How is Death of a Salesman connected to American History?
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by American playwright Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater. The play premiered on Broadway on February 10, 1949 at the Morosco Theatre where it ran for 742 performances, directed by Elia Kazan with Lee J. Cobb starring in the leading role. A caustic attack on the American Dream, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. The play raises a counterexample to Aristotle’s characterization of tragedy as the downfall of a great man: though Loman certainly has Hamartia, a tragic flaw or error, his downfall is that of an ordinary man (a “low man”). Like Sophocles’ Oedipus in Oedipus the King, Loman’s flaw comes down to a lack of self-knowledge; unlike Oedipus, Loman’s downfall threatens not the city but only a single, bourgeois household. In this sense, Miller’s play represents a democratization of the ancient form of tragedy; interestingly, the play’s protagonist is himself obsessed wi
