play's qualification as genuine tragedy,

Although Willy is dead by the end of the play, that is, not all deaths are truly tragic. The other characters respond to Willy's situation in the ways they do because they have different levels of access to knowledge about Willy and hence about themselves. An analysis of the relationships among these characters' insights and their responses will reveal the nature of their flawed family structure.

iff, the older son of Willy and Linda, is the clearest failure. Despite the fact that he had been viewed as a gifted athlete and a boy with a potentially great future, Biff has been unable as an adult to succeed or even persevere at any professional challenge.

Yet Biff shares this knowledge with no one; instead this secret becomes the controlling element of his own life.

When Biff does attempt to tell the truth, not about Willy's affair but about his own life, Willy and Happy both resist him.

This inability to acknowledge the truth affects the family on many levels but most particularly in terms of their intimacy with one another and their intimate relationships with others.

The most profound secret of the play, however, is of course Willy's apparent obsession with suicid

but she forbids them from addressing the subject directly with Willy, for she believes such a confrontation will make him feel ashamed.

Willy. When he does finally succeed in killing himself, his act can be interpreted as a culmination of secrets, secrets which are compounded through lies because they have been created through lies.

they also include his failure as a salesman and the subsequent failures of his sons.

Similarly, Miller's thematic use of weight is intimately connected to the conflicts that occur when an individual's struggle to know truth opposes society's understanding of it

Selz argues that truth is at odds with the very people, the judges and ministers, who are supposed to discern it.

Murray examines how in The Crucible Miller "in a very subtle manner, uses key words to knit together the texture of action and theme." He notes, for example, the recurrent use of the word "soft" in the text.6

On one level, Parris's use of weight as "importance" or "seriousness" appeals to Abigail on a personal level, since her uncle's ministry and her cousin's life are at stake.

Parris invokes his ministry in connection with the "weight of truth," the religious connotation is clear.

If Abigail felt the weight of religious truth, she would confess to Parris about the abominations performed in the forest, thereby releasing her from the heaviness of falsehood, sin, guilt, and the power of Satan.

his mission is equally connected to the same religious "weight of truth"

In this line, "weighty" possesses all of the figurative connotations of both law and religion. Clearly, the exposure of witches to the community is the work of God and religion, but it is equally the work of the community in its legal entity to dispose of such witchcraft. Thus, the "weight of truth" that Parris uses in all its ramifications and the "weight of authority" that Hale so reverences are both dispensed by the weight of the law.