Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (Oedipus Rex) influenced Death of a Salesman

Miller published the argument. Tragedy and the Common Man appeared in the New York Times in February 1949, weeks after Salesman opened, and it is a direct answer to the critics who said a salesman was too small to be tragic. His case is that the classical requirement of rank is an accident of who was writing, not a law: the tragic feeling comes from a man laying down his life to secure his sense of personal dignity, and a salesman can do that as completely as a king. Willy's insistence that he is well liked is the flaw held in exactly the place Sophocles puts Oedipus's certainty. Recorded as a reaction rather than an influence because the play is written to contradict the model, and because Miller said so in print at the time.