Death Of a Salesman Vs The Crucible

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The years 1949 and 1953 mark the beginnings of the two most glorious tragedies playwright Arthur Miller has ever composed. The Crucible tells the story of John Proctor, a man who was wrongly accused of witchcraft, and his struggles to prove his innocence without tarnishing his family’s name. Death of a Salesman tells of Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman caught up in high hopes for his sons, who both soon become failures as well. In reading these plays, one may find that both The Crucible and Death of a Salesman were intended to criticize the frailties of society and human nature. While the settings and theatrical elements of the two plays may differ, one thing that I found particularly interesting was the amount of similarities between John Proctor and Willy Loman. Since both plays are tragedies, one can expect to find themselves connecting with the main characters to the point of having a sense of pity towards them when the final curtain falls. The main purpose of both Death of a Salesman and The Crucible was to showcase some major problems within American society. In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller attempted to show the impossibilities of the “American Dream”. In The Crucible, he illustrated society’s disgruntlement towards others and its proneness to hysteria. Both plays dealt with society ensnaring the average, hard-working and diligent man. They also showed a society that was full of deceit and liars. In both of these plays, society was depicted as a depraved thing that would overpower the average person and create an unjust world. The settings and theatrical elements in both plays were dissimilar. The Crucible took place during the Salem witch trials that lasted from 1692 to 1693 in Massachusetts. Death of a Salesman was set in 1949 in Brooklyn. Because the settings in these two plays differed, so too did the theatrical elements. Death of a
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