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Hero or Coward? Suicide in Death of a Salesman, The unyielding spirit of tragic protagonists from Medea to Macbeth have often been subjected to vicarious identification with heroism. They end up vanquished,but their tragic motive to resist,the incessant struggle against great odds is what earns them the designation of ‘heroes’. In fact,our expectations from a hero are modest enough. There should be some amount of conviction,if not an unflinching self-assurance,in him;he should be inherently,if not incorruptibly,ethical and he must wrestle bravely,even if foolishly,against whatever thwarts the assertion of his will. But in Death of A Salesman the salesman Willy Loman makes a horrible violation of this image of a ‘hero’:he dithers,he stumbles,he collapses;he is an adulterer,a boastful daydreamer,a misleading father;he plumes himself upon a self-deluding dignity