men were ambitious, and both were doomed in part because of their ambition. Willy wanted little more in life than to be a top, if not the top, salesman. He knew nothing but sales as a result of his narrow ambition, and he paid with his life when he realized he could no longer successfully sell. Oedipus followed a path in life which inevitably led him to be king, a position which he assumed not with humility but with pride, with the expectation that he deserved to be leader of others. Failure was unthinkable to both men. When failure comes to Willy, his life is over. When he is exposed as a failure as a salesman, a father and a husband---he apparently kills himself (Miller 1545-1546). When the truth is revealed to Oedipus, he blinds and e
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