The playwright Arthur Miller has given several interviews and written numerous essays with detailed comments on the origin of modern drama, the nature of contemporary tragedy, and how his plays have been welcomed by different cultures. He is often named as one of the most important and influential playwrights of the last sixty years. Miller's work, Death of a Salesman, is often cited along with Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire as one of the most influential works of the early 20th century. In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller writes with the vision of a new tragedy that involves the fusion of the past and the present and the confrontation with the desire for the “American dream”. CHANGE THESIS Arthur Miller was a young adult during the Great Depression. This national tragedy shaped Miller's view of human existence and showed him true human vulnerability in the modern age. The Great Depression presented Miller with the idea of ​​how humanity seeks to compensate for our downfalls by always having security in our sense of personal dignity. From the experience of his father losing everything in the stock market crash of 1929, Miller was inspired to write a new kind of tragedy, the tragedy of the common man. But even more than simply focusing on one man and his particular problems, Miller believed that each play he was writing was a commentary and criticism on social issues. Many critics found Arthur Miller's portrayal of Death of a Salesman's protagonist, Willy Loman, as a tragic character offensive. These critics commented that Willy was "too small" or "too common". It was generally thought that tragedies could only involve noble or powerful people... middle of paper... the footsteps of the father and the pursuit of one's dream. Death of a Salesman not only embodies the idea of ​​realizing an American dream, but the work is presented in an almost dreamlike state. Miller reiterates this fact in an interview, it is told like a dream. In a dream, we are simply faced with various loaded symbols, and where one is exhausted, it gives way to another. In Salesman there is the use of the past in the present. It was mistakenly called a flashback, but there are no flashbacks in that play. It's a coincidence of the past with the present, and this is a little different. (QUOTE!!!) Jo Mielziner's set design featured transparent walls. This set was used again in the 2012 revival with director Mike Nichols saying he felt the need to use Mielziner's original set because it was "intimately connected to the way the play developed" (Nichols CITE!!!)