like Oedipus, a tragic figure. Willy has created very powerful ideas about what he wants his life to be and what he wants his sons lives to be. But these ideas are part of what make Willy who he is. He cannot help but persist with these ideas and that is what sends him on a path headed for failure inevitably. Just like Oedipus was doomed by fate, Willy is too doomed because of his inherent desire to achieve things that society puts out of his reach. No matter how far away his dreams go, Willy always strives to reach them, and it puts a rift between himself and others in his life.
Willy's idea of "success" goes way beyond any kind of desire for wealth, security, goods and status.
According to Aristotelian standards, a tragic character has to have some kind of flaw which causes them to fall. Huftel has remarked that Willy Loman and Death of a Salesman, in general, simply represents the "collapse of a Philistine,"
but it is much more than this. Willy Loman is different from the Everyman in that he doesn't evoke our emotions because he is mediocre; he moves us because of his all of his frustrated energy that goes into striving for what is more than mediocre.
Society, however, constantly denies Willy what he is striving for; Willy's ideas are, in a way, too powerful for society to allow him to have and for this we can feel sadness for...
In conclusion, Death of a Salesman tells the tragic tale of Willy Loman's life. We do feel pity for this man as we watch him fail and we do understand that he makes tragic mistakes throughout his life that have brought him to this point. Many critics want to make allowances for the play because it represents the world in which we live. In doing so, they seem to forget
That tragedies reflect life is one of Aristotle's requirements and this requires that dramas drift from the tales of great kings and princes. Arthur Miller writes, "Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so-called nobility of his character, is really but a clinging to the outward form of tragedy" (Miller qtd. In Wilson 132) and "I believe that the common man is as apt a subject
Death of a Salesman: Tragedy in Prose Tragedy, can easily lure us into talking nonsense." Eric Bentley In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, we are introduced to Willy Loman, who believes wholeheartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream -- that a "well liked" and "personally attractive" man in business will unquestionably acquire the material comforts offered by modern American life. Willy's obsession with the superficial qualities of attractiveness
Oedipus the King: A Tragic Hero In the Bedford Introduction to Drama, Lee Jacobus writes, "Greek Tragedy focused on a person of noble birth who in some cases had risen to a great height and then fell precipitately." The modern critic, Kenneth Burke expands on this. He developed a pattern for these tragedies. Burke believes that that the tragic hero goes through three developmental stages, the first is purpose, the second
I.148-9) his actions will cause, Oedipus sits in oblivion. He refuses to listen to his wife and brazenly tells her, "I will not listen; the truth must be made known" (II.iii.146). Iocaste morphs from being Oedipus' wife to his enemy because she is speaking words he does not want to hear. He tells her: The Queen, like a woman, is perhaps ashamed To think of my low origin. But I Am a child
Sophocles writes, "Tiresias: That's your truth? Now hear mine: honor the curse your own mouth spoke. From this day on, don't speak to me or to your people here. You are the plague. You poison your own land" (Sophocles, 2004, p. 47). Each of these men has positive qualities, but their tragic flaw outweighs these qualities, and leads to pity and their downfall in the end. In addition, their
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