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Ⅰ. Introduction 1.1 Research Motives Death of a Salesman, a modern drama, was produced in 1948 by Arthur Miller. At this level of my research, this thesis decides to select the causes that lead to the protagonist Willy Loman’s death in this drama as my research motive and objective. During that time, the postwar boom of 1948, a lot of Americans were optimistic towards the renewed striking American Dream: you can make great fortune overnight only if you work hard or you take a risk. The drama describes only one day and two nights’ life of a common salesman. Through the description of the following aspects of the protagonist: a victim of American Dream, an unfitting father, and a husband whose wife can’t understand him, Miller reveals the destruction to people’s mind by their faith in American Dream during the process of capitalistic development. This paper will take a tentative analysis on the reasons of the tragedy from different aspects. In order to examine my demonstration more effectively, I’d like to adopt the methods of illustration and comparison to make an argument in my thesis. 1.2 Literature Review In order to have a more complete outlook about the issues I have examined, I decide first to do a state-of-the-art type of study, and then see what has happened in this area over the past 10 or more years. Death of a Salesman depicts an image of tragedy of an ordinary salesman. It sets up the history of modern drama. Many scholars and critics have had an ever-lasting interest in Death of a Salesman since it has been published. They have discussed the death of Willy from various aspects such as the American Dream, the social background and Willy himself. So some initial resources in my literature review I want to use include the following aspects: In the book Arthur Miller, published in 1980, Leonard Moss thinks that the protagonist Willy Loman unwittingly reveals the moral limitations that prevent him from achieving the success in performing as a husband, a fat