Willy Loman

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Miller's use of Aristotle's concept of the tragic hero in his construction of the character, Willy Loman, from "Death of a Salesman." The paper author thinks that it is true genius of Arthur Miller to create a tragic hero out of a regular ordinary character. The paper author believes that Willy fits the definition of Aristotle's completely and contains all the features of a man destined to meet failure and misfortune because of his innate flaw.

From the Paper:

"Aristotle was of the view that a tragic hero is the one who arouses pity and fear in others. Judging the character of Willy according to this description, we notice that Willy, too, manages to arouse pity and fear in the readers. Pity because people feel sorry for the man who cannot distinguish between reality and disillusionment and therefore constantly suffers from misfortune. On the other hand, the character also arouses fear because while studying his life, readers are suddenly gripped with the fearful realization that this fate could have been theirs, too."

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