

The hero’s death is individually tragic but collectively offers society hope.

Thus people will gain a greater understanding of what is wrong with society, and will be able to improve it. When a younger and better salesman comes along, men like Willy are almost always doomed.īut by placing this in front of the audience and dramatising it for them, Miller invites his audience to question the wrongs within modern American society. Capitalism’s dog-eat-dog attitude is at least partly responsible, since it leads weary and worn-out men like Willy to dream of paying off their mortgage and having enough money, while simultaneously making the achievement of that task as difficult as possible. In the process of doing this, and attaining his dignity, the tragic hero often loses his life, but there is something affirmative about the events leading up to this final act, because the audience will be driven to evaluate what is wrong with society that it could destroy a man – a man willing to take a moral stand and evaluate himself justly – in the way that it has.ĭoes Willy Loman deserve to be pushed to take his own life just so his family can pay the bills? No, so there must be something within society that is at fault. You would use this format when citing one of Shakespeare’s plays, for example.But contrary to what we might expect, there is something positive and even affirmative about tragedy, as Arthur Miller views the art form.įor Miller, in ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’, theatrical tragedy is driven by ‘Man’s total compunction to evaluate himself justly’. Regarding how to cite lines from a play, you will need to include the author’s last name, as well as the scene, act and line numbers. If your play has line numbers, you should use them in your in-text citation.

No matter what you need, when it comes to citing parenthetically, you’re covered in MLA style format. You could also cite dialogue, quote a play, or even cite multiple plays from one playwright.

You might cite plays parenthetically with line numbers or no line numbers. When it comes to parenthetical MLA citations for plays, there are multiple ways you can do this. Learn how to cite a play in MLA 8, from “A Streetcar Named Desire” to “Hamlet,” with examples. To begin, you’ll need to include the playwright, act, scene and even line numbers, if they are available. In MLA style, you need to learn how to cite a play that is published, unpublished, live or even part of an anthology. You’ve quickly discovered that you don’t know how to cite a play in MLA 8 correctly. You thought you were a citation master until you hit an MLA play citation roadblock.
