Tragic Characters

Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman and Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus the King are both tragic characters because they are men who want to be good (though one is an adulterer and the other a murderer) but who are caught in situations beyond their control because of their ambition and pride. Both have made decisions in the past which have sent their lives in directions which fated them to disaster. They are both largely unaware of their true situations in life and the roles they have played in bringing those situations about. On the other hand, at least one major difference sets them apart---Willy is a small-time salesman, and a failure at that, while Oedipus is at the top of his power and influence as king. Despite the latter difference, stark as it is, Willy qualifies as a tragic figure as much as does Oedipus. Like Oedipus, Willy is a good man and is trying to do the right thing, but because of choices he made long ago (to sell, to chase the American Dream), and because of circumstances beyond his control, he meets a disastrous end, physically and spiritually: "I am tired to the death" (Miller 1477).

Sophocles accepts the Aristotelian tenet that the center of a tragedy must be "a person of 'high estate'" (Kennedy 1147). Miller holds that "the common man is as apt a subject of tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." Specifically, Miller argues that what is important is not the station in life of the tragic figure, but his or her "emotional situation"

ese things and as a result he kills Desdemona and himself (Shakespeare 1252). Even as he prepares to murder Desdemona, he continues to berate her instead of believe her. She expresses one word on behalf of Cassio, who Othello tells her has been murdered, and Othello responds: "Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?" (Shakespeare 1243). Othello is so determined to maintain his "uncertain vision" and play the jealous fool that he becomes an entirely unsympathetic character. If Othello is a self-deluded fool whose self-doubts make him easy pickings for the masterly evil machinations of Iago, Oedipus is a man whose flaw is his great pride. From the beginning of the play he reveals that he believes himself to be responsible for the city and all its citizens suffering under the curse. He sends Creon to Delphi "To learn . . . /What act or pledge of mine may save the city" (Sophocles 1108). This good, heroic, compassionate king, however, is the same man who murdered not only his father but four other men because they ran him off the road (Sophocles 1127). Oedipus learns the truth of his past and seems more concerned with the fact that he is the target of his own search for the source of the curse than with the fact of the murd