The tragic hero is a literary icon that has survived more than two thousand years. There are many characteristics that define a tragic hero, excluding noble blood, tragic vices, and feelings of pity and fear, and their actions forcefully end in death. In Arthur Miller’s story, Death of a Salesman, we have Willie Loman, but is he considered a hero?
A singular difference in the modern conception of the tragic hero is whether he should be a prince. Willie Loman can in no way be considered pure blood. It can easily be argued that it is nothing more than the sum of the common man, but I would say that the character is not so empty, but the just man is just, not all lasers from their eyes but this does not make them gentle. Willie is a common middle class, typical in almost everyone. He tries to give his people a better life than he always dreams of what might have happened, and finally being robbed of his pension and condemned to the place he finds himself in, the only madness is escape or suicide, and it is most certain that tragedy can happen to any man, vanquished or noble.
Willie Loman is proud; this is the defect that made the journey. It blinded him by choosing a career in sales, something he has no earthly sense of doing well. Willie’s pride is what keeps him from admitting to Biff what he did all those years ago at the hotel, preventing that crack from happening. I take pride in himself, lest the kids not now, and not always great Titans. he sees that they are Pride hinders the honest evaluation of things, unless, out of pride, he can choose a better way for himself and for his children. The emptiness that consumes the life of a waking life could be replaced with the inner joy of doing what is good every day.
You can easily feel sorry for Willie Loman, but I’m not so sure that’s justified. Consider that Willie is in his own hands. I can’t help but feel sorry for the man who is unable to keep that stove burning every time he touches the coal. red circle for a period of forty years. It is a pitiful thing about him that he rages and strives, and yet several attempts are made to kill himself, but even then he seems to have wanted to go this way. In a dramatic final confrontation, Biff confronts his father with a wire. Willie doesn’t deny it, he sits mute so that he is aware of his feelings and prefers to concentrate on his son’s words. “Is this strange,” he said.
All the events of the story lead to the death of the Hero. Willie dies, not really something to discuss. There is no other way to end it, Willie’s pride will not allow it. Willy Loman, John Proctor, Eddie Carbone etc. they all achieve a tragic position because they refuse to compromise. Fury flooded Willie that he was nothing more than a copout, knocked clean out of the ballpark never to be seen again. He cannot meet the world as he sees it and chooses to leave it. “Petus is effected when the first, through imprudence, by reason of sense, or by himself, casts out the air, incapable of a much better fighting force.” When he first met Willie Loman, he had already lost the battle. He lost forty years the day he wanted to become a salesman.
Willie Loman is not a hero in any classical sense of the term; to bring about his common origins, but is Willie Loman a hero in the modern sense? Nay, fearing the pitiful, some condemn him to honor. However, from my belief in the sense of what it means to be strong, I find it very lacking. Willie’s fault is his pride, but pride does not make him mad. Willie has a little moment where you realize he has some idea of what is happening to him, “Man is not part of the fruit,” he says. He is a tearful shell of a man who breaks of his own accord choosing a moment where I am not afraid of him. he is a coward. He chooses death in the end, not because it is the right thing to do, or to correct the lie that is his life, but because he does not allow his pride to fix his life.
