Tragedy

Death of a Salesman Tragedy (Greek) – is the play a tragedy or just tragic?

II. Literary Elements in Tragedy

Yes -- It is possible to push people to their emotional limits, forcing them to do something out of character.

Plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement

Conflict: man vs. man, man vs. society, man vs. himself, man vs. nature, Polis vs. oikos (city vs. family), reason vs. emotion, religious law vs. secular law

Characterization: watch for motivation = hamartia (Doing right thing for wrong reason?) Protagonist -- good guy Antagonist -- bad guy But frequently more in common than different (ie: Snape, Magneto)

III. Defining tragedy Aristotle's Poetics

1. characters must get worse than they deserve 2. must have an identifiable tragic hero a. Tragic Hero 1. live extremely 2. reach a height 3. do a deed which is an act of hubris 4. display an hamartia (strong character in an exposed position) 5. serve as a pharmakos (could be hereditary) 6. disturb a balance in nature 7. fall from height 8. have a recognition point

http://faculty.smu.edu/jdbradle/GreekTragedy.asp

Death of a Salesman displays two of the literary elements of Greek Tragedy: the conflict of man vs. society (since he is trapped by the norms of his society and influenced by its ideals) and man vs. himself (since the play focuses on Willy’s internal struggle and the effects he has had on his own sons.)

However, when Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) touched its audiences with awe and pity in the manner of Aristotle’s prescriptions, critics debated whether the play could be genuinely tragic in the Greek sense, given that it had no nobler a protagonist than the salesman Willy Loman, which goes against the idea that a Tragic Hero should live extremely, according to Aristotle

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590186/theatre/30046/General-considerations#ref=ref404298

In defense of Death of a Salesman as a tragedy, it has been argued that ‘the play begins when Willy must finally suffer the “wages of sin” for choices already made, in the same way that Oedipus must confront the consequences of a crime already enacted. But in fact he also makes choices within the time frame of the present… [However] without free will, tragedy cannot exist in Miller’s view, for tragedy contests the idea that characters are only victims of external powers rather than participants in their own destiny… [Willy] “brings tragedy down on himself,” Raymond Williams has explained in his defense of the play as tragedy, “not by opposing the lie, but by living it.”’

The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller by Terry Otten (http://books.google.com)

In keeping with the traditions of Greek tragedy, the hero – Willy Loman – suffers from a tragic flaw, that of pride, since his downfall is brought about by his unwillingness to admit his lowly position in life and to take help from others i.e. the job offer from Charley, and the offers of support from Biff and Happy.