Reading the plays of Arthur Miller would give a deep tragic sensation to the readers. The reader would see that all of his characters are caught in an inevitable fate and have no loophole. Struggling with these sensations, one comes to observe a deep-seated factor, not only in all of Miller's plays, but also in most of the tragedies; an ubiquitous factor. One would inevitably face Aristotle's poetic discourse while coming to consider tragedy. A discourse which ahs pity, fear, and the catharsis as its essential pillars of discussion. As to the root of this catharsis, Aristotle discusses that this purgation is brought up by the pity and fear which these in turn are the outcome of a pitting sensation and an apprehension of a tragic flaw; a flaw that he indicates its triviality. Still, Aristotle believes this trivial flaw as the cause of the unjust torture and the huge tragic catastrophe on the tragic hero. Yet, are this trivial reason and the flaw inadvertently done, just and sufficient reasons for the torment of Macbeth, Othello, Oedipus and other tragic heroes? Aristotle did not try to discuss the other infelicitous factors in the inauspicious fate of the hero; till Friedrich Nietzsche claimed a fundamental crisis in the essence of human being, a calamity, the nature of which is unknown.
Yet, through scrutinizing the tragedy from the ancient Greece, roman Seneca, Shakespeare, to the modern Beckett and Arthur Miller, it is easily discernible that there is a factor which disappoints all the tragic hero's scrambles and leads the tragic hero to his/her flaw and eventually brings up the tragic catastrophe and the tragic end; a factor which is indispensable, indestructible, and inescapable: Inevitability; a factor which, above the Nietzsche's calamity, brings permanent apprehension, commotion, and indissoluble panic, and which helps to accelerate the inevitable tragic end.
"We come to tragedy by many roads. It is an immediate experience, a conflict of theory, an academic problem" Raymond Williams in his "Modern Tragedy" states this, and goes on to indicate the experience of tragedy in an ordinary life. He adds that "It (tragedy) has not been the death of princes; it has been at once more personal and more general". Accordingly he had known it so: "tragedy in the life of a man driven to silence, in an unregarded working life." (Williams, 1966. 13-15)
Besides, Arthur Miller in his "Tragedy and the Common Man" (1977), states that "tragedy", then "is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly." He adds that "the flaw, or crack in the character, is really nothing and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive..." Thus, following so, I believe this reluctancy as the personal and the problem mentioned by Nietzsche as the general, which made the Inevitable gloom of tragedy fall upon, not only Modern man, but also man in different historical eras. By and large my concern in this study is this Personal and General factor in the problem and its consequent apprehensions while struggling with the Inevitability in Millerian tragedy.
Throughout man's history, tragedy has been the concern of innumerable works and disputes, each discussing one aspect of the complicated tragic ideology, up to the time of Nietzsche. He believed that tragedy served an important cultural function for the Athenians and that tragedy was needed. His thesis is two-folded, one that there is a problem in Athenians; next, that the tragedy is a solution of a particular kind to that problem and that consequently there was the birth of tragedy. It is important to recognize that the problem is not uniquely Greek; the Greeks were merely exemplars of human and man's culture, which is the general factor. Here, I believe that the problem which Nietzsche has in mind is central to all human existence. Since he sees the spirit of tragedy as a crucial means to approaching this human problem; if not at least solving it. It is not surprising that Nietzsche argues for the re-emergence of tragic ideology and art within modern cultures. Even though, accepting this; what is the problem of Willy Loman as a tragic hero? Is he aware of such a problem? What does he do while facing with this apprehensive problem? What's the role of Eddie's actions in the withdrawal of the tragic end? Or is Joe Keller's problem different from that of Willy, that led both to suicide; whether the problem of these men be the same or no, what is the essence and nature of this problem? At least it is the matter that Nietzsche does not talk about.
In suggesting that the Greeks had a problem at all, Nietzsche was departing from the tradition of his age within which the Greeks were viewed as a happy nation; while he viewed the Greeks like all humans, "grappling with pessimism" and an instinct apprehension. The universe in which we live is the product of great interacting forces, but we neither observe nor have any insight on their nature as such. What we put together as our conception of the world never actually addresses the fundamental realities, thus, "we are buffeted about like, so many leaves or twinges in a flood tide, life in the world is full of pain and torment perhaps it would be better not to live at all" (Birth of Tragedy,1966). Nietzsche alludes to the insightful saying of the Chorus in Sophocles' play that "show me the man who longs to live a day beyond his time, who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly. For the long, looming days lay up a thousand things closer to pain than pleasure, and the pleasure disappear. Not to be born is best when all is reckoned in (Oedipus at Colonus, Fagles 155). In Hecht's translation we read that:
'Whoever craves a greater portion of longevity,
And does not want the modest share- in my view,
Such a man is bound to foolishness. For the long days,
Heap up a shambles, closer to grief and pain,
Whereas he will no more know his pleasures,
Or their place, when into life's excess he has declined.' (Oedipus at Colonus, Hecht. 155)
Here, the want of a 'greater portion' and the reluctancy of the 'modest share', is what Miller refers to as 'inherent unwillingness to remain passive', consequently this brings 'pain and grief' and leaves the tragic man into the life's declined excess. Therefore it's not unique problem of royal family and magistrates, it falls upon all the members in the society. When the chorus states that: 'Not to be born, surpasses all arguments', signifies that the mere action of being born into this world brings the Inevitable on human.
It is human destiny, then to be controlled by the darkest universal realities and live in a world of illusions made by human dreams. And this brings a disparity that Sartre called the "Nausea", and in late twentieth century was called "absurd". Thus, now in the beginning of the twenty first century it is very simplistic to think of tragedy only as a means of arousing Fear and Pity or; Catharsis. It is the representation of a general problem inherent in human life. In an age which has provided us with diverse theories as those of Freud, Jung and Lacan, it is not far-fetched to see this general problem as an individual. For the creation of self and world necessarily misses the point; that is to paraphrase Nietzsche, it ignores other aspects of the true universal reality or metaphysics, we will always be wired up denying everything that fails to fit the specifics of our own created world. As time passes, the summation of denied experiences begins to loom-large, it becomes the dark side of reality, that which we ignore or actively repress. If the Inevitable be ignored it eventually strikes us when we're looking the other way", to the illusions, trying to escape the inevitability, yet there is no escape. The concept I have mentioned here and will continue my discussion around is a part of those dark realities in the shade of life which make man to an uncanny illusion; something that I call Inevitability.
So there is not the matter of disappointment, hubris or flaw. The Inevitable makes itself apparent and forces us to confront whatever we have tried to shut out of our nice, tidy livable, while illusionary, world. In "All My sons" we are dealing with such an apprehension from the beginning, a dread and anxiety of the Inevitable, the dark side of the reality which Joe Keller fears to look at.
Joe Keller, a small manufacturer, has committed a social crime for which he has escaped responsibility. He acquiesced in the sending of defective fraction to the Air Force in wartime, which had led to eradication of twenty young pilots including Joe's own son, and consequently causing the beat of the army in the war. Beside this social crime, he had allowed another man, his partner, to take the consequences and imprisonment. The action of the play is presented in a way that the social, general crime is made personal, by the fact of the death of Keller's own pilot-son; and through this realization it had made social again; in a new understanding of what sociality and personality is. From the beginning of the play, or even far before it's beginning, Joe has an anxiety, some dark feeling involves him that a terrible and appalling ending would inevitably come. Just some hours before the beginning, Larry's memorial tree strikes down by the lightening; a simple matter in the eyes of Chris, the younger son, yet he himself tries to pretend that it is not important; while it is the most powerful sign for Joe to go down deep into his long-hidden anxiety.
By this sign, Joe knows that something is approaching to him, something unknown, the Inevitability of Joe's own created-world; his own pretending reality, and at the same time something drastically threatening his illusions. However; Joe has no idea that what would it be, or how it will come. As John Proctor, Joe knows that facing the Inevitability is inescapable; it's unavoidable. From long ago he had been in such a dreadful situation but as all other men he never dared to face it or at least to talk about it, thus as soon as he realizes its near approach, he tries his best to delay it; the more panicky trying, the nearer the Inevitability comes; so that in less than a day's duration he has no loophole but to kill himself. These are the two fundamental factors that Aristotle refers to as the essential features of a tragedy; that is, all actions taking place in a span of twenty four hours, and committing suicide which is the last resort that Oedipus suggests to men. This Inevitability is also apparent in cases of Willy, Proctor or even Eddie.
Nietzsche alludes to the old saying of Silenus to king Midas; when finally king asked him what was the best thing of all for men, the very finest. The daemon replied:
"Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and toil, why are you forcing me to say what is the most unpleasant thing for you to hear?! The very best thing for you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing. The second best thing for you however is this: to die soon." (Birth of Tragedy, 1966)
This notion is apparently visible in Beckettian tragedies, i.e. Beckett's plays; and less apparently, while strongly shown through the Anxiety and apprehension in Millerian tragedy. However this shows that neither Beckett nor Miller was the creator of this anxiety and apprehension; and that it had existed since Greek tragedy. Moreover there is an Inevitability conjoined to this dreadful human problem, that the more they try to get rid of this You-know-is-to-happen but you-don't-know-what, the more Inevitable it seems. All of the characters in Millerian tragedy, I believe, are caught in this trap; the trap of ineradicable Inevitability.
John proctor, the decent victim in 'The Crucible', tries his best to avoid the approaching final scene; however, could he prevent it? From the beginning when the witchcraft rumor had spread in the village, this terror overwhelmed him that he couldn't help himself prying in Reverend Parris' house. While the Inevitable end is brought on with a simple trick played on him by Abigail through Mary Warren. However it is not since then that he gets into trouble; from the very beginning it is his subconscious that warns him of something dreadful approaching. A man who declares "I have hardly stepped off my land this seven month", is now in Salem, but why? As Abigail puts "You come five mile to see a silly girl fly?" what brought john to Salem? Is that something except this subconscious desire? From time to time this subconscious becomes fore-grounded in his speech: "What's she doing? Girl, what ails you? Stop that wailing!" (The Crucible, 2003. 21-22). What's the cause of his beseeching to "stop that" except for the feeling of terror and Inevitability in him?
Williams (1966), said that "The Crucible may remind us of Enemy of the People, (the most renowned play of Henric Ibsen) but there is a wholly new sense of the terrible" apprehension. "Individuals suffer for what they are and naturally desire rather than for what they try to do, and the innocents are swept up with the guilty, with epidemic force" (104-105). Then, what is this epidemic force upon individuals, making them suffer for what they desire? Nevertheless, do these men, characters naturally desire what comes on them? If no, I believe it's the strongest point in Millerian tragedy in accord with Aristotelian tradition, Senecan and Shakespearian tragedies: the unfair catastrophic outcome of a flaw.
And it is so, when miller said, in his 'Tragedy and the Common Man' (1977), that "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", what John Proctor was obliged to do finally. He dishonored himself by confessing his lechery, though degrading himself; it is to save his total dignity. Miller asserts that "only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are flawless". And later he explicitly pointed the terror, fear, and the anxiety aroused by it and the Inevitable cosmos. He continues that "but there are among us today, as there always have been, those who act against the scheme of things that degrades them, and in the process of action everything we have accepted out of fear or insensitivity or ignorance is shaken before us and examined, and from this total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos surrounding us, from this total examination of the unchangeable environment, comes the terror and the fear that is classically associated with tragedy" (Miller, 1977).
Proctor's confession of adulatory is his last resort, the final loophole for him to overcome the Inevitable. However, it can do nothing to make his escape; the confession has no role in his destiny, but acts only as a catalyst for the Inevitable to happen. Therefore, John Proctor is a tragic hero, not necessarily a king or prince, as Oedipus or Hamlet, but a simple, common farmer man, entangled in the Inevitable. Similarly when John tries to use May Warren's proof of Abigail's tricks, just then in a horrible moment all the evidences brings out to be against himself; he can do nothing, as if the whole cosmos has come together to destruct his life, personality and dignity; his active struggling is of no use.
Proctor knows this from the beginning, though subconsciously or as Miller puts it "out of fear, insensitivity or ignorance". Thus there is a problem that brings forth the fear and anxiety on him and consequently accelerates the thing that he had the fear of its final happening: the Inevitable. Similarly, I believe that most of the victims in Salem are entangled by this Inevitable and thus making 'The Crucible' a thoroughly tragic play consisted of the tragic Inevitable destiny of hundreds of common men, among which one of the most pitiful is Giles Corey. A simple man who is as apt a tragic subject as any great tragic Heroes, from the perspective of the fear, anxiety and the Inevitability aroused of the problem which Nietzsche declared that the Greek knew and felt. In the first moment, without anyone asking him anything, he relates his wife's reading books in midnight to the subject of Salem's horror: witchcraft. But is there anything apart from the famous problem and its consequent anxiety that made the poor man to go, though unconsciously, toward the Inevitable, which he fears its approach, the same as Proctor, while subconsciously and inevitably he does it.
The Inevitability is the opposite side of the reality that we know. Men try to look at the bright side, where the light is, without turning our faces toward the Inevitability. We try to convince, or better to say "deceive", ourselves that this enlightened side is the sole reality, while, simultaneously this is the Inevitability which is at the back of our mind. We dare not to look at it but we have our mind permanently on it. By the way, which one is the truth and reality, the seemingly enlightened part or the Inevitability? However; this Inevitability is the cause of the anxiety and terror, which can be seen explicitly in Willy Loman, and any other Millerian tragic heroes.
Willy, having the lowest status in the society, suffers from the differences between what he thinks and the reality which has brought him into a state of uncertainty. He is a common man, not a prince nor a king; however, this fact is not meddling with his tragic destiny, so far as all the men in the society suffer. The rank of men is no more important all of them are trapped; no one can escape the Inevitable. So does Willy, as he comes back home, in the beginning of the play, in an appearance as if he had been fired. It is as if Willy had come home to die, as though he knew what is going to happen. He sees the inevitable approach of the Inevitability from the very beginning of the play. Willy's situation from the beginning is an Inevitable death: a tragedy.
There is nothing metaphysical, just everything had been put together in a way that Willy cannot stop it. The challenges with his rival-neighbor friend, Charley; the struggles with his young boss, Howard; the unemployment of his aged sons Biff and Happy; the broken relation between father and son, Willy and Biff; the dissatisfaction in his marital life with Linda; all with some other factors brings an understanding in Willy. He knows that he has no choice but to die, and all his attempts to prevent it are nothing but fiascoes. His absurd attempts to impose himself upon Howard, or to prove to Charley that he is not yet a good-for-nothing, and his useless and absurd encouragements to make Biff believe in American Dream so absurdly; all shows his reluctancy to remain passive facing the matters degrading him, therefore; as Miller's other characters he, too aptly, deserves to be a tragic hero.
In no other tragedy, even the greatest ones in the history, we do not have the word "Death" in the title. While here we are dealing with the 'Death of a salesman', and we face the Death in the title. This Death imposes the sense of an unsolvable problem and the Inevitability from the beginning, to put it another way, we are foretold of Willy's inevitable death. In this regard Willy has no other choice; he should kill himself as dose Joe Keller. They went toward the dark, though reluctantly; and too ironically, they found their own reality, personality and self in the approaching Inevitability; it is a drastic understanding that left them no alternative but, as Silenus said to king Midas, "to die soon". Eddie, in 'A View from the Bridge' is not different from Willy and Joe, neither in his problem nor his anxieties and finally his understanding of the Inevitability of the Inevitable in his life.
Nietzsche proposed this point that "the Greek knew and felt the terror and horror of existence," a horror which has been always with man, the cause of Oedipus' flaw and his drastic tragedy and so that of Macbeth's and Othello's; and here the cause of apprehension in Miller's tragic characters and the horror in his tragedies. As Nietzsche suggested:
"that immense distrust of the titanic forces of nature that Moria enthroned mercilessly above all knowledge, that vulture that devoured Prometheus, friend [and savior] of man, that fatal lot drawn by wise Oedipus,... in short that entire philosophy of the woodland Gods, together with its mythical illustrations, from which the melancholy Etruscans died off..."
are all the reasons of man's inherent problem. Consequently, there is a force that foisted the Inevitable upon Eddie, as it did upon Oedipus; similar to the other Millerian tragic heroes, Proctor, Keller and Willy.
Eddie's anxiety is apparent from his first appearance. He is in deep apprehension, but of what?! It is something that we can come to through scrutinizing his apprehensive actions in the play. He thinks that impeding the horny Cathy of being appeared in the society would, just as a pretext, prevent the approach of the Inevitable, or even to retard it by obstructing Cathy's marriage. The most obvious indication of Eddie's irritated mind is his entreaty to Alfieri to do something, when he sees his own debility in impeding the Inevitable. Despite his feebleness he did whatever he could to impede it; however, the more he tried the nearer the Inevitable became.
By and large, this state of problem, apprehension-anxiety, and the Inevitable is not exclusively for the protagonists in Millerian tragedies; while it is explicitly notify-able in all the other characters and individuals in the play. In 'A View from the Bridge', this state of anxiety is apparent in each individual. Marco and Radolpho from their very first appearance suffer from this apprehension of the unknown Inevitability. Beatrice, too, is aware of the fact that an Inevitable is going to happen, but like all other men can do nothing, of course, in spite of her most struggling endeavors. Just is the same, the efforts of all the other men in 'The Crucible'; the strives of Biff, Linda and Happy; and the struggles of Chris, Ann and Kate in 'All My Sons'. However, the important point about these men is their pretense. They all pretend to be able to control the incidents of their life; a pretension to demonstrate that they have a knowledge of the problem and consequently that they are capable men facing the Inevitable, while the whole incidents are happened in a way to reveal their fake pretension and the Inevitability of the Inevitable.
Hear the vital question that had puzzled all the thinkers so far, is the essence of this force; is that, it is the Moria that Nietzsche referred to? Is this fate-Inevitable, the source of the above problem? Nietzsche asserted that "the immeasurable suffering of the brave individual, on one hand, and on the other, the peril faced by the gods, even a presentiment of the twilight of the gods, the compelling power for a metaphysical oneness, for a reconciliation of both these worlds of suffering, all this is a powerful reminder of the central point and major claim of the Aeschylean world view, which sees fate (Moria) enthroned over gods and men as eternal justice."
Next matter to concern is the nature of that Inevitable, which all these characters know its presence and have the knowledge that this darkness is the infugitive reality, the Inevitable, and that the lightened part is not the reality, but a transitory ideality. However, they still try to accept the ideality as the reality and do not dare to look at the Inevitable while their mind is eternally focused on it. From this second pretension arises the state of anxiety in them; causing the unknown dreadful thing, the Inevitable, to happen. Again the German philosopher states in his 'Birth of the Tragedy' that "the best and loftiest thing which mankind can share is achieved through a crime, and people must now accept the further consequences, namely, the entire flood of suffering and troubles with the offended divine presence afflict the nobly ambitious human race. Such thing must happen".
As a result, regarding this Inevitability and anxiety-arousing-problem, I assert that all individuals, as individuals, have to be taken as tragic; in the sense of Millerian tragedy and Nietzsche's tragedy, all men are each an individual subject for tragedy; not necessarily needed to had been committed a crime or a cardinal sin, as Joe Keller John proctor respectively, nor a tragic flaw. Being born in this world and being a human make a man as apt subject for tragedy in life. So their instinct personality is sufficient to be a tragic hero, and this is the personal problem of all men, from the tragic Greek so far, which becomes a general calamity of human being.
Therefore, just being simply a common man is a deserved subject for tragedy. As Miller asserted in this essay: "for it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity." So, when this "indestructible will of man" faces with the Inevitable, while man's will is enfeebled by the fear and anxiety of the eternal problem; the result of the encounterment is obvious; a man, like Willy Loman, Joe Keller, Eddie and John proctor, is the apt subject of Millerian tragedy.
All the efforts of such a man for overcoming the Inevitable become fruitless and, on the contrary, his endeavors become a means for the scattered parts of the Inevitable puzzle to come together more swiftly. This fruitlessness, nausea, and absurdity are the certain outcomes of the Inevitability, and they are indispensable parts of the tragic destiny of man. Consequently there is no difference between Oedipus the King and an enduring salesman named Willy Loman, for this is the Inevitability that draws both to their tragic deaths. And as for this Inevitability, the more they strive in this drastic inevitability, like Macbeth , the more tragic would be their death. So Inevitability becomes as the most fundamental and indispensible factor of tragedy.
Bibliography:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy (with The Case of Wagner). Translated by Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1966.
Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable Ltd., 1966.
Miller, Arthur. 'Tragedy and the Common Man', from The Theater essays of Arthur Miller
(Viking Press, 1978) pp. 3-7. Copyright 1949, copyright renewed 1977 by Arthur
Miller.
----------------. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group, 2003.
----------------. All My Sons. London: Penguin Books, 1975.
---------------. A View from the Bridge. New York: Compass Books, 1960.
---------------. Death of a Salesman.
Sophocles. 'Oedipus at Colonus'. From the Three Theban Plays. Hertfordshire: 2004.
Bressler, Charles. Literary Criticism. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
Magnus, Bernd. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. New York: Cambridge
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Bushnell, Rebecca. Ed. A Companion To Tragedy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005.
Bigsby, Christopher. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. New York: Cambridge
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