How is Death of a Salesman 

a modern tragedy and how is it different from classical

tragedy?

Death of a Salesman has a lot of differences from the ancient Greek version. There are no
choruses in this play and the protagonist, Willy Loman, differs in several ways from a
traditional tragic hero. The main difference is that he's not a king or mighty warrior of some
kind—he's just a salesman. Arthur Miller set out to create what he called a "tragedy of the
common man." He wanted to show that the sorrows of everyday men were just as worthy of
dramatization as those of kings.
Willy is not thoroughly good or thoroughly bad. He loves his family very much and also
wants to see his sons in great positions. But at the same time he has a secret relation with a
woman. Thus he combines both the good and bad qualities. Willy has not certainly that noble
birth to put him on equal footing with such heroes as Oedipus or Hamlet, but still we respond
to the sufferings of Willy as we do to Oedipus. We respond to them not because of their birth,
but because we find a kinship between them and us and can share our humanity. 
Like a traditional tragic hero Willy also has a tragic flaw, which brings upon his downfall. His
flaw is identified as his obsession with his dreams. He always gives preference to face value
and takes it granted for any kind of success in this world. This wrong conception leads him to
the act of suicide. His “hubris”, his arrogance, lay in his thinking that he could reach the top in
that society. He has become so much part of the system of false value in a materialistic world
that he dare not even deign to think of himself as apart from it. He is all the time attempting to
become a part of his society. Though it rejects him, he refuses to change his view and
continues his struggle upstream. His unwillingness to submit passively to the established
order and values takes him down. He has a set idea in his mind about how he wants to be and
the way he wants his children to be and he doesn’t go beyond it. He is a salesman and refuses
to be anything else. So, Willy dies at the hands of his tragic flaws.
Like the classical tragedy, the play also arouses our feelings of pity and fear. We cannot but
feel pity for Willy. He was wrong in his approach to the life and his ability. But his fault does
not deserve so harsh a punishment. We also become very fearful after seeing the tragedy of
Willy. Willy not only represents the post-depression American middle-class society, but in a
larger sense he is Everyman. In our daily life we cannot escape from the inescapable failures
of life.