What Are The Similarities Between The Crucible And Death Of A Salesman

How does Miller comment on American society through The Crucible and Death of a Salesman

In both of the plays Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953), Arthur Miller uses a range of techniques like allegories and explorations to promote audience response to comment on American society. This also includes the use of microcosms, such as the court of Salem and its often non judicial system mirroring that of 1950s McCarthyist America. As well as this, Arthur Miller uses the pursuit of the American dream, and how people wished for social mobility and the main male characters betray themselves Willy, the all American father is led to betrayal for social mobility and his own gain and Proctor the father figure to Abigail,is turned into sexual

Howard is an important character in the latter play as he is used as a constant repetition for Willy as someone to blame when really the blame lies with the capitalist society and the way that it's set up for backstabbing to achieve what you want. Charley tries to make this point to Willy; “Willy, when’re you gonna realise that these things don’t mean anything? You named him Howard, but you can’t sell that. The only thing you have in this world is what you can sell and the funny thing is that you’re a salesman, and you don’t know that”(P81. L.9) The constant use of the pronoun ‘you’ attaches some of the messages of the statement, such as a person's role in a capitalist society as it is directed not only at Willy but directed from the stage and onto the audience as in most productions of the play Charley would turn from saying this to Willy and move it onto the audience, such as in the plays first performance in 1949 on Broadway. This is Miller's way of saying that people are only useful for this kind of society if they have something to sell. This is supported contextually by Willy’s life being devoted to selling and when he cannot sell anymore he feels himself useless and takes his own life. Miller uses this betrayal to forward the two characters' own position in society; this is mirrored in Salem in Miller's other play ‘The Crucible’. The girls who begin the witch trials by begging Tituba to perform a ritual end up betraying her to save themselves. “She made me do it, she made Betty do it!”(P.45 L.27) The repetition shows how they attempt to incriminate Tituba and further their own desire . Miller has also highlighted the racial issues that existed in American society as Tituba is straight away persecuted for