The pursuit of the American Dream is a dominant theme in both Steinbeck’s novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ and Miller’s play ‘Death of a Salesman’. While both texts explore painful conflicts encountered by the character’s, their desire to fulfil the American Dream is portrayed differently. Steinbeck depicts the American dream as an illusion in which the characters are trapped in an endless cycle conveying the message that the dream cannot be realised simply by working hard. Miller examines the cost of blind faith in the dream through the personal tragedy of an American family. The capitalist materialism fostered by the post-war economy where moral vision faded into insignificance was used by Miller to charge America against selling a false myth. The
