Recommendations
Books Like Death of a Salesman
Best books to read after Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Miller's 1949 definitive American tragedy — Willy Loman's terrible final two days, the intrusion of the past into the present through Expressionistic flashbacks, and the investigation of the American Dream's lie — is the most performed American play and the one that most directly investigates what the American social compact promises and what it actually delivers. These recommendations extend the experience through Miller's other major plays, through the mid-century American theatrical tradition, and through fiction that investigates American capitalism, self-deception, and the relationship between fathers and sons.
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The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
The companion Miller play and the most enduringly political — John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and the Salem witch trials as an allegory for McCarthyism. Where Death of a Salesman is about private self-deception and the dream of individual success, The Crucible is about public hysteria and the cost of individual integrity in the face of collective pressure. Together they constitute Miller's two major statements about the American social contract.
- 2Buy
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
The companion American tragedy of 1947 — Blanche DuBois in New Orleans, her confrontation with Stanley Kowalski, her breakdown. A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman are the two plays that established postwar American drama: both organized around the conflict between a romantic self-conception (Blanche's southern gentility; Willy's being well-liked) and a brutal reality that eventually destroys the romantic.
- 3Buy
Long Day's Journey into Night
by Eugene O'Neill
O'Neill's 1956 companion — the Tyrone family's terrible day and night of accusation and recognition. Long Day's Journey into Night and Death of a Salesman are the two greatest American family plays: both organized around a father whose self-deception has damaged his sons, both using a concentrated time frame to reveal the accumulated weight of the family's past, both asking the same question about whether the father's dream was a lie or a life.
- 4Buy
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
Williams's 1945 companion memory play — Tom Wingfield's memories of his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Both The Glass Menagerie and Death of a Salesman are organized around a protagonist whose memories intrude on the present (Tom's retrospective narration; Willy's Expressionistic flashbacks), and both are about the damage done by a parent's romantic self-deception to the children who must live with it.
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All My Sons
by Arthur Miller
The earlier Miller companion — Joe Keller's wartime sale of defective airplane parts and the consequences for his family. All My Sons is the most Ibsenian of Miller's plays (the gradual revelation of a crime, its consequences, the question of what responsibility requires) and the best starting point for readers new to Miller before Death of a Salesman. Reading them in order shows the development of Miller's formal method.
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Ghosts
by Henrik Ibsen
The Ibsenian precursor that Miller most directly inherited — Mrs. Alving's revelation of the truth about Captain Alving's life. Ghosts and Death of a Salesman share the same formal technique (the past pressing into the present in a concentrated time frame, the gradual revelation of what has been concealed) and the same thematic concern (the cost of illusions, the damage done to the next generation by the parents' self-deception). Miller explicitly acknowledged Ibsen as his model.
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The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's 1925 companion in the tradition of the American romantic destroyed by the gap between the dream and reality — Jay Gatsby's invented self and its collision with the Buchanans. The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman are companion investigations of the American Dream: both ask whether the Dream is a lie that the society tells individuals to maintain social order, and both answer that it is — but both also show the beauty of the men who believe it.
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A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
Hansberry's 1959 companion — the Younger family's attempt to use Walter Lee's life insurance to move to a better neighborhood. A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman are companion American family plays about the dream of success, its racial dimensions (Willy's whiteness is part of the social contract; Walter Lee's Blackness is part of what denies it), and the complicated love between a father and his son.
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