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Arthur MillerTragedy and the Common Man
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1949A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Common Man as Tragic Hero
The most prevalent theme that Miller explores in his essay is the idea that the common man is an apt—indeed, the most apt—subject for tragic drama. The building points of the essay work to support this argument and lead to the conclusion that the tradition of tragedy ought to be revived to include the settings and concerns of common people.
Though the tragic hero and tragedy as an art form have evolved over the centuries since their origins in ancient Greece, they tend to contain several defining characteristics: The tragic hero must struggle and suffer as a result of a flaw, and, by Miller’s definition, he must be willing to lay down his life to secure “his sense of personal dignity” (4), refusing to remain “passive” in the face of a challenge to his sense of self. In eschewing a sense of the hero as a defiant striver rather than either a strongly positive or negative moral example, Miller follows Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero as “a character between these two extremes…a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty” (“Theory of Tragedy.” Encyclopedia Britannica). Although Aristotle was an advocate of the social nobility of the hero, both in his plays and in the Poetics, his advocacy for a hero who is morally average and relatable is a foundation for Miller’s argument. Because Aristotle posits that it is plot, not noble character, that lends tragedy its defining structure and characteristics, the Classical Greek idea of the hero is in fact much closer to Miller’s “everyman” than the critics of modern tragedy give credence to.
In traditional tragic literature, the idea of the socially noble (i.e., kingly or aristocratic) character was closely bound up with the idea of the morally noble character. Once the theory of moral nobleness is exploded, the social nobleness of heroes may indeed, as Miller says, seem “archaic.” Classical and other canonical works of tragedy concerned the plights of kings, nobles, or otherwise important figures, but these were written at a time when the king or nobleman was seen to be archetypal or representative of his people. Miller’s insistence on placing the common man at the center of tragedy is reflective of the ideals of equality and classlessness; in a democratic modern society the common man may speak for himself. Indeed, ideas of democracy place the experiences and opinions of the average majority over those of the privileged few. The United States is a nation without kings or an aristocracy, and thus there is a sense, whether real or idealized, that any American can strive to elevate himself. Thus, Miller’s struggle toward personal dignity is an essentially American ideal, especially in the social revolution following the two world wars. In his final paragraph, Miller invokes the hopeful momentum of social progress: Tragedy, if it is to survive, must be adapted to “the only place it can possibly lead in our lifetime—the heart and spirit of the average man” (26).
Miller shows that there is no better subject for tragedy than common people of the modern era, and in doing so argues that it is not tragedy as an art form that is archaic but the outdated hierarchical notions of heroism that have limited it.
Tragedy as Societal Critique
A defining feature of tragic works is the “tragic flaw,” a mistake or error in judgment that leads to the tragic hero’s eventual downfall. Even in the Greek world when hamartia could encompass an inescapable accident of fate or impossible moral dilemma, the hero was still considered personally responsible for his transgressions. The unfairness of a situation did not erase the individual’s culpability. However, in “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Miller places the tragic flaw not solely on the hero’s shoulders but at least equally on the society that suppresses them. What brings about the hero’s downfall is not a flaw or mistake per se but rather the conflict between their character—specifically, their refusal to compromise on what they feel they deserve as a human—and the world around them. Miller thus posits tragedy as a way of examining society and existing social structures; he implies that the hero’s struggle against perceived injustice is inherently courageous, idealistic, and illuminating. The “flawless” (i.e., those who avoid the tragic dynamic) are the “passive” majority who accept any situation that “suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct” or is “the enemy of man’s freedom” (11). These are strongly political terms. When Miller writes that in art, “[t]he revolutionary questioning of the stable environment is what terrifies. In no way is the common man debarred from such thoughts or such actions” (11), these sentences are close to a satirical understatement on global currents of social change in the first half of the 20th century.
In making his argument, Miller adapts the Aristotelian theory that tragedy’s purpose is to produce feelings of pity and fear in the audience and induce a healthy emotional purging, or catharsis. The nature and purpose of that “purging” have inspired much critical debate; Miller’s contribution is to locate its source in the examination and critique of previously unquestioned environments, institutions, and customs. Seeing the hero suffer at the hands of unjust forces evokes pity, while fear, Miller implies, is a response both to the hero’s fate and to the destabilization implicit in the hero’s battle with society: “[F]rom this total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos surrounding us […] comes the terror and the fear that is classically associated with tragedy” (7). Tragedy thus targets complacency, seeking to give the audience a greater understanding of society’s shortcomings. The catharsis of the tragic work for Miller becomes “enlightenment.” It also follows that, if the hero is to be archetypal and his circumstances relatable, the ordinariness of his rank and situation is of benefit to the cathartic function.
Nevertheless, Miller distinguishes true tragedy from polemical social satire. He argues for a “balanced concept of life” in which the tragic protagonist is neither wholly to blame for their misfortune nor wholly faultless (13). A hero who was merely a victim of society would not be believable, Miller says; moreover, such a narrative could easily slide toward pathos, depicting the forces arrayed against the hero as insurmountable and therefore removing the crucial tension of the tragic paradigm. Miller explicitly advocates for balance and the “finest appreciation […] of cause and effect” (19). The intended function of the tragic work is not “necessarily” to preach resistance in the face of an unjust society but to highlight the strength of the human spirit in spite of it. This turn in Miller’s argument may seem unexpected, particularly given his socialist leanings, but his discussion of classical tragedy hints at a rationale: “The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws” (15). Here, tragedy upholds the status quo, the tragic hero functioning as the exception that proves the “rightness” of the existing social order. This suggests that a certain amount of friction between individual identity and expression and the orderly consensus of society may be inevitable, and that tragedy is a way of working through the experience of living with that tension.
Tragedy as Optimism
Miller advocates for the tragic hero because he represents the best aspects of the human spirit—dignity in the face of injustice, determination in the face of challenges, hope in the face of struggle and suffering. In this way, Miller argues that tragedy as a genre is inherently optimistic, more so even than comedy. This is a challenging and innovative idea. When discussing the perceived relevance of tragic drama to the modern day, it is a challenge that the word “tragedy” has lost its primary generic and literary meaning to the general popular definition of “very sad.” In everyday discourse, “tragedy” connotes hardship, heartbreak, grief, and struggle, which at face value would seem to convey a sense of hopelessness or despair. It is the precise structures and meanings of literary tragedy that allows Miller to elevate it into “optimism.”
The lost, positive meaning of “tragedy” is demonstrated by the playwright Aeschylus, who wrote Oresteia among other works, which acknowledges this suffering but posits that the purpose of tragedy is not the suffering for its own sake, but how the character or characters learn from suffering and, by extension, the knowledge the audience can gain from it. Thus, the tragic hero’s hardships serve a greater narrative purpose. For Miller, this greater purpose is to highlight man’s positive traits. The tragic hero’s ego is so strong that he is willing to battle against much stronger forces than himself, demonstrating the “indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity” (17). This can only be achieved if, during the course of the story, there exists the possibility of victory. Miller mentions the “pathetic” in contrast to the tragic—a plot in which a character fights a battle he has no chance of winning—to demonstrate the optimism of tragedy in sharp contrast.
While tragedy serves several functions in works of literature—namely, critiquing society and the characters that challenge them—Miller argues that it is the optimism of tragedy that has made tragic dramas, such as the famed works of the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare, so pervasive in literature and in culture. In them, Miller says, is the belief in “the perfectibility of man” (19). While undeniably serious in nature and in tone, tragedy inspires hope and admiration in the hero’s wholehearted attempt to elevate and perfect himself in some way, even if this attempt is ultimately unsuccessful. It is, Miller implies, a model for self-expression in the world, a practical lesson for the audience in idealism and willpower, who leave the play with “the brightest opinions of the human animal” (22).
This optimism of tragedy, as Miller posits, has perhaps never been more appropriate or relevant than for the common people of the mid-20th century. Shifting the focus onto common people, rather than on kings and nobility, suggests a belief in the perfectibility of the common man, leading to a tragic hero who is not just admirable but also relatable and relevant. By arguing for tragedy’s inherent optimism as an art form, Miller suggests that the strength of spirit that the common man possesses ought to be celebrated in literature.
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