Traditionally, tragic heroes such as Sophocles' "Oedipus" and William Shakespeare's "Hamlet," were all of very high social status; either kings or nobles. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" however, gave us a new look at the term "hero." It showed us that normal, everyday people, such as Willy Loman, can be tragic heroes as well. This is the modern tragic hero. Miller, through his play, enlightened us and broadened our aesthetic value and appreciation of tragic beauty. According to mainstream understanding, a tragic person, or as I like to call them, a tragic loser, fails at a multitude of things, as his title suggests. In life, everyone has dreams and goals that he/she wishes to achieve, such as buying a house, a luxury car, or a good job. But some dreams, like the American dream, cannot be achieved by everyone. One person achieving it means that many others will not, because there is a fixed amount of wealth that can be distributed, and not everyone can get the same amount. The tragic person fails to reach his goals and therefore has a sense of unfulfilled, wasted life. He senses that he's losing control of his life, and is manipulated by other people, by circumstances, and by fate. Also, he fails to live up to his self-image. This is why there are fewer successful people than others, and so people admire them. However, not every tragic person can become a hero. A tragic hero struggles to preserve his dignity and self-respect and independence in an increasingly alien and impersonal world. He is willing to sacrifice anything, even his life, to secure his beliefs, whether he is of high social class or not. This is expressed by Miller as the modern tragic hero. In the play, Willy Loman, in order to achieve his American Dream, worked very hard and did not give up, "I am building something with this firm, Ben, and if a man is building something he must be on the right track" (Miller 85). Even when he had lost everything and can n