Death of a Salesman and the Modern Tragedy

Death of a Salesman is widely recognized as one of the best plays of the 20th century. Despite that, opinions vary as to whether the play is a tragedy or not. In this essay, I will provide an analysis that supports the claim that the play is a modern tragedy. I will base my analysis on several definitions provided by J. A. Cuddon in A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, on the definition of the tragedy provided by M. H. Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms, on Robert A. Martin’s article The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and, of course, on Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

In New York in the 1940s, Willy Loman is a 63-year-old salesman who can no longer make sales but holds on to his unrealistic hope that, if he keeps working hard, the American Dream is still at reach. He has no money to pay his bills and borrows money from his neighbor, hiding this from his family to protect his self-perceived image of a prosperous salesman. He has two adult sons: Biff, 34, who has just returned from the West and is jobless and unsure of his future, and Happy, 32, who is an assistant to the assistant buyer but expects to move beyond someday and achieve the ideal of the successful salesman that his father worships. Willy is unstable and slides between present reality and daydreams about the past, of moments of optimism and hope for the future, but also of his infidelity and of his brother Ben. 

In Poetics, Aristotle describes tragedy as a process of imitation of life itself, of an action that is serious and terrible, to evoke in the audience a catharsis. Robert A. Martin highlights that Miller’s writing makes us see particular characters as “possessing universal, human traits”. Therefore, Willy Loman is a character to be “experienced”: not only are audiences moved by him, but they are “emotionally invested” in the story, compelled to ask themselves questions. In Cuddon’s definition of tragedy, he states that modern tragedy features “the grief, the misery, the disaster, of the ordinary person.” And this is exactly what we see in Death of a Salesman: the fall of an ordinary American man in his blind pursuit of an unattainable dream, the grief of a broken family, the misery of those who could not achieve the promise of endless prosperity. By placing a common man in the center of the tragedy, Miller makes the reader and the audience not only sympathize with the tragic hero but also empathize with his anguish. According to Abrams, Willy Loman’s quality of being an ordinary man has an effect of “compassionate understanding rather than of tragic pity and terror.”

Cuddon explains that in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, “he spoke of the tragic hero as a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some error of judgement, of the number of those in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity.” Willy Loman fits perfectly in this description: a man whose tireless pursuit of a dream that is eternally out of reach to him leads to his destruction. As Robert A. Martin states, “Willy is fighting an impossible struggle that has left him talking to himself.” 

In Poetics, Aristotle states that a tragic hero must be true to life, that is, flawed. He has a hamartia, defined by Cuddon as “an error of judgement which may arise from ignorance or some moral shortcoming.” Willy Loman’s error of judgment is, in Miller’s words, fighting “a battle he could not have possibly won”. Willy refuses to let go of the dream of being a successful, loved salesman, rich like his brother Ben was, and financially prosperous. In his delusion and pride, he rejects the job offer he got from Charley, his economically well-off neighbor who lends him money to pay his bills. 

The hero’s tragic flaw is often excessive pride, also known as hubris. Willy Loman’s false belief that he is respected and well-liked and his ceaseless ambition cause his dishonesty. Willy lies about his connections, about being popular and loved in his job, and about his financial situation. His worst deceit is one that ultimately costs his son his future: while Willy is away on business in Boston, Biff visits him and finds him with another woman. Through a conversation between Willy and Bernard, we learn that Biff is completely devastated and distressed by his father’s betrayal. “What happened in Boston, Willy?”, Bernard asked. Once strong-willed and ready to do what it took to go to university, Biff returned surrendered, and burned his favorite sneakers, a symbol of his defeated attitude and the loss of identity he experienced. 

According to Abrams’s definition of tragedy, it ends “in a disastrous conclusion for the protagonist (the chief character)”. Willy Loman’s disastrous conclusion is his suicide, which is foreshadowed many times throughout the play. When Linda explains Willy’s current mental state of deterioration to her sons, she tells them that one of Willy’s accidents had not been an accident and that he “deliberately smashed into the railing”. She also explains that she found a rubber pipe in the basement which suggests that Willy might commit suicide by asphyxiating himself.  Though foreshadowed, his suicide is Willy’s way of acting “heroically in his own terms”, according to Robert A. Martin. To sacrifice his life is an act of courage and love for Biff. Nevertheless, as Martin states, “he does not die heroically; his tragedy is that he dies blindly and alone.” In his last delusion of Ben, Willy says: “Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Ben, he’ll worship me for it!”, showing that his desire of being worshipped moves him. Though he is well-intentioned, he is deluded until his last living moments: “When the mail comes he’ll be ahead of Bernard again!”.  His superficial sense of success and his pride chased him to the grave. 

Willy Loman’s tragedy is that he experiences the lie of the American dream even if the people around him, his brother Ben, his neighbor Charley, and his son Bernard, are able to achieve it. He is not able to come to terms with the disillusionment that it is not universally attainable. He is a victim of a society where social admiration derives from financial success and a system that used and discarded him. According to Abrams, “Willy Loman, in his bewildered defeat by life, is representative of the ordinary man whose aspirations reflect the false values of a commercial society.”

The tragedy in Death of a Salesman does not befall a noble but a common man. As Linda Loman cries, “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never on the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him.” Its hero is not a king, but an ordinary human being, just like his empathic audience, whose sorrow matters. 

Miller, A., & Bigsby, C. (1998). Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics). Penguin Classics.

Martin, R. (1996). The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". South Atlantic Review, 61(4), 97-106. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3201170

Cuddon, J. A., Habib, M. A. R., Birchwood, M., Dines, M., Fiske, S., & Velickovic, V. (2013). A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (5th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Abrams, M. H., & Harpham, G. (2014b). A Glossary of Literary Terms (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.