Death of a Salesman

Both are autopsy reports on the American Dream — Gatsby has the glamour and the green light; Willy has the kitchen and the mortgage. Together they cover every social stratum the dream reaches.

Miller's peer and rival — Williams also writes family tragedy, also uses expressionistic staging, also explores what happens when a person's self-image collides with reality. Blanche DuBois and Willy Loman are the 20th century's two great self-deluders.

Miller's previous play — also about a father's self-deception, also about the cost borne by children. All My Sons is the prequel Miller's critics cite to understand his preoccupations.

O'Neill's masterpiece about men who live on illusions — 'pipe dreams' — and what happens when someone tries to take them away. The structural parallel to Willy's 'well-liked' mythology is exact.

Another story about ordinary men and the dreams that sustain and destroy them. Lennie's rabbits and Willy's Ebbets Field game occupy the same emotional territory.

Picks up the American Dream autopsy two decades later — a man who achieved everything Willy wanted, and the explosion that came from inside his life anyway.