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British Drama

Notes encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods (through
oracles, prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or
make some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he/she must undergo a change
in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis—
”knowing again” or “knowing back” or “knowing throughout” ) about human fate, destiny, and
the will of the gods. Aristotle quite nicely terms this sort of recognition “a change from ignorance to
awareness of a bond of love or hate.”

Elements of Classical Tragedy
According to Aristotle who first defined tragedy using the Greek plays (Death of a Salesman) that
were available to him, tragedy is “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having
magnitude, complete in itself.” Tragedy typically includes “incidents arousing pity and fear,
wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.” The elements of a classical tragedy include:
• The tragic hero who, though not perfect, is certainly in some way morally superior to most of
the audience (and who is nearly always upper class), but also exhibits
• “Hamartia,” the tragic flaw (literally, it translates as “error of judgement”) which is often
• hubris, loosely translated as arrogance, that causes the hero to believe he can outwit fate or
violate a moral law, which leads in turn to
• some kind of catastrophe, which results in
• peripeteia or a complete reversal of fortune from happiness to disaster
How this relates to Death of a Salesman:
Although there are aspects of classical tragedy here, in fact Salesman is far closer in genre to the 18 c
“bourgeois” or “domestic” tragedy, wherein an ordinary person suffers a rather commonplace
disaster.
Willy Loman is not a classical tragic hero, given the definition above. Rather, he is what’s known as
an “antihero.” This is a more common figure in modern tragedy, since the modern age tends to lack
clear-cut ethics and morals by which to judge its heroes.
• The antihero, instead of manifesting dignity, power, and heroism, tends to manifest passivity
and ineffectualness. This is not altogether the case with Willy—he has, in spite of his unexalted
nature, a certain innate dignity about him.
• Willy does, however, have a tragic flaw—and it relates directly to hamartia as an “error of
judgement”—what is Willy’s error? (that style can get you farther than either hard work or
skill)
• This ties into the idea of hubris in a bit of a skewed way. Ordinarily, hubris, because it results
from a kind of arrogance, is a conscious attempt to outwit fate or transcend moral law. In
Willy’s case, this is not really conscious—that is, he attempts to break a moral law, but one
that he doesn’t really recognize as moral. The moral law he consciously breaks leads not to
his own downfall so much as the downfall of Biff.
• One other typically modern feature of this play is that it does not, as classical tragedies do,
move the hero from an exalted position to an abased one. Rather, the hero is already near the
bottom of the wheel of fortune when the play begins.

Definition
Tragedy is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses
magnitude; by means of language which has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its

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