The Issue in Descriptive Form: Arthur Miller, as his famous essay attests, thought of Willy Loman, the protagonist of his Death of a Salesman, as a tragic hero. According to Miller, Willy Loman's social status (or lack thereof) is inconsequential. I agree; however, I wish to object to Miller's central assertion on the grounds that Willy Loman fails to meet the critical requirement for a tragic protagonist, a requirement recognized since the days of Aristotle: he is not somebody I could possibly look up to. I can't think of Willy Loman as somebody I could possibly call "noble." As I see it, Willy Loman lacks "nobility"--which has nothing to do with social status and other such externals. I find him a "pathetic" character. Willy Loman never achieves the kind of insight into himself I "demand" of a would-be tragic protagonist. Instead of searching for the truth, including the truth about himself, Willy Loman tells Biff he does not wish to hear it, preferring to persist in his silly notion of what matters in life and ending it all by avoiding to face the consequences of a life spent in pursuit of phoney values and filling his sons with hot air. I don't believe that "attention must be paid" to Miller's protagonist. I see hope in Biff, though, and I pity Linda. Even his suicide, far from being of the kind of awful act we see Othello commit, turns out to be another escape from reality: Linda won't even get the life insurance premium, as far as I can tell, and Willy Loman ought to have known that.

In your essay of circa four pages (usual technical stipulations) try to respond to my challenge; it does not matter where you come down, so long as you provide sufficient, specific support from the text of Miller's popular play for your conclusions. If you have ideas or a draft you want to have me respond to, stop by my office with everything you want me to review on paper. Good Luck

New Due Date: May 08, 1996.