Concept Of A Tragic Hero - Death Of A Salesman Vs. Oedipus The King
Concept of a Tragic Hero
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms (OCDLT) and Arthur Miller both define a tragic hero as a character in a play or drama, most likely the protagonist, who is made victim to a circumstance within the plot. To this extent, Arthur Miller's definition of a tragic hero varies because he believes "the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were [and] the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity" (Miller, 1633), meaning that mankind keeps tragedy above all forms because they are given the same mental abilities as the nobles and you do not have to be of nobility to be a tragic hero.
Tragic heroes bring about a tragedy by suffering from a situation, making it a tragedy. The OCDLT defines tragedy as a play "representing the disastrous downfall of a central character, the protagonist"......
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