1 / 5

Introduction to Death of a Salesman and the 1940’s

Introduction to Death of a Salesman and the 1940’s. Arthur Miller.

laddie
Download Presentation

Introduction to Death of a Salesman and the 1940’s

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Introduction to Death of a Salesman and the 1940’s

  2. Arthur Miller "The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out," Arthur Miller has said. "Whoever is writing in the United States is using the American Dream as an ironical pole of his story. People elsewhere tend to accept, to a far greater degree anyway, that the conditions of life are hostile to man's pretensions."

  3. Miller Bio. • Son of a women's clothing company • born in 1915 in New York City. • His father lost his business in the Depression and the family was forced to move to a smaller home in Brooklyn. • After graduating high school, Miller worked jobs ranging from radio singer to truck driver to clerk in an automobile-parts warehouse. • Miller began writing plays as a student at the University of Michigan, joining the Federal Theater Project in New York City after he received his degree. • His 1949 Death of a Salesman won the Pulitzer Prize.

  4. What’s so Special about the 1940’s? • FACTS about this decade. • Population 132,122,000 • Unemployed in 1940 - 8,120,000 • National Debt $43 Billion • Average Salary $1,299. Teacher's salary $1,441 • Minimum Wage $.43 per hour • 55% of U.S. homes have indoor plumbing • Antarctica is discovered to be a continent • Life expectancy 68.2 female, 60.8 male • Auto deaths 34,500 • Supreme Court decides blacks do have a right to vote • World War II changed the order of world power; the  United States and the USSR become super powers • Cold War begins.

  5. Other 1940’s Contributions • Frozen Dinners • Tupperware • Aluminum Foil • Diners • Slinky • With fathers away (WWII) and mothers at work, another new phenomenon arose - the juvenile delinquent

More Related