Abstract Death of a Salesman, considered as Arthur Miller’ s greatest masterpiece, has received international reputation since its premiere in 1949。 

    With analysis of the social background of 20th century, this thesis reveals the brutality and the cruelty of American society, of which the consequence is the distorted moral code and the contorted value, thus inevitably resulting in the betrayal of human nature。 Subsequently, the author puts emphasis on the distorted humanity of the protagonist Willy Loman and focuses on a number of manifestations which reflects his contorted understanding of fame and wealth。 What’s more, this thesis also unscrambles the interior world of Willy Loman and promulgates subjective contributors of his evaporation of success。 Through analysis of roots of Willy’s tragic death both from objective and subjective reasons, this thesis analyzes the oppression on impoverished people in capitalist society and unveils the contorted human nature while pursuing American dream。94877

Key Words: Death of a Salesman; American dream; human nature;

摘要《推销员之死》作为阿瑟米勒最杰出的代表作，自其于1949年问世以来便受到了国内外的赞誉。

本文以20世纪美国资本主义社会的时代背景为切入点，揭示美国资本主义社会对贫苦大众的残忍剥削，从而导致其道德与价值观的扭曲，以及人性的背叛之恶果。其次，通过列举《推销员之死》中主人公威利对名利金钱的错误理解与追逐，本文重点探索威利人性价值观颠覆的深层原因。同时，本文通过解读威利的内心世界，从主观角度分析其美国梦幻灭和人性背叛的原因。本文结合客观和主观两个角度，通过分析盛极一时的金钱主义、享乐主义的时代背景，以及主人公性格缺陷等主观因素，批判资本主义社会对贫苦大众的欺凌压榨，同时揭示美国梦幻灭的悲剧实质，即人性的背叛。

毕业论文关键词: 《推销员之死》；美国梦的幻灭；人性的背叛；

Contents

1。 Introduction 1

1。1 The author and his early experience 1

1。2 The plot of Death of a Salesman。2

2。 Literature Review 。2

3。 American Dream。4

3。1 The origin and development of American dream4

3。2 The disillusionment of American dream 。。4

4。 The Manifestation of the Betrayal of Humanity 5

4。1 The betrayal of integrity 5

4。2 Willy's betrayal of himself。7

5。 The Reasons for Willy's Tragedy。 ………8

5。1 Objective reasons8

5。2 Subjective reasons。。9

6。 Conclusion。。10

Works Cited。12

1。 Introduction 

The disillusionment of the American dream has become the universal theme in literature since 20th century, and this thesis aims at exploring reasons for it with analysis of the famous play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller。 Firstly, this thesis presents an introduction to the background of the author Arthur Miller and his life experience which have influenced his inspiration on Death of a Salesman, then discusses some previous researches and comments on Death of a Salesman。 Subsequently, with analysis of the social background of 20th century, this thesis focuses the origin and development of the American dream and explores reasons for the disillusionment。 Additionally, this thesis analyzes the distorted humanity of the protagonist Willy Loman with some manifestations which reflect his contorted moral code and value。 Apart from the analysis of contributors of Willy’s evaporation of success from objective reasons, this thesis also unscrambles reasons for the disillusionment of the American dream by analyzing the innate world of Willy Loman。 At last, this thesis unveils the oppression on impoverished people in capitalist society and analyzes the contorted human nature while pursuing the American dream。