that result from collective values and individual
resilience. And without overlooking the profound
damage done by Willy Loman’s personal lapses in
judgment and morals, readers of Arthur Miller’s
death oF a saLesMan cannot help recognizing that
his status as a lowly worker in a coldhearted alienat-
ing business has contributed greatly to his downfall.
Although few writers today take work as the
main setting or plot of their stories, the theme has by
no means disappeared from literature. In addition,
scholars interested in cultural studies, labor studies,
and feminist theory have in the past few decades
unearthed the literary accomplishments of many
laborers whose poems, songs, stories, and essays
provide an insider’s look at the world of work. And
the plight of the struggling employee continues to
be told, often very comically, in film and television.
See also Amis, Kingsley: Lucky JiM; Chek-
hov, Anton: seaGuLL, the; Dickens, Charles:
oLiver twist; Emerson, Ralph Waldo: “Self-
Reliance”; Frost, Robert: poems; Gaines,
Ernest J.: autobioGraphy oF Miss Jane pitt-
Man, the; Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X: auto-
bioGraphy oF MaLcoLM x, the; Hawthorne,
Nathaniel: “Birth-mark, The”; McCullers,
Carson: heart is^ a LoneLy hunter, the; Mel-
ville, Herman: biLLy budd, saiLor; Orwell,
George: aniMaL FarM; Solzhenitsyn, Alexan-
der: one day in the LiFe oF ivan denisovich;
Thoreau, Henry David: waLden; Washington,
Booker T.: up F roM sLavery; Whitman, Walt:
Leaves oF Grass.
FURTHER READING
Hapke, Laura. Labor’s Text: The Worker in American
Fiction. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
Press, 2001.
Marx, Karl. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto. New York:
Prometheus Books, 1988.
Thomas, Keith, ed. The Oxford Book of Work. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999.
James Wallace122 work