Critically examine Death of a Salesman as a realist tragedy.

Miller's depiction of Willy is highly based in realism. 
Miller wanted to depict a tragic condition of a "regular guy," someone with whom
audiences could identify.  Miller, himself, asserted
this:

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...the audience members "were weeping
because the central matrix of this play is ... what most people are up against in their
lives.... they were seeing themselves, not because Willy is a salesman, but the
situation in which he stood and to which he was reacting, and which was reacting against
him, was probably the central situation of contemporary civilization. It is that we are
struggling with forces that are far greater than we can handle, with no equipment to
make anything mean
anything."

In the
end, it is this level of identification that makes Willy a protagonist of a realist
tragedy.  Willy's depiction is one where audiences empathized with what is happening
because his life is theirs.  Combining this with Miller's belief that modern tragedy is
one setting where regular people's plights are emphasized helps to enhance the idea that
Miller's work is a tragedy of realistic proportions.  When Miller argues that tragedy is
of "the common man," it is something that reminds the reader that Willy is not a king or
inheritor of legal throne.  Rather, he is an ordinary guy facing difficult conditions of
being in the world.  This represents
tragedy.