Death of a Salesman: Tragedy or not?
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published 13/07/2008
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Summary
The great authors of old, such as Aristotle, Sophocles and Homer, all wrote incredible tragedies that immortalize the classical notion of a tragic hero. But what of today? Are there no tragedies that occur in the society of today? Where is Oedipus Rex in the world of the twentieth century? In “Tragedy and the Common Man”, Arthur Miller writes that “the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were” (1). The modern man can also be a tragic hero, no matter how unfit for this honor he seems to be. The modern man can be a hero; he merely has a different set of regulations than Oedipus did. This statement was written in response to Miller’s incredibly provocative play Death of a Salesman, which was first produced in 1949. Some critics of the play claim that it is merely pathos, not a modern tragedy, while others claim that it is a tragedy in the highest sense of the genre, a conflict caused by the play’s opposing qualities, as espoused by the characters. The play is neither a modern tragedy nor pathos because it exhibits qualities of both.
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