Representation of Family as a Social Unit in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Mohan Rakesh’s Aadhe Adhure

Abstract

The following paper entails a study of family as a social unit. The research highlights the effects of socio-economic as well as cultural and political factors on the institution of family. The concept of family has been explored through Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1948) and Mohan Rakesh’s Aadhe Adhure (1969). The texts belong to two different geographical and cultural set-ups and portray two distinct timelines. The former text has been studied in the context of the failure of the American Dream and the latter in relation to the post-independence Indian disillusionment. This study aims to examine the impact of socio-political and economic context on the functioning of a family and seeks to identify the factors that influence familial relationships and affect the coherence of the institution.