Some have interpreted [Death of a Salesman] as an attack upon the "American dream"—which I take to mean the idea that ours is a land of unlimited opportunity in which any ragamuffin can attain riches and any mother's son become President. Others have chosen to regard it as a contemporary King Lear—the tragedy of the common old man of today, as opposed to that of the extraordinary old man of Shakespeare's time. The symbolic significance of the hero's name (low man) and the fact that Mr. Miller gave him an occupation associated in the public's mind with the average white-collar worker have both been cited as evidence to support this view. Still others have sought to explain the play thematically, as the tragic consequence of false dreams. (p. 123)

The American dream, as I interpret the term, embodies the concept of this country as a land of...