Can ‘Death of a Salesman’ be Described as a Tragedy Essay

Aristotle first defined a tragedy in writings as a story where the of import character is a pigboat a real brilliant soul except that he has wiz major flaw which leads to his evenf on the whole, namely, death. Shakespe be then expanded on this and produced his world famous tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Hamlet. In all of these plays, the principal(prenominal) character is a person of high social standing and exceptionally talented, however for each one has a very(prenominal) serious flaw as well.For pillowcase, Romeo is of Italian nobleness and is very efficient with a sword and dagger but he is a fool for love and falls in love with Juliet as soon as he sees her, in spite of already universe in love with Rosaline beforehand. That is the flaw which eventually leads to his demise. This definition has over season call on the benchmark for a tragedy. Arthur miller was an immigrant to the USA and net be seen as the opposite of Willy. Willy, however, is a proud born(p) and bred American and holds to datet the very funda affables of the American Dream a very capitalistic ethos.Miller, on the other(a) hand, had communist beliefs which eventually landed him in trouble with the government. some(prenominal) Death of a Sales universe and another of Millers plays, All My Sons two have the foundations of the American Dream and withal both secretly strike hard the capitalistic belief. In Death of a Salesman, Willy dies only trying to sustain the American Dream and he never gives up on it an reading of his extreme optimism in all things despite how blatantly unrealistic achieving the American Dream was for him.The characterisation of Willy Loman is also instead interesting. He strives to be a equal(p) a very old, successful salesman he met that worked from home, who when he died, numerous slew he knew went to his funeral. He is someone everyone can rival to and call us love him, but he also has qualities that we all loat he and make us hate him at times. This is purposefully go ine by Miller to only make it more shocking when Willy dies in the end despite it is made quite obvious to readers it is inevitable.His name is also carefully plotted out by Miller Willy is an average name and nothing special, but his surname is a clear reference to what he is. Loman low man is clearly meant to show how ordinary he is, despite just how practically Willy strives to be the opposite. Willys main character flaw is that he is just too proud. For example, when he is offered a job by Charley his neighbour aft(prenominal) being fired, Willy straight out ref usages and is quite offended as he sees it as giving up and asking for help. This is shown by when Willy says, I dont want your goddam jobAfter Charley politely offers him a good one. Willys strong beliefs in the American Dream are also shown when he says, A man cant go out the way he came in, Ben, a man has to add up to something, by coming in, Willy mean s when a man is born and by going out, Willy means when a man dies. Also, adding up to something must mean being rich in Willys context. This follows the American Dream in that a man makes something of himself from nothing. Willys greatest c at oncern has always been dying with nothing exactly what happens in the end.A use of melodramatic irony by Miller, Willy volitionally fulfils his own utmost fear. That inverted comma is also foreshadowing Willys death another intentional art by Miller. Besides his pride, another flaw of Willy is very poor and deteriorating mental health and he is subject to random flash back ups and hallucinations often of his dead and once very successful older brother, Ben, someone Willy idolizes. An example of one of his hallucinations is when Willy says, Ben, Ive been waiting for so long, despite Ben being dead at this point. The play is also cleverly structured by Miller.Music for example a crimp plays in the background during some scenes for an added dramatic effect. This flute is heard in both the opening and ending scene. The play also makes heavy use of flashbacks, but sometimes a flashback scene plays on stage at the same time as the scene eagerness in the present. This technique is seen in Act Two, while Willy is in the restaurant with Biff and Happy. On the whole, the structure is skilfully used to make the plot line more immersive to the audience. Although, it does not have the same level of effect when being read from a book.The historical context of the play greatly influences both the themes and language of the play greatly. Death of a Salesman is set during the late 1940s. This time scope influences both the characters and the audience, as the play first premiered on the tenth of February, 1949 the life of Willy Loman was something Americans going to watch the play at that time could relate to. Sixty years on, more modern audiences will react differently as times have changed and the idea of the American Dream isnt as dominant anymore. Besides the American Dream, other common themes can be found in the play.Betrayal is quite clear as Willy betrays Linda by cheating on her with the Woman, and Willy also sees the way Biff rebels against him as betrayal and as Willy himself says, Spite . Another major theme would be one man Willy in this case being kept back from his dreams by society. In addition, the language used by characters matches the historical setting and context. In performances of the play, characters do not usually have the New Yorker idiom you would expect, but they talk like a New Yorker. For example, words like gee, and rhetorically asking the person they are talking to if they hear this?On the subject of whether we can define Death of a Salesman as a tragedy or not is not a fair question as there is substantial evidence for both sides of the argument. To fix with, those who say that it is a tragedy may argue that it ends with the death of Willy, the main character, just like other tragedies. Moreover, Willy has explicit flaws which slowly lead to his downfall throughout the play. Finally, Willy may not ever do anything that can be deemed heroic, but within his own household he is very much a figure that is looked up to so it may quieten be a tragedy, albeit on a less grand scale.In contrast, you could argue that it is not a tragedy as all other characters from Shakespeares tragedies were people of high standing whereas Willy is not. Additionally, Willy is not at all a hero by any definition in particular he is in some ways a bad person as will be shown. Finally, Shakespeares heroes have quite dramatic flaws, whereas Willy has the same flaws as every ordinary human being. These are quite convincing arguments to why it isnt a tragedy. We will be tone at each argument more in-depth.The play follows the tragedies of Shakespeare in that the main character dies in the end. Willy commits suicide by crashing his car so that his family would qu arter the life insurance money of $20,000 and make life easier for them. This is of course a noble reason to kill oneself as it is very selfless. However, it would make Willy a hypocrite as killing himself is also him giving up something he condemned. Nevertheless, his intentions were admirable and this could make him seen as a hero since he willingly died for a selfless cause.