VLVL2 (3): Hector Zuniga & Zoyd Wheeler (More or Less Ironic Double Stuff)

[Richard Fiero]

Terrance wrote:
> > And adding to the irony is the fact that although Hector is a Mexican
> > American "responding to the American ideology of advancement," his role
> > within that system is based on "snitching" (i.e. getting others to be the
> > rat) to advance his status within that American Dream.  Jay Gatsby, Willy
> > Loman, these are characters who essentially sell their 
> souls for the sake of
> > advancement within the System, to achieve the AD.  Does Hector really sell
> > his own soul to achieve success, or does his role depend on others who do?

Hector is doubled with Ralph Wavyone in my opinion.

>Maybe you could say more about why and how Hector's Job (DEA) adds to
>the Ironic Doubling.

Yeah, it's the work. The ethnic stuff being tossed about here 
is a red herring.

Willy Loman, Jesus Christ, Raskolnikov and maybe Slothrop are 
real tragic heroes right along with Oedipus. No Hector.

Tim Strzechowski wrote:
>About the only thing demonstrated by Willy Loman's fall that makes it
>significantly different from a Tragic fall (in the classical sense) is the
>fact that Willy is a working-class, average man, literally a "low man" on
>the corporate ladder.  While in the classical and Elizabethan senses a
>tragic fall can only happen to a person of noble birth (a King of Thebes, a
>Prince of Denmark, etc.), Miller proves that the average man 
>can have grand aspirations and hubris, experience anagnorisis 
>and peripetia, battle the powers of fate, etc.
>
>Most importantly, however, a truly tragic individual must possess some
>quality of *goodness* within him, yet permit his hamertia to consume him
>and, thus, subvert his goodness at the crucial moment of his tragic fall.
>Remember: to truly feel pity and fear, the audience/reader 
>must recognize the positive qualities of the tragic figure, 
>thus making his fall all the more painful to witness when it 
>does occur!  Catharsis, baby!!

Like maybe we could get beyond Aristotle although he's pretty 
good. Recall the characters in M&D struggling with concepts 
involving vital fluids. Our current man-in-the-street physics 
is Aristotlean, no?