Self-Realisation
English Lit: AQA A Level Death of a Salesman, topic 3.2.3
Self-Realisation
The hero in tragic texts is usually self-deceiving before the text culminates in a moment of discovery and realisation.
Tragic texts
- Throughout tragic texts, the tragic hero tends to be self-deceiving.
- However, there comes the moment where these heroes undergo a moment of discovery, journeying from ignorance to knowledge.
- It is in these moments that, for some critics, characters truly attain tragic status.
Willy
- Willy has a moment of self-discovery near the end of Act Two during his final confrontation with Biff, finally seeing the love Biff still has for his father.
- However, this moment is all too brief and Willy is almost immediately swept up by his old fantasies of Biff’s golden future:
- “That boy – that boy is going to be magnificent!”
Biff
- It is left to Biff to move from ignorance to self-knowledge.
- By the end of the play, Biff has come to learn that his future lies outside the city, telling Happy, “I know who I am, kid”.