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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. Arthur Miller Biography. 1915 – 2005
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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
Arthur Miller Biography • 1915 – 2005 • father owned a women's clothes/coat-manufacturing business, which failed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 • After the Crash, they moved to a modest house in Brooklyn.
College Life • Went to college at Michigan. • Majored in journalism • Changed his major to English after having the play No Villain published. • I hate Michigan
Personal Life • Was married to Marilyn Monroe • House of Un-American Activities Committee investigates Miller.
Personal Life • He is arrested and thrown in jail for contempt of court. • He is eventually released from prison and acquitted of his charges.
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.
