A Flawed Walter
Walter Lee and Arthur Miller's tragic hero correlate. "Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly." This relates to Gerald Weale's text as Walter Lee Younger is part of a family with "complacent jailers", which also illustrates that both characters are finding where they belong. The common tragic hero, according to Arthur Miller, is securing their sense of personal dignity. Money had made Walter Lee Younger compatible with his life; the ten thousand dollar check had given him strength, but what this really meant to Weales is that Walter was metaphorically finding the dignity within himself. Walter Lee is an example of a tragic hero because both involve attempting to find themselves in society.
According to Arthur Miller, a man with tragic pursuit known as a common tragic hero, one is attempting to find themselves in society. In this case, Walter and the rest of his family (Ruth, Travis, Mama Lena, Beneatha) are obtaining society for the first time because of their race. They are African-American, and even in a northern city like Chicago, there was still discrimination against Blacks. Walter and his family are both displaced from it and seeking it for the first time. They are displaced from it because of their race, like said before, and they are attempting to find their place in society because they are poor and have the dreams of a common man in America. Walter Younger wasn't born with misery and he wasn't born with pessimistic thoughts about never becoming successful. If these were "present" in his mind when he was born, then hope and heroic actions would have been impossible in his life, according to Miller.
Putting aside Miller's work, Tragedy and the Common Man, Walter Lee is flawed because of his morals and his actions. Through the commentary written by Lorraine Hansbury in the play, Walter suffers from finding his dignity. When in an argument, like shown above, about the received check, Walter expresses his feelings toward opening a liquor store with the money. It obviously cannot happen due to the fact that it's Mama Lena's money and her dream was to buy a house in a nice neighborhood and move out of the apartment. Walter Lee is either thinking or doing, but when he's "doing", he's impulsive, and that shows the key characteristic of a child. He somehow relates to Holden Caulfield when he's impulsive because they both deny the consequences. When Walter is thinking, he also has the mind of Holden Caulfield: desperate, denial, and acting as if there's no consequences.
What Walter does not realize is that his mother and the rest of his family had had his back the whole entire time going through this crisis. Whether he was happy about finally being able to get the money for his own store to when it was stolen, they've always had his back, especially his mother, Mama Lena. He thinks that they all hold him back, but in the end they save him. They release him from his ill-mental state about his dreams. Out of everyone, Travis was the one who saved him the most in front of Linder. Travis was present so Linder can know that he's the next generation who can carry on what his father and his family worked after.
Money had become the symbol for pride and confidence in the Younger family. It was the key to achieve their dream, it made them happy, but was unknown to the family, especially Walter, that it blinded them from sometimes coming together as a family. When the success was gone, the money was gone, but Walter had never given up, because as Miller implies, the tragic pursuit lends hope to the victim to never give up. The hope that Walter received was to open up a liquor store, but most importantly hope to express who he really was in front of his own son, while a white businessman were in their apartment.
According to Arthur Miller, a man with tragic pursuit known as a common tragic hero, one is attempting to find themselves in society. In this case, Walter and the rest of his family (Ruth, Travis, Mama Lena, Beneatha) are obtaining society for the first time because of their race. They are African-American, and even in a northern city like Chicago, there was still discrimination against Blacks. Walter and his family are both displaced from it and seeking it for the first time. They are displaced from it because of their race, like said before, and they are attempting to find their place in society because they are poor and have the dreams of a common man in America. Walter Younger wasn't born with misery and he wasn't born with pessimistic thoughts about never becoming successful. If these were "present" in his mind when he was born, then hope and heroic actions would have been impossible in his life, according to Miller.
Putting aside Miller's work, Tragedy and the Common Man, Walter Lee is flawed because of his morals and his actions. Through the commentary written by Lorraine Hansbury in the play, Walter suffers from finding his dignity. When in an argument, like shown above, about the received check, Walter expresses his feelings toward opening a liquor store with the money. It obviously cannot happen due to the fact that it's Mama Lena's money and her dream was to buy a house in a nice neighborhood and move out of the apartment. Walter Lee is either thinking or doing, but when he's "doing", he's impulsive, and that shows the key characteristic of a child. He somehow relates to Holden Caulfield when he's impulsive because they both deny the consequences. When Walter is thinking, he also has the mind of Holden Caulfield: desperate, denial, and acting as if there's no consequences.
What Walter does not realize is that his mother and the rest of his family had had his back the whole entire time going through this crisis. Whether he was happy about finally being able to get the money for his own store to when it was stolen, they've always had his back, especially his mother, Mama Lena. He thinks that they all hold him back, but in the end they save him. They release him from his ill-mental state about his dreams. Out of everyone, Travis was the one who saved him the most in front of Linder. Travis was present so Linder can know that he's the next generation who can carry on what his father and his family worked after.
Money had become the symbol for pride and confidence in the Younger family. It was the key to achieve their dream, it made them happy, but was unknown to the family, especially Walter, that it blinded them from sometimes coming together as a family. When the success was gone, the money was gone, but Walter had never given up, because as Miller implies, the tragic pursuit lends hope to the victim to never give up. The hope that Walter received was to open up a liquor store, but most importantly hope to express who he really was in front of his own son, while a white businessman were in their apartment.
