Degradation of America in All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.

The Degradation of America in All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible

Arthur Miller was, as a playwright, very critical of American society. He condemned every aspect and satirized every ideal of modern American culture, from democracy to the American dream. He degraded every part of Western civilization down to a much more basic and much more negative idea – capitalism became greed, and rule by the people became rule by the mob. Many people of his era saw him as anti-American, and in many ways, he was.

Each of Miller’s plays focuses on fundamental aspects of humanity. Miller chose to represent these qualities in direct relation to American society, and contrasted the sacred ideals of democracy and capitalism with the true nature of mankind. He blamed the faults of democracy onto mankind at an individual basis, and used the “American everyman” as an example to prove his point. This technique was very successful in Miller’s three most important works – All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.

All three of these plays deal with different aspects of American democracy. In All My Sons, Miller criticizes both domestic and international failures of democracy, especially in relationship to World War II. American soldiers made great sacrifices for their friends and for their country, even giving up their lives to save that of a fellow soldier. They were fighting to protect the American way of life, which according to Miller, was in effect nothing. American soldiers were dying out in Europe and the Pacific so that Americans at home could buy refrigerators and new cars. According to Chris, one of two characters Miller used to represent the American soldier, “[The A...

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...btain happiness through money and fail. Larry and Proctor, along with numerous Puritans and American pilots, are all characters Miller used to demonstrate the terrible effects capitalism can have even on the innocent. The American way of life revolves around capitalism, and capitalism is based solely on money; therefore the American way of life is faulted to the point of being unworkable.

Works Cited

Hayman, Ronald. Arthur Miller. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972.

Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. New York: The Viking Press, 1957.

- - -. Introduction. Arthur Miller’s Collected Plays. New York: The Viking Press, 1957.

- - -. Death of a Salesman. New York: The Viking Press, 1957.

- - -. The Crucible. New York: The Viking Press, 1957.

Moss, Leonard. Arthur Miller. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1967.