By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Death of a Salesman is that rare thing: a modern play that is both a classic, and a tragedy. Many of the great plays of the twentieth century are comedies, social problem plays, or a combination of the two. Few are tragedies centred on one character who, in a sense, recalls the theatrical tradition that gave us Oedipus, King Lear, and Hamlet.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
As we mention in our collection of interesting facts about Arthur Miller (1915-2005), the noted US playwright’s family had been relatively prosperous, but during the Great Depression of the 1930s, as with many other families, their economic situation became very precarious.
Interesting Arthur Miller trivia
1. Arthur Miller’s father lost virtually everything in the 1929 Wall Street crash. Miller’s play Death of a Salesman (1949) was informed by personal experience: in 1929, when Miller was still a boy, his father Isidore lost much of his fortune in the famous stock-market crash of 1929. His father had owned a women’s clothing business, a chauffeur, and a staff of some 400 people; they lost virtually everything.