The Tragic Spirit In Death Of A Salesman

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is acknowledged as one of the three great American dramatists in the 20th century, along with Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. Death of a Salesman, deemed as vintage Miller, received an immediate success after its premiere in 1949. The play presents the individual agonizing sufferings related to his family and modern American society ethics and values at large.Furthermore, the play reveals the cost of blind faith in the American Dream. Miller condemns the modern American society for vending a flawed myth to the mass, cultivated by ever-developing capitalist materialism and consumerism, which misleads an individual ideals and morality, so as to motivate man to grab as many commodities as possible, likely beyond necessity, and define the meaning of their life on the consumption of these commodities. Thus, Man is instigated to devote all his life in pursuit of houses, cars, women and the like. Death of a Salesman explicitly demonstrates that he, who is deluded by materialism and American Dream, is bound to be sucked in and reduced to consumable merchandise.The play examines the living plight of common Americans in modern society. It provides readers with contradictory conflicts and revelation of serious problems in modern western civilization. It penetrates into the inner world of modern man and tremendously touches the chord of the audience with its tragic spirit. Contrary to traditional theories of tragedy, Miller chooses the common man as his tragic protagonist, who is striving for seeking his self-entity, dignity and the value of life. In this sense, the tragedy displays more optimism. Miller portrays a salesman, representative of common Americans, and exhibits various conflicts in life. The play evokes the audience and readers sublime catharsis, tragic spirit, and in addition, arouses sympathy, sorrow and fear in the heart.Miller deems his character as a man aiming highly and agonizing deeply. For Miller, Willy Loman is a tragic hero who reflects the essence of"man intents upon claiming his whole due as a personality"1 with"struggle"and without"reservation"demonstrating"the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity."2 Dionysus, god of wine, is the fundamental and perpetual archetype in western art of tragedy, which embodies the Dionysian spirit in essence. Nietzsche, in his The Birth of Tragedy, claims that Tragedy is the highest life-affirming art form. Though, the tragic hero, is negated and destroyed, he is only an individual phenomenon compared to infinite and incomprehensible universe, with his corporeal destruction harmless to the eternal life of the Will.The play Death of a Salesman has been drawing much attention by numerous readers and critics. In China, based on my survey on the domestic journals, in the span from the year 1979 to 2008, the reviews on Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman amount to 29 articles, most of which are about the disillusionment of the American Dream and Arthur Miller's views on tragedy related to its practice in Death of a Salesman and literary techniques that build the tragic beauty. Among a few essays where tragic beauty and the optimistic aspect of the play are mentioned, comes into being no systematical analysis of the optimism of this tragedy from the perspective of Nietzschean aesthetic theory, especially his concept of tragic spirit. Moreover, none of the articles under the survey comprehensively analyze the tragic beauty about the Loss of American Dream in Death of a Salesman.Inspired by the name of the protagonist---Willy Loman, the author of the thesis makes an attempt to anatomize the tragedy of Death of a Salesman from a new perspective of Will, Loss and Everyman. Though Willy, a common man as the tragic hero, has lost his life and his American Dream, but his Will perpetuates. Based this thesis on Nietzschean aesthetic theory of tragic spirit, the author of the thesis attempts to interpret the optimistic aspect of this tragedy, and endeavors to deal with matters about Miller's choice of common man as the tragic protagonist, Loss of American Dream that leads to Willy's doomed death and Willy's destruction affirms man's strong will to freedom and unyielding revolt with misfortunes and fate. With the aid of Dionysian spirit, the play Death of a Salesman is endued with unique vitality and artistic charisma.