Arthur Miller’s Depiction of Willy Loman as a Heroic Figure as Illustrated in His Play, Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller chose a Low-Man as his hero, because the queens and the kings don’t live anymore and writers can’t write about them. I think it’s great that Miller chose a person like Lowman to be his hero. Lowman is a regular person, he doesn’t have a high social status, and he’s just like anybody else.
Willie Loman was an unsuccessful salesman, nobody liked him and he was a disappointment to his sons. After the affair with another women, from admiring him and looking up to him, his son Biff turned his back on him and never saw him as a role model. This story is different from Shakespeare and other stories, because in those stories the characters were all high class, kings, and queens and in this story, the man is unrecognizable, unsuccessful man who lost all respect from everyone around him. Miller’s tragic hero Willie Loman causes his own downfall. Willie was making a mistake by being ignorant and ignoring the facts that everything was not okay when he thought it was. He was never been a successful salesman, but he saw an image of somebody else that he looked up to when he was growing up and he thought he was that person by putting false thoughts in his mind about himself. He was never that person, but he stayed ignorant and his delusions lead him to take his own life away.
Willie Loman is a modern common man. It’s very hard to compare Loman to Hamlet or Oedipus because the times are very different, but some comparisons can be made. Oedipus was delusional man just like Willie Loman. They both follow ‘’Wrong Dreams’’ and live in an image that they created themselves. Hamlet thinks that revenge will do something for his life, but his wrong thoughts end up killing him and nothing is achieved. I like how Willie Loman still tries to be positive, even though that ‘’positivity’’ kills him, but he still works and tries to provide for his family and pay off the mortgage. People don’t like him for his foolish pride. What really killed Willie was his foolish pride. When Charley offered him a steady paying job, Willie refuses, because he that would hurt his pride.
To be a hero today is not very easy. For some people, a hero is your father, like Willie Loman was a hero for Biff before he had an affair. My father is my hero, because he is a perfect example how a person should live a life. Even though nobody is perfect in this world, but I admire how my father is trying to teach me how to be a good person by trying. All the people make mistake and show you their bad side, but a hero to me is somebody who can learn from their mistakes and admit that they did it. Whatever it takes, you must be able to learn from them and not do them again. In the story ‘’Death of a Salesman’’ the delusion that Loman had ended up really bad for him. He didn’t wanted to admit that he was making mistakes and didn’t wanted to accept the change that was necessary to his life. A hero is somebody that tries to make people around you better and show them a good example by doing good things.
