Death of a Salesman. The plays author, Arthur Miller, gradually exposes tragedy throughout the play like a drip feed.
Death of a Salesman. Tragedy is like a strong acid – it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.
Ancient Philosopher Aristotle wrote that ‘the purpose of a tragedy was to create pity and fear in the audience’. He also stated that ‘the tragic hero should be of elevated status in society, thus making his subsequent fall from grace all the more dramatic.’ Rather than being a fall from a great height, Death of a Salesman extends this concept to the ordinary person. This makes it more realistic and therefore creates pity and fear within the audience as the ‘ordinary person’ may be able to relate to the play on a personal level; the pity and fear felt by the audience may be achieved by them witnessing a fate that they fear for themselves.
It could be argued that Willy’s lies cloud the truth and tragedy acts like acid to dissolve away these lies until there is nothing but the truth left. At the start of the play Willy is boasting to Linda about his wages, ‘I did five hundred gross in Province and seven hundred gross in Boston.’ Linda then goes on to calculate his commission and breaks down his lies, like acid, until finally concluding the truth, ‘Well, it makes seventy dollars and some pennies.’ In some ways this makes us feel pathos for Willy as he has to lie about how much he has earned, something that the ordinary man may be able to relate to, and his pride is shattered in the process. The contrast of the vocabulary used by Willy and Linda, he says ‘hundred’ and ‘gross’ where she says ‘pennies’, helps to reinforce the pathos felt for Willy by distinguishing fantasy from reality. Arguably this is Willy’s nadir, his lowest point. His tragic lies have not only helped to dissolve his fantasy that he is a successful salesman but assisted the destruction of his pride. As Willy is talking about his earnings he could show his pride by standing up straight and puffing his chest out. As Linda calculates his commission, ‘I’ve got a pencil. That makes your commission… Two hundred – My God! Two Hundred and twelve dollars!’ he could sink out of his upright position and carry on shrinking until the point when he no longer looks proud, possibly even embarrassed and exclaims, ‘Well I didn’t figure it yet but…’ This would emphasise the pity and fear that we feel for Willy’s character.