Tragedy-Death of a Salesman

Tragic plays have been given their official definition by Aristotle with regard to the ancient Greek stories of Oedipus, Alcmeon, Orestes, Telephus and others. These tragedies consist of elements such as peripety, recognition, and pathos resulting in a sense of pity or fear for the protagonist. There is a strict pattern for these elements and as a result, not many plays can be considered tragedies. The question I would like to raise is whether there are any modern plays that could be considered tragedies? Can Aristotle’s ancient definition be applied to plays written in the 20^th century or are the times too different to be compared using the same guidelines?

Many would argue that Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a tragic play, but can it be classified as a tragedy in the terms of Aristotle? Arthur Miller gives his own guidelines on what makes a tragedy with regards to his Death of a Salesman. While not necessarily refuting Aristotle’s opinion, Miller does give tragedies a newer and modern twist. I think that in terms of Death of a Salesman these distinctions are unnecessary. Aristotle would have deemed this a tragedy because it has the following requirements:

Tragic flaw-Willy’s striving to be well liked

Peripety-Willy reprimands Biff for trying to Spite him and finds out that Biff only ever wanted Willy to be proud of him.

Recognition-Finds that in order to be loved by his family and to show them that he loved them and he needed to sacrifice himself for their well being

Pathos-Commits suicide

These are the main parts of the plot that are necessary for a play to be deemed a tragedy and they are all present. This shows that there still can be an Aristotelian tragedy in modern time.