C. Michael as the Modern Tragic Hero
According to Arthur Miller in Tragedy and the Common Man, the tragic hero has six categories that must be followed. Michael as the main character in Michael
fits the pattern that Miller consciously develops Levin, 1960: 171-180.
1. A common man
Michael is not a king or a prince, he is an ordinary man, and he is just a shepherd. He is a shepherd in Grasmere Vale. In the middle of the society, he also
does not have a power to control the society. He does not have any governmental occupation. He is only famous as a skillful shepherd, a local village shepherd. He has
the ability to watch shepherd better than the others. He is the picture of a man, of a strong mind and lively sensibility, agitated by two of the most powerful affections of
the human hearth, the parental affection, and the love of the property, landed property. He is very close to the nature. He is a friend of nature. He has a wife and a
son.
“Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale, there dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name…
the pleasure which there is in life itself” Stanza 2, lines 40-77.
Michaels decision to send Luke to the city to save the family estate from division and sale represents a shifting of roles is the proof that Michael plays God or
Gods agent, as his archangelic name would tend to suggest. In this part, as we PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
remember the Abraham story in the bible, Luke plays as Isaac; and the role of Abraham, with all of the pathos attaching to the need to make an anguished choice.
Michaels speeches upon learning of the forfeiture are revealing. After identifying his God as the God of Genesis by proclaiming, `And in the open sunshine of Gods
love Have we all lived, Michael identifies himself with that God as the cause and source of that sunshine, stating that the sun itself Has scarcely been more diligent
than I.
“I have been toiling more than seventy years, And in the open sunshine of God’s love
Have we all lived; yet if these fields of ours Should pass into a stranger’s hand, I think
That I could not lie quiet in my grave. Our lot is a hard lot; the sun himself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I; And I have lived to be a fool at last
To my own family“ Stanza 10, lines 228-236.
Not surprisingly, as the one who plays God and hubristically tries on that beings divinely inspired logic, Michael does not get the masters arguments quite
right. He considers that the ‘master’ of all is god and then he uses that to make a ‘parameter’ of himself. The ‘parameter’ is that Michael also the ‘god’ of his own
land. He says that actually he is more diligent than the ‘sun’. He does more than everything to his land because he considers that he is the ‘master’ or the ‘god’ of his
own land. Addressing his wife, Michael proclaims: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land Shall not go from us, and it shall be free,
He shall possess it free as is the wind That passes over it.
Stanza 11, lines 254-57.
Michaels speech then gives way to tragic irony on the monstrous thing at the end. In that statement, he has the power to decide and the power to control his own
family. These all are because the land is as his family ‘identity’ as an ordinary people to survive in the neighborhood or his community. He acts like that he is a king, Isabel
is his queen, and Luke is their prince. He likes a king who sends his prince to war to save the patrimonial land. Michael wants the land still belongs to them.
Those lines then becomes true at the end because Luke, driven at last”. Luke does leave, and the land does not go from Michael and Isabel and also does not
belong to Luke. Michael and Isabel are buried in it. The land is free of their control He is seeking a hiding-place across the seas that is, driven to board a sailing vessel
to the New World in order to remain free by evading his creditor .He does not posses the land anymore. He stands in a land as wind up free as is the wind.
2. Ready to Lay Down His Life to Secure His Sense of Personal Dignity
“Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms, Had done him female service, not alone
For pastime and delight, as is the use Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced
To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked His cradle, as with a woman’s gentle hand.
Stanza 5, lines 153-158. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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