Willy Loman: A Tragic Hero

Paper Summary:

This paper focuses on the character of Wily Loman and finds out how the man fits the description of a tragic hero as given by Aristotle in his book, 'Poetics.' Willy Loman is the leading character of Arthur Miller's play titled "Death of a Salesman" which appeared in 1949. The author of this paper feels that Willy Loman is unable to distinguish between reality and illusion. Using examples from the play, the author shows how Loman feels that he and his son are successful businessmen but in reality he is a weak fellow who is incapable of turning his dreams into reality.

From the Paper:

"Aristotle also clearly said that a tragic hero was not someone who brought misfortune upon himself through some accident. For example while Brutus was a tragic hero, Julius Caeser himself cannot be categorized as one because the latter as killed by those whom he had trusted while the former ruins himself because of a series of errors. Therefore it is clear that a tragic hero is the one who commits series of mistakes and therefore ultimately ruins himself and meets a tragic end. Willy Loman too did not become suicidal all of a sudden, he committed grave errors form time to time because he failed to acknowledge the importance of hard work and thus finally met a tragic death which was more a result of living in an imagery world than anything else."

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