Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Willy Loman's Brother Ben: Tragic Insight in Death of a Salesman

1962; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 4; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/md.4.4.409

1712-5286

Sister M. Bettina,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

IN THE TIlIRTEEN YEARS since Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman had its spontaneous Broadway success, critics have often cited as a deficiency in it the lack of tragic insight in its hero, Willy Loman. He never knew who he was,"says his son Biff at Willy's grave; and by a like judgment critics can substantially discount the play's tragic claims. But Biffs chonc commentary on his father, like many other very quotable remarks in the scene of Willy's "requiem," is not quite true. Willy did struggle againstself .. knowledge-trying not to know "what" he was; but he had alwaysasuperh consciousness of his own individual strength as a "who." "I am not a dime a dozen!" he shouts in the play's crisis; "I am Willy Loman . .. !" And it is this very sense of his personal force and high regard for it which qualify him as a hero.