Loman and SiddharthaIn Willy’s acceptance of his own commonness is his own personal flaw. He doesn’t strive to be any better but allows himself to dully, and almost dutifully accept that he’s a dime a dozen. Susan C.
W. Abbotson (1999) states in Understanding Death of a Salesman, “Pursuing the dream of middle-class status and success, Willy does everything he thinks a good salesman is supposed to do. He smiles, he tells jokes, he hustles women receptionists. But Willy’s talents are ordinary at best, and his value in the market is marginal” (Abbotson 212).
This is Willy’s great error. His mediocrity is a compromise to his once great dreams. Even in the common man’s world he doesn’t stand out as unique or special; his flaw is in his power to be invisible. No one seems to care in his existence and for Willy Loman, this realization in turn makes him not care about his own existence in a way, toward the end of the play at least, when his hope is close to banished.
This small sentiment can be found in a few muttered lines from Willy, “I’ve always tried to think otherwise, I guess. I always felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing-“(Miller 97). This sums up Loman’s fate; his drowning enthusiasm pitted against an uncaring cast of characters.Willy Loman’s view of the world breaks when he loses his job.
Loman faces the world as no ordinary common man but also an invisible entity left to make no difference on the face of the earth while Oedipus is bereaved of his position and would rather not have lived (or seen what he had accomplished) because of the things he has done. As Arthur Miller states in Perrine’s Literature,Whoever heard of a Hastings small R refrigerator? Once in my life I would like to own, something outright before its broken! I’m always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it’s on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a Goddamn maniac. They time those things.
They time them so when you finally paid for them they’re used up (Miller 1586).This is the truth behind the tragic hero Loman. The paradox for Loman as a tragic hero is in Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero; he’s doomed to failure.Loman began his story with an aplomb of luck, or ego, or a rosy view of the world, and his story ends with destruction: Loman is hit by a car.
The connotation here is that Loman was blind in the beginning of Miller’s play, but not really in the second act. Loman has dwindling faith in himself and reality. Loman survived in life under false pretences, thus he suffers from his one flaw; blindness.Buddhism came to Tibet in the Seventh Century AD, but had existed in correlation with Christianity since the conception of either religion.
In ancient Buddhist philosophy, Siddhartha was a prophet, traveling from village to village teaching the people ways by which they too could find their paths to enlightenment. Christ was similar in fashion with his entourage of disciples, traveling among villages spreading the gospel and converting people to Christians.Buddhism is based on the teaching of Siddhartha, who is known universally as Buddha. In the Buddhist belief, suffering is a part of life, not an emotion or state of being outside of the natural world.
In the ancient Buddhist teachings, suffering can be superceded or be traversed by the Buddhist student who acquires mental and moral self-purification.;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Works CitedMiller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Penguin Books, New York, 1949.
Murphy, Brenda, and Susan C. W. Abbotson. Understanding Death of a Salesman A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.;
