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Essay / Willy Loman as a complex character in Death of a Salesman so captivated by America. His dream and desire to be a good father ultimately leads to his suicide. However, Miller's tragic character is very different from the idea of tragedy put forward by Aristotle. Aristotle asserted that tragic characters should be noble and high achievers, which Willy certainly is not. Despite this definition of the tragic hero, Miller himself says, "The common man is as suitable a subject for tragedy as a great man," echoing Linda's words in the middle of the play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThe decision to make Willy an ordinary man instead of someone of higher status, as Aristotle suggested, involves many people, especially those who can draw. about certain aspects of Willy's life, can easily identify with Willy and, therefore, it is much easier to feel sympathy for him. Furthermore, Miller identifies the villain not as a person, but as the society of which the tragic hero is a part. To say that Willy is a "congenital lunatic" is false, however. Miller never introduces the audience to Willy's relationships during the play, with the exception of Ben, and even then he is a figment of Willy's imagination and therefore an unreliable source. So genetics is not to blame; rather, as David Calder puts it, “the system that exhausted this man.” Miller's view, which went against the typical American view of the time, was that capitalism and the American dream could harm a person despite the beautiful image it projected. This idea was considered radical at the time of publication – so much so that the first film adaptation of the play characterized Willy as psychotic. People just didn't see that someone could be against capitalism, or at least find fault with it. Throughout the play itself, the character of Willy evokes sympathy but also pity and anger. Some of his actions are difficult to justify and he does not have the typical stature of a tragic character like Othello. Although Willy is not a noble, high-achieving figure, Miller still makes his audience feel for him, despite his "changing nature, character" and inability to admit the truth. From the beginning of the play, Miller describes Willy as exhausted. He goes crazy, but vehemently denies it and is encouraged by his devoted wife Linda that there is nothing wrong with him: "Maybe it's your glasses," she says, and " Your mind is too active.” In the play's opening lines, Miller exposes capitalism through Willy's voice: "the way they locked us in" and the house's stage directions: "imposing angular shapes...surrounding it on all sides" which suggest isolation, especially when we take into account that Willy is a fairly small man both physically and in relation to society. By writing this, Miller is implying that it is not Willy himself, but the pressure that the American dream puts on people and corrupt American society that has driven Willy crazy. He is trapped in a system where the most important things in life are money and luxurious possessions, and Willy firmly believes that being loved is synonymous with success. His madness is therefore certainly not inherited, but the product of the country in which he lives. Willy's abilities (or lack of abilities) are something thoughquite difficult to define. It is easy to argue that he has below average abilities in many ways, which contrasts greatly with Aristotle's view of a highly capable tragic character. Willy's career certainly fails completely when he is fired: "there's just no place for you here", and Miller presents Willy as a failed salesman long before he is fired by Howard - he doesn't doesn't earn much.and his family is very poor, as evidenced by their lack of material goods (again linked to the fragility of the American dream), and this reminds us that for some to be fabulously rich, some must be correspondingly poor . Willy's continued protests that he is a business "big shot" prove false at the play's denouement: his own funeral, where instead of the hundreds of people Willy imagined, there are only five . As Miller says in his essay, Willy has a “need for immortality” that he never really realizes. The audience feels sympathy towards Willy because of this – he has "destroyed the boundaries between now and then", and is truly convinced that he is well loved and remembered when in fact the opposite is true. As well as his failure at work in the world, Willy also fails on a personal level – his fatherly qualities are deficient, although it is evident by the end of the play that a motivating factor in his suicide is to obtain a large sum of money for his family. Despite this, he encourages Biff to steal in his youth, in complete disregard of moral guidelines: "Coach will probably congratulate you on your initiative", which leads to a huge flaw in his son that culminates with Biff confessing that he “stole a suit”. in Kansas City,” which earned him a three-month prison sentence. He also pushes Biff to follow not his own dreams, but the dreams that society imposes on him: “How can he end up on a farm? — and while that might make it seem like Willy wants the best for Biff, which he obviously does, it's still not the right thing to do. The audience then loses all sympathy for Willy, who highlights the good of the material success he pursued in vain. Happy, on the other hand, is relatively ignored by Willy compared to Biff. He frequently tries to get his father's attention ("I'm losing weight, have you noticed, Dad?") but never succeeds in the way he wants. The audience therefore loses some sympathy for Willy due to his failing abilities as a father, and it is a great skill of Miller to evoke him in other ways. How other characters think about and react to Willy is key to Miller's evocation of Willy. sympathy for him. The only person who truly loves him throughout the play is Linda: “Willy is to me the dearest man in the world.” Despite this, Willy is often intolerant towards her and his anger towards her is completely unjustified: “Why do people always contradict me? It could be argued, however, that Willy is so guilt-ridden over his affair that the negative reaction toward his wife is a reflection of the guilt he feels for abandoning her. Additionally, the relationship between Willy and his children is arguably the most important in the play. Biff and Happy don't like Willy and are often embarrassed by him: "No, he's not my father." This complete disregard for their father increases the audience's sympathy for Willy - he strives, particularly in the case of Biff, to ensure that his sons succeed in a materialistic society: "never quit a job before to have finished", and instead of worrying and helping Willy, they abandon him in his difficult times - notably in a restaurant in ".” (1949)
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