Tragic Heroes in Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman and...

Tragic Heroes in Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman and Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House Dramatists such as Aristotle started to write a series of plays called tragedies. They were as follows: the play revolved around a great man such as a king or war hero, who possessed a tragic flaw. This flaw or discrepancy would eventually become his downfall. These types of plays are still written today, for example, Arthur Millers Death of Salesman and Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House. Death of Salesman shows the downfall of the modern tragic hero, Willy Loman, a middle class working man. Nora, in A Dolls House displays that characteristics of a tragic hero, in that she shows potential for greatness, but is stifled by her society. Willy Loman†¦show more content†¦Sadly, his overzealous attempts serve only to reinforce his sons inadequacy and lack of identity. Willy realizes toward the end of the play that he doesnt need to sell himself to his family, who loves him despite his failings. His suicide, an act of defiance of the system, which until now has defeated him, is also a tr agic attempt to salvage something of his dream. Willys readiness to lay down his life to secure his dream that makes Willy a tragic yet heroic figure and one to whom in Lindas words, attention must be paid finally. According to Miller, the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready t put his life aside, if necessary, to secure one thing, his sense of personal dignity (Para 3, Miller). He is saying in this quotation that even the common man can even be tragic because occasionally the one thing that he prizes the most, his sense of self dignity can be so jaded that he would rather die than except his failure. I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life (Para 4, Miller). Perhaps Miller is correct, the reader sympathisizes with Willy because he is so passionate about his self preservation and pride. Willy was ready to throw his life away to be a well -liked man and suc cessful being. He did not want to accept the fact that he failed in his occupation, so he refused to ever acknowledge his dying career. In the end his fate was thatShow MoreRelatedThe Changing Relationship Between Individual and Society in Modern Drama3272 Words   |  14 Pageslived. The Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, who wrote in the last half of the 19th Century, broached the subject from a rather feminist angle, stipulating that it was wrong to view an individual woman as a nonentity without rights outside the role of motherhood or marriage; In the 1930s and 40s, German-born writer Bertolt Brecht, produced a series of plays following ideologies common of Nihilist and later Marxist values; Following the second world war, Arthur Miller wrote to American audiences