Modern Drama: The Dramaturgy in Arthur Millers ‘Death of a Salesman’
Modern Drama: The Dramaturgy in Arthur Millers 'Death of a Salesman'
'Tragedy: a play in which the protagonist falls to disaster through the combination of personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal.' This is one of many conceptions of tragedy, but to what extent can it be justified as being its own? Certainly, this is a definition, when applied correctly in all its capacity will be true - but only of a limited era. Tragedy has been the influence of the greatest plays written by contemporary, and prior play writes, and with reason. After an evolution, which spanned over two thousand years, this genre has established a reign in its turf far more distinguished than that of horror or comic types.
Throughout history, many writers have tried to define tragedy, but this has proved nearly impossible as the criteria for tragedy is always evolving, as are the audience. Therefore, a pandemonium has for a long time surrounded the issue of its definition. There are three essential definitions of tragedy throughout time, where most, take place at three different stages in the development of tragedy. These have established and evolved around Greek tragedy, Shakespearean tragedy, and Modern tragedy. Each period saw the development of a special orientation and emphasis, a characteristic style of theatre. In the modern period, roughly from the middle of the 19th century, the idea of tragedy found embodiment in the collateral form of the novel.
Our greatest conceptions of tragedy are derived from the ancient, classical, Greek tradition. The three major writers of tragedy of 6th to 5th Centuries BCE were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. In their plays, they dealt with their religious interpretations of human destiny in the tragic mode. Classical tragedies have one basic principle, in that man is subject to inevitable suffering, as a part of his situation in life, and eventually death. Inscribed in this notion, is another, whereby man shows that in the face of his suffering he is able to maintain his dignity. In doing so, the protagonist suffers extreme agonies but bears it simply because in the process he will perhaps maintain human dignity, and by so doing shows the capacity of human beings to be able to transcend that suffering and show the inherent greatness and nobility of mankind.
Greek philosopher Aristotle looks at tragedy and tries to develop a theory for what all tragedies must have. He looks at the tragedy, and identifies a number of characteristics, which will arouse the feeling of tragedy. With the rise of Christianity in the Western civilisation, this classical conception of tragedy became untenable. In Christianity, such ideas are forbidden, because if a man is virtuous but suffers in the world, then he is redeemed after his death, and is recompensed for his good in the world. The wicked, and those evil will be subject to everlasting damnation. That, in itself is not tragedy in its breadth, but could be turned into a similar profile had there had been nothing after.
Tragedy in the medieval age [notably the sixteenth century] was a time where everything would be controlled by religious conception, and as its result, tragedy became reduced to the conception of the wheel of fortune. It was, through chance that every person was liable to suffer, irrespective of his or her spiritual merits. A person could fall from prosperity to its antonym with the most harsh and merciless decree. Tragedy was written, as a direct consequence about these ideas, and no sooner did it suffer a rebirth of the tragic mode during the renaissance.
Christopher Marlow ...
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Tragedy in the medieval age [notably the sixteenth century] was a time where everything would be controlled by religious conception, and as its result, tragedy became reduced to the conception of the wheel of fortune. It was, through chance that every person was liable to suffer, irrespective of his or her spiritual merits. A person could fall from prosperity to its antonym with the most harsh and merciless decree. Tragedy was written, as a direct consequence about these ideas, and no sooner did it suffer a rebirth of the tragic mode during the renaissance.
Christopher Marlow was the first to write a tragedy after this renovation. He is thought of, as the contemporary of Shakespeare in the perspective of modern sceptics, as he dealt with controversial subjects on stage during that time. His first tragedy was, 'The Tragical History of Dr Faustus.' In this production, a character forgoes his chance for eternal happiness for the sake of earthly ecstasy. This, in its own rationale, connotes a feeling of tragedy.
In this era, most tragedies were called 'tragedies of blood,' and the whole play would consist of a character finding out about a great injustice, and throughout the play would seek that justice by revenge. More often than not, tragedy in this age was a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force [as destiny] and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror. Shakespeare, in many of his plays [Macbeth and Hamlet the more namely of others] incorporated such ideas to produce auspiciously powerful results.
Through Shakespeare, came the birth of four major tragedies - 'Hamlet', 'King Lear', 'Othello', and 'Macbeth'. Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' made tragedies problematic. The play was all about whether it was right to take vengeance into your own hands, or whether you should delegate justice into the organs of the state.
Arthur Miller, who turned the ordinary man into a figure of tragic stature in 'Death of a Salesman,' felt obliged to the axiomatic laws of tragedy, and so wrote two essays, which he used to develop his ideas on, 'Tragedy and the Common Man' and 'The Nature of Tragedy.' In these two essays, Miller talks about tragedies that are appropriate for a modern audience. Because we differ from the renaissance audience due to an increase in democracy, our sense of individualism has also been enhanced, alongside the principles of equalitarianism. We all feel very important, and every subject feels as significant as the next, so we will respond to tragedies that address our experience as a pose to that of a king or queen. Shakespearean tragedy was about the high born who were brought low by some flaw in the nature of their society. On the contrary, Miller thinks that in tragedy, the protagonist or hero should be a common man and should bear very little, if any resemblance to a man of high statute.
In his essay, 'Tragedy and the Common Man,' Miller suggests that 'the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were.' He goes on to discuss the sense of personal dignity, and of how tragedies deal with noble passions. He amply suggests that a tragic protagonist should be a character, ideally the common man, who does not remain passive in the face of their oppression or subjugation. This character should fight for his or hers immensivation.
Miller, in first essay discusses, 'Tragedy and the Common Man'. The renaissance conceptions of tragedy involve a tragic protagonist who is high born. It is through some character flaw, through concentrated hubris in his mind, which usually leads to a downfall. Miller says every one of us is a common person in a modern, democratic, individualised society. In this condition, every person is a hero in the drama of their own lives, whilst before, when the whole society was homogeneous, and everybody knew their place in cosmic order.
Every person was subordinated into the larger design. Thus, important was the part they played in Gods design, and so individual pulses were passed with no significant meaning. Miller reflects upon how modern tragedy should be of a normal, common person. In addition to this, he also articulates his perspective, that in the modern world, because we have a heterogeneous society and do not all share the same beliefs, we do not believe in the same values, so we disagree on what is heroic. People feel it is more difficult to write tragedy because there are no widely shared ideas or values. In a tragedy, you have to have a protagonist who has the qualities that everybody believes in. He has to be one who fights against the corruption of certain aspects in the world.
Every one of us fears, at the core of our being, our displacement from what we consider our position in society, our just. Therefore, what Miller does, is to say that his protagonists will not remain passive in the face of his oppression - he would rather die than accept a compromised existence.
Tragedy, to most, means death and sadness, but Miller feels this is not so. Miller's perception of tragedy is that true tragedies are those works of literature that provide for us an optimistic view on human capability. We are inspired to ensure no person, whatever his or her nobility, oppresses us, and so look ubiquitously for sources of our subjugation. We begin to question things we would otherwise consider as customary or natural, and by so doing, we are helped in challenging the sources of oppression through these dichotomies.
In his next essay, Miller discusses 'The Nature of Tragedy'. There are many elements, which are highlighted, in this particular composition. However, the two dominating features, which are included, are of the discrepancies between melodrama and real drama within a novel or narrative based on the tragic mode. The concepts that these two conflicting drama types adopt are divulged in this essay, and so can be called upon as one of the centrepieces of this thesis.
Melodrama is a specific means of writing, in the sense that it is very artificial. The melodrama type flourished in the Victorian period, and would often circulate around traumatic events. With this, a distinction between the two disparities can be accomplished. Melodrama deals objectively, with characters, which lack realism. These specifically chosen characters do not possess the complexity of real human beings, and good and bad, or white and black are clearly demarcated.
When we see a melodramatic play, we see one-dimensional characters that have no moral turmoil in their minds; hence, the play is all about violence and action. With a melodrama, such scenes become almost obligatory. In a word, the work [here described as the play] is characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization.
Conversely, the real drama approach falls far beyond the simplicity evoked in melodrama. Other than the current features of melodrama, a more assertive sense of human representation is applied to supplement real drama. In the same human breast, wickedness and goodness are converged, bringing a mandatory convention into the drama. Furthermore, there is conflict not only between characters, but also within certain internal impulses of the mind, and so a stalemate within the crest of the protagonist is averted without ambiguous contentment.
What tragedies do is to provide us, the audience, with enlightenment. When we come away from the tragedy, we should have been transformed by the event and conformed to its consequences. On exiting the tragedy, we should feel very positive about the potential of the human animal for nobility, and the sacrifice of the protagonist it is often that which helps us to cleanse our selves of dire feelings. At the end of the tragedy, we achieve catharsis.
The emanative thing that Miller involves in his own tragedies is to blend realism and expressionism together in a technique called subjective realism whenever the actual, chips into the past timeline. In addition to this, Miller orchestrates the music of the flute to connote pastoral harmony, amidst other devices. The characters are dressed in attire, used to express humour and the lighting has a gold, soft hue to it. This infiltration of his dramaturgy seems to release a realistic representation of life in the play throughout. By utilizing such devices, Miller wants to convey, more efficiently, the way people actually think. In doing so, he is able to take us into the past, in the same way Willy Loman moves back into this age in time.
As humans, we are very fluid. In view of the fact that we have memory, we can look into the distant future. We tend to, in the most time, live in the past and anticipate the future whilst dragging the past burden with us. The past always remains, and so we are a part of it. Throughout his existence, Loman carries a strained guilt with him due to a very traumatic experience, which came about eighteen years ago. By so doing, he is barred from accepting certain activities, and so his operation is affected as a human being. Instead, Loman should put that memory to decent use, and by not doing so tragedy is once again insinuated as being the centrepiece of the play, as of course it proves to be in the closing scenes of the play.
A brief synopsis of tragedy would be to use its cycle of events to change the world for the better, and the way human past interacts with the human present to build the future. In effect, we can travel to any time in the past within a second or two by one recessive sense. By using light and music, Miller achieves this, and shows us how the past, has never passed.
To conclude, from his finely crafted essays, we become exposed to what a tragedy really is in its greatest being. We, as humans, thrive on accomplishing the memorabilia recognised as dreams, and when the path leading to it is barraged, we commit almost any feat in order to reach it. The tragedy, eternally undergoing evolution, is when we do commit, and do not face consequences for the deeds, in our lives or thereafter. As human beings we are perverse, and try to distinguish ourselves from the animal kingdom, however due to our surreal nature, as with primates, our decree in society is what drives us to commit indispensably the things we would otherwise fear.
Mohammed Lukman Ahmed
011 10 SMO
