"Tragedy and the Common Man" ~Arthur Miller

This article is about exactly what you think, tragedy and the common man. This refers to average people like you and I who don't own a castle and aren't Heros or Heroine like tragic tales like Oedipus, and Antigone, and even Hamlet.

Every one experiences personal tragedy, no matter what their caste. It may not be a major tragedy like the complex family relationships of Oedipus and Hamlet, but Miller focuses on one personal tragedy that many people face in any age. It's all about "The Man" and whether or not we choose to conform to him ("The Man" being the part of society that tries to dictate the way we think we should live).

Some people can over come the personal struggle to be different. They do not expereince tragedy. Only those that try to conform to the way society tells them to be, expereince this tragedy, and its only tragic if they fail. When you strive to be the way everyone else wants you to be, and can't live up to their expectations, this is tragic because in their eyes, you didn't succeed. When you tried to go down your own path, however, and didn't try to become someone eles idea of you, that is the success in its self. You didn't try to be what they wanted you to be so you weren't dissapointed when you didn't live up to their ideals. Miller experess this in what he calls the tragic right and tragic wrong, "The tragic right is... a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and realize itself. The wrong is the condition wich suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct". The wrong expresses the feeling of conforming and not being able to show off your indavidual talents because you are so concerened with the things other people think you should focus on.

Simply, if you don't try to be someone else and strive to achieve their goals for you, there will be no tragedy for yourself. (Whether or not they will be dissapointed isn't your problem.)