A study of Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman as a modern tragedy - Research Paper Example

? A study of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman as a modern tragedy The and Section number Texas Southern ’s name A study of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman as a modern tragedy Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman can be said to have the thematic and structural features of a modern tragedy for reasons other than its tragic denouement. Beginning with Miller’s ironic treatment of the American Dream to the obvious allegorical connotations of the names of the characters, the play simultaneously adheres to and modifies the traditional conception of tragedy. This paper shall attempt to understand the tragic underpinnings of Miller’s play and the subsequent social commentary that the play makes through the character of Willy Loman. Perhaps the chief sphere in which Death of a Salesman is at odds with the Aristotelian idea of tragedy is in its characterization of Willy Loman. Aristotle asserted that the impact of tragedy is truly felt when the tragic hero is suitably significant or of noble birth. Willy Loman is a man of little social significance. In fact, the irony of the title is perhaps intended, as the death of a mere salesman is unlikely to have any lofty impact on the society or on people’s minds. However, it is through Willy’s inconsequential existence that Miller reworks the Aristotelian definition of tragedy. Through Willy’s professional and personal waning, the play portrays an entire generation’s disillusionment with the American Dream. Willy Loman’s tragedy is fundamentally non-heroic in nature. His unsung life and death can also be interpreted as an extended existential commentary on the nature of modern life which is banal and lacks a sense of coherent purpose. In Death of a Salesman, Miller brings about social and existential questioning through the unlikely motif of commerce. The profession of a salesman is one that is intrinsically connected to a consumerist economy. If one bears in mind that the play was written only a few decades after the Great Depression in 1949, it would perhaps be apt to equate Willy’s professional failure with the play’s implicit criticism of America’s relentless pursuit of material prosperity. However, the most important aspect of Willy’s profession is the suggestion that lingers throughout the play – that Willy barters not merely goods but also his soul. In the essay “Success, Law, and the Law of Success: Re-evaluating Death of a Salesman’s Treatment of the American Dream,” Galia Benziman writes, “Through the representation of this salesman’s emotional collapse, the drama voices the playwright's resentment against the damaging and demeaning power of the American ethos of consumption and private economic success on the individuals who uphold and nourish it” (Benziman). Therefore, in his ceaseless and futile pursuit for success and happiness, Willy Loman loses more than his job; he also loses his individuality and his integrity, and herein lies the play’s depiction of the tragic. At numerous points in the play it is made clear that Willy’s wife and sons perceive his life and subsequent suicide to be replete with pathos. However, it is made amply clear that despite Willy’s ideas about the great achievements of salesmanship, his dream of success is deeply flawed and shall never be realized. Significantly, this sense of impending failure is felt most acutely by Willy. This self-reflexivity is seen in his confession to his imagined image of Ben: “I still feel-kind of temporary about myself” (Miller). This realisation, however, does not deter him from continuing to search for success as he pitifully asks Bernard to help him understand the “secret” of success. This image of temporariness or incompleteness is perhaps the work’s commentary on the American zeitgeist as envisioned by the idea of the American Dream. America, imagined by the early settlers as the New World, was a country in the making, unlike its European counterparts. However, unlike Willy Loman whose feeling of “temporariness” is an indication of his professional and personal failure, the incompleteness of America was expected to be enabling, and indicative of its movement towards prosperity. If Willy is believed to symbolize America, then his thwarted ambitions can well be said to represent the collective disillusionment with the American Dream. Thus the play’s status as a modern tragedy is reiterated as Willy’s tragedy transcends the boundaries of the personal to represent a sense of national disenchantment. Notwithstanding the play’s obvious intended irony in its treatment of Willy’s failure and death, it is possible to locate a contradictory element of heroism in his decision to end his life. Willy’s awareness of his own predicament indicates that his suicide is an act of will and not merely a deterministic consequence of fate. In “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Miller observes that “the morality that the common man chooses, that distinguishes his choice from merely psychological or sociological considerations, implies first the desire and ability to act” (Miller). Willy, for all his follies, does not fail to act. His act of suicide can thus be interpreted as his last albeit unwise attempt at finding glory. Thus, one can perhaps argue that despite Willy Loman’s predicament, the tragic element in Miller’s play does not descend into complete cynicism-there remains a hint of possibility for social and moral resurrection for both the principal character and the society that he represents. B.S. Field Jr., in his essay “Hamartia in Death of a Salesman,” observes that it is possible to analyse Will’s tragic fall as a consequence of his tragic flaw or hamartia (Field). The concept of hamartia which is a crucial element in Aristotle’s treatise of tragedy implies a transgression committed by the tragic hero in ignorance which results in his downfall. The essay identifies Willy’s hamartia to be his desire to mould his sons in his own image which renders them as morally and socially ineffectual as him. This can be seen in Happy’s words as he ponders over the purposelessness of his life: “Sometimes I sit in my apartment – all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely” (Miller). Paradoxically, it is this lack of action or purpose which drives the action of the play. Unlike traditional tragedies, Death of a Salesman moves towards its denouement not through a catastrophic event but gradual and definite social and psychological decay in the characters and the social milieu in which they are located. The numerous structural elements of the play work as important thematic symbols within. Particularly significant is the image of the seeds which Willy plans to buy in the beginning of Act II and the curious recurring image of Linda’s stockings in Act I. The seeds which conventionally represent fertility are an ironic indicator of the moral and psychological sterility in the characters. The image of the seeds represents particularly Willy’s failure as a father and his troubled relationship with Biff. Willy’s fixation with Linda’s stockings is reminiscent of the adultery that he commits with another woman in his Boston hotel room. The silk stockings thus operate as metaphors of a failed marriage and sexual and emotional sterility. Furthermore, since his act of adultery had estranged his own son from him, Willy’s agitation upon seeing Linda mending her stockings can be viewed as his fervent but unsuccessful attempt at making amends for his numerous transgressions. At a reductive, literal level, Miller’s play may lead one to believe that unlike the Aristotelian tragic hero, Willy Loman’s fall evokes merely pity but not fear. However, deeper probing leads one to gauge that the fear that Willy’s tragic plight evokes is brought about by portraying the universal condition of the modern man through the particularized figure of Willy. Willy’s struggle against the society in which most of us are complacently ensconced, shows the inflexibility of this society and the devastating effect that it can have on an individual. The evidence of Willy’s delusional nature can be seen in the manner in which he mythologizes people and situations. Especially significant is his insistence on comparing his sons to Adonis and Hercules in order to prove his own triumph as a father. The protagonist’s misconceptions thus create a kind of play within a play and yet again reiterate the elusive nature of the American Dream. However, Willy’s delusions do not merely render him a pitiable figure. In the essay titled “The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman”, Robert A. Martin rightly notes: “Willy is not merely pitiable. Although his enthusiasm may outstrip the realities of his situations, it also lets us admire his joy of living. A man who is constantly on the edge of pessimism according to his current sales chart, Willy can repeatedly rebound and fill himself with joy, pride, and optimism for the future of his son Biff”(Martin). Thus, one may conclude by asserting that Death of a Salesman both conforms to and subverts the conventional form and themes of tragedy, while simultaneously interrogating the idea of the mirage-like American Dream. Works Cited Benziman, Galia. “Success, Law, and the Law of Success: Reevaluating Death of a Salesman’s Treatment of the American Dream.” South Atlantic Review 70.2 (2005): 20-40. Web. 4 July 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064631 Field, B.S. Jr. “Hamartia in Death of a Salesman.” Twentieth Century Literature 18.1 (1972): 19-24. Web. 4 July 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/440691 Martin, Robert A. “The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.” South Atlantic Review 61.4 (1996): 97-106. Web. 4 July 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201170 Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Web. 3 July 2012. http://cc.usst.edu.cn/Download/c849567f-a9d0-4250-9b4f-db3b7f3670ed.pdf Miller, Arthur. “Tragedy and the Common Man,” from The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (Viking Press, 1978). Web. 4 July 2012. http://theliterarylink.com/miller1.html Read More