In many ways … The Price seems to mark a return to the world of Joe Keller and Willy Loman. Once again, it appears, we are invited to witness the struggles of a man who has "the wrong dreams" and who embraces too completely the ethics of a society intent on success at any price. But … since Death of a Salesman Miller has become aware of more fundamental influences than those exerted by Horatio Alger Jr. and while he continues to expose the vacuity of the American dream he is more concerned with probing the nature of human freedom than with exposing the social charade. [The Price], therefore, owes more to After the Fall and Incident at Vichy than to All My Sons and Death of a Salesman.

The line between Incident at Vichy and The Price is disturbingly direct. Miller has said that he is fascinated by the...