Willy Loman of Death of the Salesman: Aristotelian Tragic Hero or a Silly Old Man?
A tragic hero. What a pompous word-combination! It prepares us for a noble personage, for the outstanding and selfless exploits, for the high moral standards. Tragic element adds even more of the sublimity to it - we imagine a hero in banishment, in exile, with a burden of being denied, alone against all the darkness of the world.
But this is not the only, although the most common meaning of this word-combination. A reader is to remember that tragedy is a genre of drama. It is not a synonym of tragedy as a very sad event or situation. Hero is also not a prince in a shiny armor committing exploits and led by the highest moral ideas and principles. Hero of a play or a story simply is a main character. Hero and main character of the play are synonyms. Keeping that in mind, readers now can easier accept an idea that Willy Loman from "Death of the Salesman" is a tragic hero. He simply is a main character of the play - that's it.
Now, the question is - why would someone be willing to put such an insignificant little man in the very center of the play? What was the purpose of it while all we can feel for him is pity, if not contempt?
The answer is simpler that we may think. Literature is intended to teach us. Drama is, probably, the most valuable asset in these terms, for it practically shows us the slice of reality. Poetry applies to our emotions, prose - to the intellect and imagination,
while drama puts everything very simply and clearly in front of out eyes. It doesn't have any indirect ideas hiding in rhyme or description of a landscape. The characters speak out loud; they talk to each other; their monologues reveal their real thoughts. It is a very visual and clear lesson.
What can we learn from Willy? Certainly, he does not seem to be an example to follow. But Willy is not an absolutely negative character. After all, it is not solely his fault in what is happening in his life. However, those choices he made himself weren't always the best.
We see two days of Willy's life, and we get to know the story of his entire life, his and his family. Willy has always been an incorrigible optimist; he carried it through his life. He is looking at life as if it is captivating adventure; he is full of hopes, and on occasion life has sent him small sops. He needs little to get inspired. He worked and still works hard for his family; he loves his sons and prepares them for a successful life. Willy adores Biff and is absolutely confident in his victories that his son will have any time soon. Half-measures are not for him - he either takes everything or nothing.
What is wrong with all that, one may ask? Nothing, really. We see a man with a goal and with a big dream that leads him through his life. But what if a dream is a fake and the entire life is aimed on delusion? What if life is the sacrifice on the altar of that dream? How about that kind of life? That is somewhat a tragedy - to lead that kind of life...
That was the life of Willy Loman. He is a little man who gets trapped in the colorful illusions of our complicated world and gets lost in the labyrinth of life's false values and truth. Like a moth flying to the bright flame and finding death in it, Willy equates being happy to being rich and suffers from that, and not only him, but his family also.
Can we judge him for that? Can we blame him for not following his heart and for doing what the society respects and recognizes? Maybe, not. And it is not important. Even if we find the guilty one, it will not fix the lives of our characters. There are only few people in life that can resist following the crowd; there have always been just few people who could go against the system, and often they have suffered as well. Willy was doing what everyone else around him was doing; and that was what he taught his sons to do. While Happy easily fits into that scheme, Biff is the one who desperately wants something else, although he does not know what exactly. He was trying to go against what society wants him to do, what his father wants him to do. He recognizes that: "There is nothing more inspiring or - beautiful that the sight of a mare and a new colt." Farm is where he is happy, but he is raised by Willy, so, he says "And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I am not getting anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week!" He is thirty-four years old, and he can't find himself in this life, because his heart is calling him to another life, while obligations tie him to the life his father wants him to be.
It is hard for parents to see their children having troubles in life. Imagine feelings of Willy who adores his son, when Biff tells him: "I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!... I am not a leader of man, Willy, and neither are you... I'm nothing... I'm just what I am,
that's all." Willy's dream is a heavy burden to Biff; it has changed his life. What happens to Willy when he realizes what he has done? A discovery of the major mistake of life. He is shocked, he is destroyed. But throughout all that the one thought comes into his mind - "He likes me." And from that he returns to the vicious circle of his life - committing a suicide is his way to give Biff money to fulfill his, Willy's, dream.
Oh, that powerful dream! How much it ruined in his life! His son is torn between two worlds; his wife with an enormous patience pretends to have faith in his illusive hopes despite the clear perception of reality. Charley, the man whom he doesn't even like, is the only person to support him and, ironically, is closer than anyone to qualify for a friend. Bernard, a successful lawyer, walks by his day as a reminder of that dreamed success - how much it must have hurt Willy to see that dream being fulfilled, so close, so near him, but still neither by him, nor by his sons. That dream, his burden and obsession, takes a form of his lucky brother Ben, who walked into a jungle and walked out of it rich. His brother comes into the scenes as an eternal temptation and wordless reproach to Willy. His brother is his hidden image of himself, his inner voice who leads him through the life by the unreachable example of rare luck. And Willy follows the suggested path with no regard to circumstances, without watching his steps or signs on the way. His big dream is like a rainbow - always close enough to make you think you can come up to it and touch it, but no matter how long you walk to it, it always stays ahead.
Greek drama knows a lot of tragic heroes - Sisyphus was punished for eternity in the Underworld by rolling a stone with his hands and head in an effort to heave it over the top of a hill, but no matter how hard he pushes, just as he gets near the top, the stone
rebounds backward again and again; Tantalus stands chin-deep in water with all kind of sweet-smelling and delicious fruit dangling just over his head, but whenever he tries to drink or eat, the water would magically recede or the fruit would miraculously be lifted just out of his reach. And here is our Willy Loman, with his dream, right here, at his reach; and yet, once hopes are high, everything disappears.
A familiar pattern, isn't it? In his life of disappointment after disappointment Willy Loman truly fits well in the line of Greek tragic heroes; he is a modern tragic hero, a tragic hero of our generation.