Elliot Mahoney

Death of a Salesman
Short Essay
How is Death of a Salesman connected to Greek Tragedy and how did Miller deviate from the
Greeks?
Well to begin with I would argue that Death of a Salesman is only loosely connected to greek
tragedy. I define greek tragedy as a hero or great individual falling from grace in an inevitable
way. For instance, in Oedipus, consider the iconic greek tragedy, we see a hero as a king slowly
realize what he has done in the past and because he is a great individual of good moral
character, once he accept it he cant bear with it and destroyes his eyes.
In the same way, we see Willy who perceives himself as a great man slowly begin to
realize that he is average or below because of the choices he has done in the past, and can no
long accept his averageness.
In both of these plays we see a the main character not being able to accept the things
that he is done because they think better of themselves. Death of a Salesman has the standard
person who is misguided who tries to accomplish something that eventually hurts himself and
his family.
We see Death of a Salesman deviate from the standard greek tragedy in several ways.
For one, the most obvious way, there is no greek chorus in Death of a Salesman. The main
difference is that Willy Lowman is not a hero, warrior, or a man of great stature in anyway. Willy
is an average man who is unsuccessful at his job and makes the plights of the everyday man
apparent and is more relatable to modern society than a king who kills his father and marries his
mother.