For your final paper, you will read on your own either Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman or Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (only choose 1 text with which to work). You will read the play on your own, develop a thesis of your choosing (in relation to how the play represents & American Dream and its critique of it). Think of this paper like a final exam—I want to see what you can do on your own, in terms of analyzing a text and putting forth your own take (argument) on it.
I am looking for you to grapple with themes of the American Dream (I have included to “worksheets” that detail aspects of that Dream). Some possible approaches might be found in making use of one of these questions as a thought-starter for brainstorming:
• How does the playwright represent the values & ideals of the American Dream in his play? (I would advise you to hone in on two values, as listed in the supplement material on American Core Values, to assist with locating how those 2 get represented.) • Does the playwright affirm, revise/redefine, call for reform of, and/or resist those American values? • Does the play reveal certain problems with the American Dream or, perhaps, certain virtues that need to be reappropriated once more, in order to remedy ways in which America is failing its citizens in terms of delivering on the promise of the American Dream. • How does the play critique its own historical moment’s social, cultural, or ideological dimensions to life in America during the mid-century?
For your final paper, you will read on your own either Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman or Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (only choose 1 text with which to work). You will read the play on your own, and develop a thesis of your choosing (in relation to how the play represents & the American Dream and its critique of it). Think of this paper as a final exam—I want to see what you can do on your own, in
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