Tragedy and the Common Man

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” (“