Arthur Miller was born in New York in 1915. Growing up, Miller was part of a well-to-do family. He lived a good and stable life until the stock market crash in 1929. Miller’s father lost his business and his money, so his family was forced to relocate outside of the city in a smaller house. The hard work that Miller’s father had put into his job was all for not. In Arthur Miller’s most famous work, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is plagued with a similar fate. Miller drew events from his childhood to create a story that people could connect to. Willy Loman works his whole life but never gets ahead. In the same way, Miller’s father worked only to have everything that he worked to build fall apart. Miller’s idea that the working world is a tragic place comes from his first hand view of the system failing his family.
The story is set in Brooklyn, New York which is the very place that Miller moved after the financial fall. The play takes place in the late 1940’s, a time of great prosperity for the United States just coming out of war. With such a great economy to support Willy, his job as a salesman should have produced great results. In reality, Willy is never able to earn enough money for his family. Miller’s critique of the American Dream reflects his family’s personal downfall in the same way. Miller shows the audience that capitalism does not help everyone because it is possible to work your whole life for nothing. By looking past the gold covering of the time period, Miller showed that not everything was as perfect as society often made it out to be. The critique of capitalism, the American Dream, and society shows Miller’s disdain for a capitalistic system which had spurned him in the past.
Works Cited
"Arthur Miller Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-miller-9408335#synopsis>.
"Arthur Miller: Private Conversations on The Set of Death of a Salesman." PBS. PBS, 23 Aug. 2004. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/arthur-miller-none-without-sin/56/>.
