56．（10分）A
Arthur Miller （1915﹣2005）is universally recognized as one of the greatest
dramatists of the 20 th century．Miller's father had moved to the USA from Austria
Hungary，drawn like so many others by the"Great American
Dream"．However，he experienced severe financial hardship when his family
business was ruined in the Great Depression of the early l930s．
Miller's most famous play，Death of a Salesman，is a powerful attack on the
American system，with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on
money and social status as indicators of worth．In Willy Loman，the hero of the
play，we see a man who has got into trouble with his worth．Willy is"burnt
out"and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment：if he can't do
the work，then he is no good to his employer，the Wagner Company，and he
must go．Willy is painfully aware of this，and at loss as to what to do with his lack
of success．He refuses to face the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the
end．
When it was first staged in 1949，the play was greeted with enthusiastic
reviews，and it won the Tony Award for Best Play，the New York Drama
Critics′Circle Award，and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama．It was the first play to win all
three of these major awards．
Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury，Connecticut，on the evening of
February 10，2005，the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a
Salesman on Broadway．
56．Why did Arthur Miller's father move to the USA？
B