The tragedy and the human being in Arthur Miller‘s play Death of a Salesman

The tragedy and the human being in Arthur Miller‘s play Death of a Salesman

Turku, Marsela

So far a number of articles have dealt with the American dream and how it is developed in Arthur Miller‘s plays, especially in The Death of a Salesman. However, not enough attention has been paid to the tragedy and the human tragedy in these plays. In the essay ‗The Tragedy of the Common Man‘ Miller expressed his attitudes and beliefs about the nature of literary tragedy, its principles, the social status of the protagonist, what he understands as a human tragedy etc. This paper examines how this play could be interpreted and reread with a primary focus that of ―tragedy and the human being‖, it tries to answer to the question whether the protagonist‘s fall is a consequence of hamartia (a flaw in the character of the protagonist of a literary tragedy that brings about his or her downfall and a key element in tragedy) or whether he is a victim of the values of his community (the main theme of the social drama); which is the role of the American society‘s values and the conflict between the American dream and the idealization of this dream within the main protagonist; it will also answer the question if his plays are merely ‗social dramas‘ or ‗they challenge the tradition of tragedy from its first description in Aristotle‘s Poetics and the conventions of Shakespearian tragedy.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

120