American Literature CLEP Prep Practice Exam

What Pulitzer-Prize winning play is set in the Great Depression in the United States?

1. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

2. he Death of a Salesman

3. The Iceman Cometh

4. Twelfth Night

The correct answer is: he Death of a Salesman

Context The play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" by Edward Albee was set in the 1960s, which was after the Great Depression. "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O'Neill was also set in the 1960s and focuses on the pre-Prohibition era, which is significantly later than the Great Depression. "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare is a comedy set in the fictional land of Illyria, rather than in the United States during the Great Depression. Therefore, the only correct option is "The Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 and is set during the Great Depression in America.