Tragedy And The Common Man Essay

Arthur Miller’s Tragedy and the Common Man sets out to define tragedy and give basic guidelines that many if not all tragedies follow. In this essay I will be comparing the essay Tragedy and the common man to Arthur Miller's death of a salesman to see if he adhered to his own rules which writing his tragedy.
The first guideline in Arthur Miller’s Tragedy and the Common Man is every tragedy must have a character ready to lay down their life to “gain their rightful position in society”. This first guideline is fulfilled when Willy Loman is ready to kill himself in order for Biff and his family to become successful. This is one point where Miller’s “tragedy and the common man” is not true to to Death of a salesman, for in Death of a salesman Willy is not killing himself as a selfish act as suicide is usually seen as but to secure Biff’s future as a successful business owner. However, Biff has made it clear to his father that he doesn’t want to be a business owner but want to be a cowboy. Therefore in death of a salesman Willy is laying down his life to secure something but it is not his personal sense of dignity but it's Biff’s future.
Miller states a tragic flaw is a character's “Unwillingness to remain passive in the
Willy thinks everything will work out fine and all his problems will solve himself over time. He can not even fathom that tragedy will occur to him. He says “... I’m gonna knock Howard for a loop, kid. I’ll get an advance and I’ll come home with a New York job. Goddammit, now I’m gonna do it!” but in reality he gets fired from his job. This is why the common people should be exposed to tragedy, or else they might be shocked and not know what to do when tragedy