Death of a Salesman
By Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller Biography
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“I think the job of the
artist . . . is to remind
people of what they
have chosen to forget.”
- Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller Biography
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1915 – 2005
father owned a women's
clothes/coatmanufacturing business,
which failed in the Wall
Street Crash of 1929
After the Crash, they
moved to a modest
house in Brooklyn.
College Life
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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
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Was married to Marilyn
Monroe
House of Un-American
Activities Committee
investigates Miller.
Personal Life

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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 UnAmerican Activities
Committee to the witchhunt 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.
Visualizing
Death of a Salesman
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Sets
Down Stairs
Up Stairs
Sets
Sets
Sets
Sets
Sets