Death of a Salesman: Tragic but Not a Tragedy Essay -- Death Salesman

Death of a Salesman Tragic but Not a Tragedy Though a more modern version of disaster in its classical sense, Death of a Salesman in many ways is very much like an ancient Greek bid. In his Poetics Aristotle tries to peck out the common ideas throughout tragedy, attempting to demystify the necessary elements for such plays. integrity of his main ideas was that of the Three Unities - that of Space, that of Time and that of Action. He stated that all the live up to of a tragedy must occur in the place, which was often the mien of a palace, which allowed the poet to have many characters coming and going, and allowed random meetings to occur easily, sort of than having to explain the reason why any meeting should occur. It was, however, possible for the poet to grow in events occurring in other places through the use of messengers, who could talk well-nigh the events without the audience seeing them. All the action would have to unfold in one day, and must be played out i n concrete clipping - the time would pass as fast for the characters in the play as for the actors and the audience watching. This prevented the use of act and scene breaks, as time could not jump forward, it had to pass normally. Again references to the past often came in the form of speech from characters whom often had not been seen for a very pine time, such as the shepherd in Oedipus Rex who explains how he had come by Oedipus as a baby whilst attending his flock. The entire play had to circulate around a single plot, and subplots, such as you see in many of Shakespe bes comedies, were not allowed. Aristotle reasoned that if there were other plots busybodied with and infringing upon the main plot we could not concentrate entirely on Antigonys plight, ... ...ccept his refusal to act rationally. An audience can accept that true tragic heroes are often irrational, and driven by very different feelings from those of normal valet de chambre beings, but in the end, Willy Loma n does not evoke tragic emotion because he is, simply, a dime a dozen. Works Cited and Consulted Aristotle. Poetics. New York Dover Publications, Inc., 1997. Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York Norton, 1994. Costello, Donald P. Arthur Millers Circles of Responsibility A sketch From a Bridge and Beyond. Modern Drama. 36 (1993) 443-453 Florio, Thomas A., ed. Millers Tales. The New Yorker. 70 (1994) 35-36. Martin, Robert A., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1982. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York Viking, 1965.