Arthur Miller wrote an entire essay, "Tragedy and the Common Man," arguing that ordinary people can be tragic heroes in the classical sense, and Death of a Salesman was written partly to prove that argument dramatically. Assigning students to evaluate whether Willy actually qualifies as a tragic hero puts them in direct conversation with that argument, whether they know it or not.

The classical definition requires a hamartia, a fatal flaw, and a fall that produces catharsis in the audience. Students can reasonably argue Willy's flaw is his refusal to see himself clearly, or his obsession with being well liked, or his inability to distinguish appearance from substance. Any of these is defensible if supported.

The more interesting essays, though, are the ones that argue Willy does not fully qualify, since he lacks the nobility or stature Aristotle assumed a tragic hero needed. A rubric that only rewards essays affirming Willy's tragic status will unfairly penalize a well-argued dissenting essay.

Building room for disagreement into the rubric from the start, rather than grading toward a single expected conclusion, is what makes this prompt genuinely open rather than a test of whether students guessed the teacher's preferred reading.

Grading the Argument, Not the Conclusion

A rubric for this prompt should score based on how well the student defines their terms and defends their position, not on whether they land on the "correct" side of the tragic hero question, since there genuinely is no consensus answer among literary scholars.

• Does the essay define hamartia or fatal flaw before applying it to Willy?
• Is the chosen flaw supported by at least two specific scenes?
• Does the essay address the counterargument, whichever side it takes?
• Is Miller's own definition of tragedy referenced or implicitly engaged?
• Does the essay distinguish pity or sadness from actual catharsis?

Introducing "Tragedy and the Common Man" Without Overloading the Unit

Assigning Miller's full essay alongside the play can be too much for some classes, but even a short excerpt, particularly the passage where Miller argues that fear of being displaced from one's rightful position is the seed of tragic feeling, gives students a direct source to engage with rather than guessing at authorial intent.

Students who use this excerpt tend to write more confident essays, since they can point to Miller's own stated intention rather than relying entirely on inference.

Common Weak Arguments to Watch For

The weakest version of this essay treats "tragic" as simply meaning "sad," arguing Willy is a tragic hero because his death is upsetting. That conflates an emotional reaction with a specific literary category, and a rubric should call this distinction out directly rather than letting it slide as close enough.

A quick in-class check, asking students to define tragic hero in their own words before they start drafting, catches this confusion early and saves a round of revision later.

Why This Prompt Rewards Repeat Use

Because the tragic hero question has no fixed answer, it tends to produce genuinely different essays year after year even when assigned to similar classes, which keeps grading from feeling repetitive in the way that more closed prompts sometimes do after several cycles.

That variability is a feature, not a grading inconvenience, since it means the assignment is doing what a good literature prompt is supposed to do: producing genuine disagreement grounded in the text.