Biography of the author

The author of this play is Arthur Miller, a playwright and essayist. Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in Harlem, New York, to an immigrant family with Jewish and Polish ancestry. Miller belonged to a financially stable family; his father was the owner of a coat manufacturing business, and his mother was an educator. However, the 1929 Wall Street Crash caused his family to lose all their savings and as a result, they had to relocate to Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Miller’s first exposure to the American Dream and the Great Depression (which later inspired some of his works) happened during his teenage years in Brooklyn. To earn money for college, he had to work several jobs, including being a truck driver, waiter, and tanker crewman. He then attended the University of Michigan, where he majored in journalism but later switched to English. In college, not only did he work for the student paper, but he was also able to complete and publish his first play, No Villain, which won the school’s Avery Hopwood Award. Furthermore, the courses he took with playwright and professor Kenneth Rowe inspired him to move back to the East and begin a playwriting career. In addition to Death of a Salesman, his other notable works include All My Sons, The Crucible, and The Misfits. Though he passed away in 2005 at age 89, his legacy continues to live on.

Context of the book

Death of a Salesman was written in 1948 and produced in 1949. Through this play, Miller hopes to address themes like the American Dream, self-acceptance, and illusion versus reality... Miller also hopes to discuss and tackle big issues about American national values so that his audience is able to gain more insight into them and what they really mean.