Author's Argument: Death of a Salesman

In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), the main idea achieving the "American Dream." Because this is a play, the author uses a heavy amount of dialouge to convey the emotions of the characters, he also adds questions, some rhetorical some not, to keep the reader at suspense and lastly he uses italics show the actions of the characters. The audience is pretty general as the story could apply to everyone. The purpose is to show how families try to achieve the typical "American Dream."

The tone of this play is familiar and a little frantic

1. jovial- endowed or characterized with hearty, joyous humor or a spirit of good fellowship
2. mercurial- changeable; volatile
3. trepidation- tremeulous fear, alarm, or agitation
4. incipient- beginning to exist or appear
5. surlily- churlishly rude or bad tempered
6. indignantly- feeling, characterized by, or expressing strong displeasure at something considered unjust
7. valises- a small piece of luggage that can be carried by hand
8. elegiacally- expressing sorrow or lamentation

1. metaphor- "I'm tired to death."(2)
2. telegraphic sentences- "He won't starve. None a them starve. Forget about him."(29); "It's an accomplishment."(54)
3. dashes- "Give my best to Bill Oliver-he may remember me."(48)
4. questions- "What're you doin' home?"; "You want a job?"; "You want me to go?"; "Then what have I got to remember?"(29)
5. epigraph- "Kid, I can't take blood from a stone, I-.."(61)

• Why did the author choose to write about someone obsessed with trying to become successful in sales?
• Why did the author format the play to be only two acts?
• Is the "American Dream" truly achievable? Was it ever truly achievable?

" 'Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?"