DOAS aspects of tragedy

What could we argue is Willy's hamartia?

Blindness to reality and righteous ways of life - he is rendered incapable of distinguishing between reality and fiction. As a result, he is always striving for success rather than appreciating what he already has. He cannot see the value in his family and always seeks to gain monetary and materialistic gain. He actively takes part in his own downfall through the inconsistency of his warped beliefs. He wishes to be well-liked and popular yet still encourages unlawful and competitive behaviour - ideas which contradict each other and display the nature of his merging between fiction and reality.

Who plays the tragic victim, hero and villain in the play?

These roles appear fluid in DOAS. It seems that Willy is a villain to himself, by ignoring his blindness and ignorance to the truth despite being shaken into reality by the people around him, leaving him even more determined to achieve the impossible - what he wants is intangible. Willy challenges his social status and level of "success," being too self-destructively eager to conform to the place he remains in society. This leads to the deterioration of his mental health as the definition of success is relative - and his is based upon things you cannot grasp. As a tragic hero, he does not begin as a noble (as conventionally they do) but as an average man struggling to provide for his family and realizing that he is coming to retirement age without having completed his unrealistic goals. His myopia is typical for a tragic hero and it becomes self-destructive as events cascade into his suffering and the equally terrible suffering he inflicts onto his family. Through ignoring his realisation of the truth during anagnorisis, it becomes clear that there is no hope for Willy; no sense of redemption since he shows no effort to change his ways. Instead, he pictures his failures as a representation of his own insignificance, hence leading to his suicide which he believes is a sacrifice and is the only way of creating something good from his life. For in his mind, there is no changing the past and death is his last chance to succeed somehow. It proves that Willy's state of mind was damaged severely towards his death and that in fact, despite his wrongdoings, he had good intentions at heart - everything he did was for his family, even if it was immoral and ignorant. This tragic ending leaves us feeling more despair than what we might have imagined; throughout the play we believed that Willy was selfish until the very end. Hence,

How does capitalism and consumerism play a role in Willy's downfall and in which way does Miller seem to criticize this society?

The very setting of the play signifies the dominance of the capitalist society the Loman family were set in. The rustic house is enclosed by tall overlooking skyscrapers, rendering the family and their house small, insignificant and vulnerable. It becomes oppressed and creates a sense of entrapment and claustraphobia; there is no escape from the growing city life around what is left of the rural country. This symbolises the evergrowing capitalism of America as an unstoppable force yet portrays it like an enemy rather than an ally. The references towards products in Miller's work represent capitalism and the consumerism-based American society to have material wealth rather than human emotion. Some of the characters are in poor economic situations and it is the capitalist society which causes the want to buy goods as they then feel they fit equally with the rest of society. The characters buy more than they can afford in the cycle of buying a 'must have' advertised product, displayed as fitting in with a life of the American Dream, having that object break and constantly be repairing or replacing products. Miller made Willy comment on how he feels that he is "in a race with the junkyard" which criticises the capitalist system and how they exploit the protaganists in his plays. In DOAS, many objects appear to symbolise this critiquing of the society the play was written in. For example, the football is stolen by Biff and through Willy forgiving him, he teaches that material goods are worth more than knowledge and the interaction of playing football, which creates a connection between people. This may also be a symbol on Miller's part for the capitalist economy essentially stealing labourers' money through false advertisement of the American dream if they keep up to date with modern products, which teaches again that human

do we feel catharsis at the end of this play? For what reasons either yes or no?

willy is presented as a relatable character to the audience as a "common man" with no special title, similar to the audience - as outlined by Miller himself. This is due to his desire to always strive for a better, more comfortable life for his family in terms of a house, money and jobs. The audience can relate to struggles of poorer families in a harsh capitalist society - especially during and after the great depression which left many people scraping for money. He is the embodiment of what the American Dream has turned into and how is has become very corrupt.

Does Willy Loman relate to the tragedy of a common man?

Willy's character echoes the 'tragedy of the common man' as Miller causes the reader and audience to realise that the American Dream is designed to make people fail. There is no way Willy could have gotten to the place in society that he wanted to because there are oceans of capitalism and the economic system is designed to make people lose instead of grow personally and financially to get to a 'rightful' (or what was considered so) place in society. Similarly, Miller also says how tragedy is "the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly" as this also embodies how people of the capitalist America tried to prove themselves as something in such a competitive society where no matter how hard they try to justify themselves, they will fail as capitalism was designed to make them never succeed.

How has Willy changed from being Biff's hero to losing his respect? How does this affect the audience?

The play is horrifically relatable in some senses as Willy moves from being Biff's hero and role model as a child - living in a dream world the same as his father. Though the transition into adulthood knocks sense into Biff eventually; he was influenced by Willy's false morals and definitions of righteousness and success that it caused Biff to struggle through life too. However, Biff is a symbol of change and is the only character who learns from his father's mistakes and leaves us with a sense that at least he has broken free from the warped ideas that Willy burdened the rest of his family with. The audience may be able to see themselves in Biff's position; believing, as an impressionable child, that their parents were the greatest and knew the right thing to do. The tragic aspect of this is when reality hits during adolescence to adulthood - the realization that your parents are blindly making mistakes which you cannot change and that you can see how badly it is affecting their lives. Willy never had a role model as a child, with absences of male figures since he was young. This may have caused his obscure views as he may have had to seek guidance and opinions from untrustworthy sources, hence the reason why his idea of "success" is so warped.

Could Linda be seen as a villain in some respects?

Though Linda loves Willy unconditionally and only wishes his happiness, it is obvious that she does not help him change for the greater good. She is very much a flat character as she undergoes little change from mollycuddling Willy and wrapping all harsh yet necessary truths in sugarcoated dreams. In essence, she arguably prevents any change in Willy's flaws through the worry that it could damage him mentally. The audience may question whether Willy may have avoided death and seeked change if Linda had not prevented Biff from shaking truth into Willy or even pre-children had directed him into a more realistic way of life. It is clear that Willy is a dreamer and Linda is a realist, yet we only ever see one affecting the other in terms of the dreamist. Linda never puts across her realistic views to Willy and therefore almost aids his myopia; she is part of the reason for his chaos and destruction. Some examples include not removing the rubber pipe (would she rather he died in vain rather than causing him to admit the truth/damage his masculinity??), not taking enough action to show Willy what the definition of success is and letting him treat her like a mat to walk over. On the other hand, we can also argue that there comes a point where her sugarcoating becomes necessary - she has hidden the cruel outside world from Willy for too long. After a small sense of anagnorisis, Willy's state of mind is much too fragile to handle any self-awareness, which is unfortunately what occurs. Biff's anagnorisis-like realisation causes him to express his anger and the truth to Willy on how he has led him astray throughout his life. Linda's anger and defence for Willy's sake was necessary here, though did not prevail effectively as Biff continued to push Willy further into the idea that his life is worth more if he's dead.

Why may Miller criticise the American Dream and Capitalist society?

Miller grew up being part of the capitalist society in a fairly wealthy household until the great depression hit America. He then grew to understand communism and relate more to the working class Americans. This led, in a literary sense, to his sympathy with communist criticism of capitalist works and of the society in general. He believed very passionately in communism as an anti-communist senator asked him to condemn communism in front of a large audience - he refused and had his passport taken away. Miller perhaps critiques the capitalist society frequently in his plays because of the selfish way the government and economy treated those who wished to have a fairer life and, through his plays, tried to encourage his audience away from strict capitalist views.

What does Willy's death symbolise? How is it tragic?

From a Marxist perspective, willy's death not only symbolises the death of himself as a salesman but also the death of his dreams - intangible or not. From this, the dream that also dies is the unattainable American Dream that so many people dreamed of in a capitalist society. He sold himself through death for $20,000 which is the greatest selling of himself in order to give others a materialistic benefit. This too symbolises how a consumerist society loses control and ultimately gives all of themselves for no benefit in the end; Willy never got to enjoy a debt free life because he died before the last payment was made on the mortgage.
His death was a sacrificial suicide, though not necessary, and proves tragic because through all of his suffering in a difficult economic world, in his deluded mind this is the only way he would have been successful. It is also discovered towards his death that Willy's definition of success wasn't just out of greed or need to be well-liked. His centre focus was always his family even though it did not seem so, through his mistreatment of Linda and tough love towards his boys. In fact, this makes his death seem undeserving and hence more tragic, despite how much suffering he has inflicted on his family already.