How Far do you Agree with the Suggestion that Willy Loman is a Tragic Hero?

I think that if the term 'Tragic Hero' is considered properly, Willy Loman does indeed fall under this category. In tragic hero, the true meaning of two words must be considered: Tragic and Hero. This may seem obvious, but I would suggest that either the considering of both words or their true meanings is not to anyone who argues that Willy Loman is not a Tragic Hero. Many state that 'Willy Loman is a failure, and therefore cannot be a hero'. Besides emphasising the work 'tragic', I would argue that he is a failure to the American Dream, but not a complete failure. The American dream is to have the perfect family, the perfect house and home, and the perfect life. Willy Loman does not have any of these. However, in the past, when his children were younger, he did. His children admired and adored him, and from what the play demonstrates he had the perfect life.

Because life was only perfect in the past, Willy remembers and relates to it a lot. Throughout the play he is constantly being interrupted by past memories. He is constantly daydreaming and remembering who and what he was and when it changed. What I mean by this is not that he looks upon his present self as a failure, but that he remembers large sections of the past that changed the character of Willy Loman. The two main events that changed him were the 'big game' where Biff, the apple of Willy's eye, was going to become glorious but failed, and the second when Biff walked in on Willy's affair with 'the Woman' in Boston and realised that Willy was 'a fake'; when Biff's admiration for his father became no longer. Both of these events concern Biff and Willy's relationship with him.

Willy Loman is a character to whom personal dignity is essential and, in the end, fatal. He must believe in himself and in the fact that he is respected by other people. He must believe that he is a success, and as he is a victim of the American dream this means that he must believe that life is perfect. On P.76 of 'Death Of A Salesman', he refuses a job from Charlie because he wants to think that Charlie is inferior to him and it would hurt his pride to take the job. Even though he is in debt and unemployed he refuses to save his dense of personal dignity.

In the present life is a grim place without much dignity for Willy, and therefore to him it is almost irrelevant. The fact that his life is difficult is a side factor of his being. The majority of his life in the present occurs in the past, when he has a decent job, a nice home and a great family. In the present he has a house in the middle of a built-up area where 'there's not a breath of fresh air' (Willy Loman, Death Of A Salesman, P.12) and no life satisfaction. Neither of his son's achieved the American dream as he would have wished, and Biff, the apple of Willy's eye, disrespects him because he thinks 'he's a fake' (Biff Loman, Death Of A Salesman, P. 45). Finally, his job solely provides work and stress, but for Willy, a false / an excuse for a sense of personal reliability and dignity.



By living in the past, Willy is fighting the system that degrades him. My opinion agrees with Arthur Miller's, expressed in his 'tragedy and the common man' where Miller states that 'the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity.' (Tragedy and the Common Man, Arthur Miller, P.1). A tragic character does just this. Miller states that a tragic hero is a character who's 'flaw' is his 'inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity' (Tragedy and the Common Man, Arthur Miller, P.1). Willy Loman does just this. He refuses to accept what is a challenge to his personal dignity: the present. By living in the past Willy manages to ensure and secure his sense of personal dignity because in the past was when he had it. The present, as I state above, is not the best of places for Willy because of the presence of the consequences of the failure of Willy's life. These factors (consequences) would destroy Willy's sense of personal dignity, and so, being a tragic hero he decides not to accept them, and to live in the past. At the end of the play, Willy Lowman indeed dies to save his personal dignity. He commits suicide believing that 'he will worship me for it' (Willy Lowman, Death Of A Salesman, P. 107). 'He' is Biff, Willy's prospect for the future that he would 'put my money on' (Willy Loman, Death Of A Salesman, P. 13) and that he loves dearly. Without Biff's respect Willy is dignity-less and lost, and so he dies for it.

Considering all of the factors above, I would say that with the definition of a tragic hero as it stands, it would be difficult to say that Willy Loman was not a tragic hero, both from my perspective and the author's- Arthur Miller. In my opinion, as I stated above, he fits the description perfectly. The only way in which it could be argued that he was not a tragic hero would be to say that a hero is flawless and does only good, but I would argue that this would be mistaking 'hero' for 'superhero', which I would consider to be a grave misinterpretation.
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