Arthur Miller

Theatre Appreciation

ARTHUR MILLER

Of the list of American playwrights the one I thought I would find most interesting is Arthur Miller. Being relatively familiar with some of his work I wanted to learn more about him. Through the research I have done I have been able to find some very interesting information about Miller’s work as well as his personal life.

Arthur Miller was born in New York on October 17, 1915. His father, Isidore Miller, was a ladies-wear manufacturer and shopkeeper whose business was ruined in the Great Depression. This obviously had a huge impact on the family’s financial situation which in turn had a strong influence on Miller. The family was forced to move to a small frame house in Brooklyn, which is said to have been a model for the Brooklyn home in Death of a Salesman. Throughout his childhood Arthur’s time was spent playing football, baseball, and reading adventure stories. After graduating from high school in 1932, Miller began working in an automobile parts warehouse in hopes of earning enough money to attend college. It was after reading Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov that Arthur Miller decided he wanted to become a writer. In the fall of 1934 Miller entered the University of Michigan where he began his study of journalism. During his years there he won several awards for his playwriting.

In 1938, after earning a degree in English, Miller returned to New York. There, he joined the Federal Theatre Project, and wrote scripts for such radio programs as Columbia Workshop (CBS) and Cavalcade of America (NBC). Arthur’s personal life also progressed in 1940 when he married Mary Slattery with whom he later had two children. Because of a football injury, Arthur was exempt from the draft and was able to continue his work here. Though Miller would eventually become a highly acclaimed and very well known playwright, things didn’t take off immediately. Miller’s work eventually made it to Broadway starting with The Man Who Had all the Luck in 1944. It closed after four performances. Three years later he returned to Broadway producing All My Sons, the story of a factory owner who sells faulty aircraft parts during World War II. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. This being his first major award, his work would continue to receive critical acclaim for years, however there would still be ups and downs.

Arthur Miller’s work varied over the next several years. In 1944 Arthur toured Army camps to collect background material for his screenplay The Story of GI Joe. Miller also wrote his first novel, Focus (1945), which was a story about anti-Semitism. In 1949 Miller’s Death of a Salesman brought him international fame. This became probably one of his most well known pieces of work as well as a major achievement of modern American theatre. Death of a Salesman is a story about the quest for the American Dream. The salesman, Willy Loman, is a man of pride who is not the great success that he claims to be to his family and friends. Due to the postwar economic boom he looses his job and goes into a downward spiral. He begins to hallucinate about significant events from his past and eventually he comes to the conclusion that he is worth more dead than alive. Willy kills himself in his car, hoping that the insurance money will support his family and allow them to be better off. Critics have, for years, debated the meaning of the suicide as a selfless act in hopes of achieving the American Dream or merely an act of cowardice.

Along with Tennessee Williams, Miller became one of the best-known American playwrights after WWII. Miller was politically active throughout his life and the interest he had in politics was always expressed through his work. After the recognition Arthur Miller earned for his incredible work he did not continue on without controversy. Due to the communist scare that was tearing through the country and especially through the entertainment industry in the 1950’s Miller was investigated for his involvement with the communist party. A committee of the United States Congress scrutinized many high profile people in the business including Arthur Miller. Senator Joseph McCarthy led the way in blacklisting many entertainers, preventing them from working. Miller himself was blacklisted after refusing to give information about others who had been suspected of involvement with the Communist Party, however it was later revoked. In 1953 he was even denied a passport to attend the Brussels premiere of his own play The Crucible, a play in which he expressed his faith in the ability of an individual to resist conformist pressures.

Whether it was the specific experience of being blacklisted by the government or another, Arthur Miller always wrote of social concerns relative to his audiences. Many