American Drama

Arthur Miller is one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century who was born in 1915 and was awarded a Pulitzer Price. His legacy will without doubt live forever defying aging and time because they deal with the social realities and the nature of people that all of humanity possessed here and there. His inclination to communism rendered him as a critic of the capitalism that climbed towards its peak in the 20th century, and he wittingly criticized capitalism and the inner nature of people with successful allegories. ...

Reference excerpt is at the bottom of the page. Literary theory and criticism have developed over the course of more than 3000 years, starting with Aristotle and even Plato and Socrates, and it took many forms based on the time period or conditions within which the theory arose. Literary theory is basically seeking an answer to why we read and produce literature and what makes a work of literature good while literary criticism is the appliance of the theory in practice to evaluate or understand a work of literature. There have been many ways to read a text throughout the history but as for Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, I will use certain methods to do a close reading into the selected 20 lines from the text. These are Platonian reading, Aristotelian reading, Horacian reading, Russian Formalism, and lastly Psychoanalytic or Freudian reading. ...

The reference excerpt is at the bottom of the page. Close Reading allows for a deeper understanding and a deeper pleasure when reading a work of literature. It is generally related to critical media literacy in terms of their pursue for the real meaning that lies behind the apparent lines. In Critical Media Literacy, one should compare multiple sources to validate the reliability of a news along with other techniques. Similarly, in order to do a successful close reading, one should be able to compare the lines and read between the lines, considering the text as a whole and dissecting it. In this way, the hidden messages can be unearthed. The internal logic in a text must be fulfilled to satisfy the reader experience. Therefore, I will be dissecting and analyzing a small section -20 lines- of the play but it will account for the text as a whole. Also, I chose the opening part of the play as it is suggestive enough of what to expect from the play in later parts. ...