Tragedy And The Common Man :: essays research papers

In Arthur Millers 1949 essay, "Tragedy and the Common Man," Miller began by saying, "In this age few tragedies are written." This particular essay was published in the New York Times, was also the preface that was prepared for "Death of a Salesman" in 1949. Before Millers "Death of a Salesman," there was except one type of tragedythat which crack Aristotles definition. For Aristotle, plays of tragedy had to swan around kings, gods, or people of high class. In these classic tragedies, the verbiage must be elevated and fitting of the characters.Arthur Miller challenged just active e rattling belief and convention that had previously been accepted about tragic plays, as in Shakespeares "Hamlet"which could be considered the paragon of tragedies. In claiming, "The tragic mode is archaic," Miller explains "that the common man is as intelligent a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." This very notion that regu lar people are just as fit to be main characters in a tragedy as royalty was also applied to the audiences understanding of a tragic play. If the play was supposed to be about upper-class people, and was spoken in a vernacular that was only known to the high-bred, how were the common people who apothegm these plays supposed to comprehend their meaning? The only way for this problem to be solved, according to Miller, was to present a character to whom the audience will readily relate. Miller did this by presenting Willy Loman, the main character of "Death of a Salesman," who was a common workingman with a wife and two kids.The reason that there is such(prenominal) an absence of tragedies in this day and age, is that "the turn which modern literature has taken toward the purely psychiatric view of life, or the purely sociological," has been one that creates skepticism. With so much thinking involved, and analyzing, no one can really venerate a play for what it isp ure entertainment. By constantly trying to configuration out a reason for why something happened, the audience can no longer accept tragic action, let alone heroic action. This, on with the societal belief that in order for a protagonist to be recognized as a character he must be faultless, has made tragedy nearly impossible. Every person has his/her faults, even the considerable Hamlet had his downfall his ambivalence and indecisiveness brought him down. Just as Willy Lomans lack of self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy are what destroyed him.