Death of a Salesman By Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller Biography “I think the job of the artist . . . is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.” - Arthur Miller

His Works 1953 – He writes The Crucible, an allegorical play in which Miller likened the situation with the House Un-American Activities Committee to the witch-hunt in Salem

His Works 1949 – He wrote Death of a Salesman, which was viewed by many as an attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle.

Terms Capitalism - An economic system in which private owners control a country’s industry.

Terms Communism - system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Terms American Dream - set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work

Historical Context During the postwar boom of 1948, most Americans were optimistic about a renewed version of the American Dream: striking it rich in some commercial venture, then moving to a house with a yard in a peaceful suburban neighborhood where they could raise children and commute to work in their new automobile.

Historical Context The difference between this and the nineteenth-century version of the same dream, in which a family or a single adventurer went into America's wilderness frontier and tried to make their fortune from the land itself, reflected the country's economic shift from agriculture to urban industry, and then from manufacturing into service and sales.

Terms Flashback – A scene that is set in a time that came before the main story.