Death of a Salesman Willy Loman tragedy is due more to his own flawed character than to societies flaws. Advancements in science throughout this century have led to tremendous advancements in industry. Advancements in industry, however, have not always led to advancements in living. For some, society has created mass wealth. For most mass society has created a standard of living unparalled throughout history.
For Willy Loman, however, mass society has created only tremendous greif and hardship, aggravated by the endless promise. For these reasons, his tragedy is due more to societies flaws than to the flaws in his own character. Willy Loman was host to many flaws and deficiencies ranging form suicidal tendencies to psychotic disorders. However, these shortcomings did not account for his tragic end, not by themselves anyway. Society into blame. It was society who stripped him of his dignity, piece by piece.
It was society who stripped him of his lifestyle, and his own sons who stripped him of hope. The most obvious flaw in society is greed, the desire to get ahead ofthe next guy. This malady is present on a national level. It is the philosophy of business and comprises the dreams of man.
Sometimes, this can drive man to great things, sometimes it can drive a man to ruin. Willy was driven to the latter. (Not his own greed for he was a simple man with simple dreams, but by the greed of others. ) The developers who took away the sun and gave birth to shadows, his boss who reduced him to commission and his sons which reduced him to a failure. The next largest flaw in society is a lack of compassion.
The Essay on Tragedy And The Common Man Willy Loman Not A Tragic Hero
In Arthur Millers essay about Tragedy and the Common Man, he argues that the common man is as appropriate a subject for tragedy as the very highly placed kings and noble men. Mankind keeps tragedy above all forms because they are given the same mental abilities as the nobles. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a common man and a middle class worker, enough saving to provide food for his ...
This could be as a result of almost overwhelming greed, the main culprit being big business. “I’m always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying forthe car and it’s on it last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things.” (Act 2, page 73, lines 16-19) Willy’s belief in this statement drew him to believe that big business lacked compassion. It is because of this that he is abandoned by Biff and disowned by Happy, left babbling in a toilet. It is this flaw whichallowed him to die a slow death and played the greatest role in his eventual downfall.
It was the direct result of the flaws in society which led Willy this undoing. It was the greed that was ever-pervasive around him that led to his unhappieness. It was the lack of compassion from society whichallowed his unhappieness to flourish and which eventually consumed him. In the end, it was the lack of a social safety net which failed to save him from himself.
