1.1.2

Historical Context

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Introduction to Historical Context

Set in 1940s America, Death of a Salesman examines the rapid economic and social changes of the time.

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1940s America

  • Death of a Salesman is set in late 1940s New York City, at a moment of rapid change in the USA.
  • The country was beginning to emerge from the suffering of the Great Depression and World War 2, on the verge of a sustained period of prosperity and growth in the 1950s and 1960s.
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The American Dream

  • Miller captures the moment when the American Dream, with its offer of wealth, happiness and success for all who are prepared to work for it, seems to have been reborn.
  • The play’s references to a range of modern goods and brands (refrigerators, Chevrolet etc.) show an America fast becoming a consumerist society dominated by new marketing techniques, with Willy and Linda reassuring themselves that their Hastings refrigerator must be a sound buy as it had “the biggest ads of any of them”.
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Willy Loman

  • Miller also explores what is being lost in the rush to modernity. - His hero, Willy Loman, is a victim of a new, more ruthless version of capitalism which is beginning to emerge.
  • His role as travelling salesman is becoming less relevant in an age of mass-marketing strategies using new technologies such as television.
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Urbanisation

  • Likewise, as power and wealth becomes concentrated in vast cities such as New York, Americans are beginning to become more distant from the countryside, both physically and spiritually.
  • The sound of the flute which opens the play, “telling of grass and trees and the horizon”, is Miller’s poignant reminder of an America that is in danger of being lost or forgotten as wealth becomes increasingly concentrated in its rapidly expanding cities.

Jump to other topics

1Introduction

2Act One

3Act Two

4Extended Passage Analysis

5Character Profiles

6Key Themes

7Writing Techniques

8Historical Context

9Literary Context

10Critical Debates

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