Historical and political context

• In the period 1850-1920, large firms took over the smaller traders in the course of industrialisation. The economic prosperity of the 1920s is booming and people live by the motto "The sky is the limit"
• In 1929, however, the stock market crashed abruptly with Black Friday and what followed was the Great Depression, which plunged the USA into crisis
• From 1933 onwards, the incumbent President Roosevelt then concentrated on securing the individual in society and placed an increased focus on traditional, American values to end the country's identity crisis
• In the ensuing period of threat, particularly from World War 2, which the United States joined from 1941 onwards, American citizens focused more on the traditional values of the country, retreating into the protective walls of one's home

Reception and Resonance

• Originally, the work was to be called The Inside of his head and the stage set was to be the inside of a head
• The tragedy was filmed by Alex Segal in 1966, among others, but the most famous film version was made by Volker Schlöndorff in 1985, starring Dustin Hofmann as Willy Loman
• To this day, it is impossible to imagine 19th-century literature without Arthur Miller's drama and, in addition to its function as a cultural medium, it also forms an integral part of the English reading canon in the upper school