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essays on arthur miller
arthur miller as a dramatist
arthur miller as a dramatist
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I. The source contained biographical information pertaining to the author Arthur Miller including his birth and death, his early life, his achievements, and some of his works including “The Prince”, “A Memory of Two Mondays”, ”After the fall”, “Death of a salesman”, and “The Crucible”. It is a very reliable source because it was found via the SRC student resource page and the encyclopedia Britannica is a private institution with the job of delivering accurate information.
II. A. 1. “Miller was shaped by the Great Depression, which spelled financial ruin for his father, and demonstrated to young Miller the insecurity of modern existence.”
a) This quote describes his early life which is prominent in one of his most important works “Death of a Salesman”, which features the main character Willy Lowman realizing how small and unimportant he is in this large world. This is based directly on his dead who lost all his money during the Great Depression, and he and his father lived dirt poor for a while. Most of Miller’s work is depressing due to his upbringing during the Great Depression.
2. “He made a play called “The Misfits” (1961), for his second wife, actress Marilyn Monroe.”
a) It shows where he got the ideas for some of his work, and that most of his work is based on his life. The situation between Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller wasn’t the best as the two divorced in Mexico because they were incompatible. They lived different lifestyles and in their five years of marriage they were always quarreling. It shows the type of life Arthur Miller had even after he became famous. If the plays were based on his life, he had tons of material to work off of.
3.”Miller received a Pulitzer Prize for the play “Death of a Salesmen”. In 1956...
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...ED, Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detriot. Gale, 1998.
Biography in Context Wed. 6 Nov. 2013 http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&zid=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK1602000731
Ray, Benjamin “Salem Witch Trials,” OAH Magazine of History 17.4 (2003): 32-36
“Corruption of the American Dream” In Death of a Salesman: A Thematic Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.” Cross-Cultural Communication 6.3 (2010):122-126. Academic Search Complete. Wed. 6 Nov. 2013
Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics.” New Yorker 21
(1996). Wed. 6 Nov. 2013. http://cobblearming.net
Miller, A. (1996, October 21). Life and letters why i wrote "the crucible". The New Yorker, 158. Retrieved December 02, 2013 from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1996/10/21/1996_10_21_158_TNY_CARDS_000373902
Miller, Arthur. "Why I Wrote The Crucible." Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Eds. Kylene Beers and Lee Odell. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2007.
...ur Miller wrote the Crucible as a response to the McCarthy trials. He was trying to reveal McCarthy's abuse of power, the hysteria he was causing, and hopefully this would stop the terrible happenings in America. Miller twisted in his private life into his play. He was the John Proctor of his time. He displayed what society was like during the McCarthy trials and what needed to be changed.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a symbolism for his own failing marriage and the communist hunt in America at this time in his life. However, almost 50 years later, Miller also wrote the screenplay for his movie adaption of the play. Moreover, there were definite changes to scenes, characters, and dialog, between the play and the movie. Miller’s variation to his own play, showcase key differences in Abigail Williams, through his changes in her persona, relationship with John Proctor, and the added scenes in the film.
In this essay, I intend to analyse the historical context of The Crucible and its relevance in today’s society. I believe that Arthur Miller’s life and his experience of McCarthyism strongly influenced the writing of The Crucible.
Arthur Miller wrote plays as a way of showing people the real picture of what life was really like during the Great Depression and after World War II. Before the Great Depression many Americans were living in a significant time period, the Roaring Twenties. People had radios, automobiles, and movies with sounds. Then it all suddenly came to an end with the Stock Market Crash, leading to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, Americans faced poverty, and had no income because jobs weren’t available. Throughout his life Miller influenced many people with his plays, and his contributions to this day because people want to read and understand what was truly happening in past history. For example, “The Crucible” is a play about the Salem Witch Trials, giving a good understanding of the basics that went on in this time period. Another example of Miller’s influential work is “The Death of a Sales Man”, which is his way of showing what life was like when people were struggling financially during the Stock Market Crash. Overall, Arthur Miller is one of the leading American playwrights of the twentieth century.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Prentice Hall Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes. Kate Kinsella, et. Al, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2002. 1233-1334. Print.
Barack Obama made history by being elected President of the United States, twice. This is just one more example that the American Dream is without a doubt achievable. Its pursuit is not easy; it requires undeniable hard work, modesty and optimism. Armed with these characteristics, seekers of this lifestyle will undeniably succeed. Success, though, is an interesting concept, for it can entail many superficial qualities. Willy Loman, the tragic hero of the play Death of a Salesman, sees only the superficial qualities of this dream. He views success solely as likeability (linked with attractiveness), and wealth. Ignoring all methods to honorably achieve these, Arthur Miller demonstrates how Willy’s search for the superficial qualities of the American Dream lead him to his own despair.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, Americans have idealized the journey towards economic success. One thing people do not realize, however, is that journey is not the same for every individual. Media often leads its viewers toward a “one size fits all” version of success that may help themselves, but will rarely help the viewers. This is seen in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Miller includes multiple instances of symbolism and personification to reveal to the reader the situational irony in Willy’s life, underlining the theme of self-deception in regard to the American Dream. This American Dream, fueled by money, is the main source of anxiety in Willy’s life. The anxiety of income is reflected today in the issue of minimum wage. James Sherk, a writer of the Tribune News Service, plots thoughtful points against raising the minimum wage. However, his use of over-exaggeration and odd comparisons leave his argument less than convincing.
Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote the Crucible.” The New Yorker. October 26, 1996. Web. March 19,
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that was first performed in 1953 in the United States of America in the midst of the persecution of alleged communists during the era of McCarthyism. Although the play explicitly addresses the Salem which hunt, many find that the play is an analogy to McCarthyism due to the striking similarities in which the people behaved. Miller highlight the different groups of characters in order to reveal overlying ideas of the play such as: Self preservation, power, and hypocrisy.
Arthur Miller’s success first began with his Broadway play, All My Sons, in 1947. This award winning play “Struck a note that was to become familiar in Miller’s work: the need for moral responsibility in families and society”. (Anderson 1212) Later, his production Death of a Salesman left him the group of America’s top playwrights....
Miller went through college with many failed and unpublished plays. Still, he never gave up hope. Finally he hit one success which kept him on the Broadway stage for several decades to come. Arthur Miller is a New York born American playwright who developed a reputation by dealing with political and moral issues through his plays. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg with it comes to the story of Arthur Miller.
Moseley, Merritt. "The American Dream in Arthur Miller 's Death of a Salesman." In Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom 's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 30 Nov. 2015
Arthur Miller is recognized as an important and influential playwright, not to mention essayist and novelist. Although he has had plenty of luck in his writing career, his fame is the product of his ingenious ability to control what he wants his readers to picture or feel. As one of his critics states, "Miller writes ingeniously, conveying the message that 'if the proper study of mankind is man, man's inescapable problem is himself (Broussard, 306).'" Miller accurately puts into words what every person thinks, feels, or worries about, but often has trouble expressing. By the use of symbolism, Arthur Miller portrays Willy's (along with the other Lowmans') problems with family life, the society, and himself in Death of a Salesman.