Example Essays: McCarthyism Arthur Miller 1. The Crucible - Why Did Arthur Miller Write the Crucible The CrucibleWhy did Arthur Miller write The Crucible? ... There are two very distinct contexts that influenced Arthur Miller as he wrote The Crucible. ... Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to express his feelings towards the issue of McCarthyism and the witchcraft hysteria of Salem. ... I believe Arthur Miller has intentionally aimed "The CrucibleaE towards the events that took place during the McCarthyism time period. In conclusion Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in regards to the McCarthyism event because he believed that the anti-communist crusade was essentially like a witch-hunt. ... Word Count: 528 2. The crucible Arthur Miller"s The Crucible depicts the events of the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote the play in the 1950's during McCarthyism, while politician Joseph McCarthy sought to find hidden communists in the United States government. ... I saw Goody Howe with the DevilaE (Miller 48). ... Miller shows how Miller illustrates the ridiculousness of blindly accusing other people. ... Miller attempts to correlate the Salem Witch Trials with McCarthyism to show the detrimental effects of false accusations. ...

Word Count: 491 3. The Crucible Annie Yingling10/22/03English 2The Crucible McCarthyism in America was a time of fear and distrust in fellow Americans. ... Through his subtle connections, Arthur Miller"s play The Crucible efficiently shows the tyranny of consensus during the Salem Witch Trials, and during the period of McCarthyism. Although The Crucible debuted in 1953 while, McCarthyism was still at large it was not very effective in providing social commentary and promoting change.Miller wrote about the injustices against the disensus during the Salem Witch Trials. ... Just as in McCarthyism, if someone spoke out again... Word Count: 385 4. The Crucible and McCarthyism Arthur Miller"s The Crucible explores the Salem witch trials in great detail. ... In Arthur Miller"s The Crucible, there are plenty of parallels between Salem 1692 and America during the early 1950"s when the spread of McCarthyism was at its height.During the 1950"s the original suspects charged with communist affiliation were often in the lower or less respected ranks of society. ...

aE it is reminiscent of the warnings of those who spoke out against McCarthyism in its early stages, such as Miller himself.Another similarity between McCarthyism and The Crucible is that those who were acc... Word Count: 804 5. Crucible This perception was caused by a number of factors, the main two being Millers public disapproval of McCarthyism and the parallels between the Salem Witch trials of The Crucible and the McCarthy hearings of Miller"s time. ... Arthur Miller opposed the views of Senator Joe McCarthy, and The Crucible was a way for him to express an opinion in the matter. Arthur Miller had never supported the McCarthy hearings or the hunt for Communist spies becoming a dominating fixation of the American psyche. ... The atmosphere in America during McCarthy's peak of power was such that Miller could not w... Word Count: 981 6. The Crucible and McCarthyism The Crucible and McCarthyismThe Communist "witch huntsaE of the 1950s prompted Arthur Miller to write about the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in his play, The Crucible.

Miller captured the paranoia and hatred of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials and made a controversial reference to his own society"s Witch Hunts during the 1950s. ... "In his presence, a fool felt his foolishness instantly; consequently, a Proctor is always marked for slander and defamationaE (Miller 20). ... The Crucible, more than anything else, was a kind of a social commentary on the era of McCarthyism tha... Word Count: 2143 7. The Crucible and McCarthyism In the play "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller, the language is used to intensify the struggle between individual morality and social law. ... Miller utilizes powerful color imagery to emphasize the struggle to conform to a society. ... This conformity is an allegory for McCarthyism in the US during the 1950's, where Miller draws a parallel to the irrationality of fear and their willingness to do nothing, as the determinant that ultimately bridged the gap allowing the injustice to flourish, bringing about the persecution people suffered for not conforming to societal norms. ... Miller has... Word Count: 1145 8.

McCarthyism In The Crucible The author, Arthur Miller, wrote The Crucible to show people McCarthyism was going far, to show the similarities in the time periods, and to help our nation use facts instead of fear. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to show people McCarthyism was getting taken too far. Miller"s drama entailed a literary work that centralized the theme of McCarthyism. He did so to prove the extremities of McCarthyism in this time period. ... Miller wrote The Crucible to show the similarities in the time periods. ... Word Count: 546 9. mccarthyism in the crucible McCarthyism in The Crucible In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the madness of the Salem witch trials is explored in great detail. ... (Miller 111). ... When writting The Crucible, Arthur Miller chose to speak through John Proctor on of the Salem witch trials victims. ... Arthur Miller himself was also put on trial by the House Committee so that he might testify on Un-American activities. ... (Miller 110). ... Word Count: 1817 10.

Arthur Miller, The Crucible and the McCarthy Trials Arthur Miller draws some close attention to comparing the actions of the United States government during the McCarthy Trials and the actions of man during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 in "Why I Wrote the Crucible." By observing the practices of witchcraft in "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller, one can examine that his prime intention was to write a novel of historical fiction, which is substantial because many people dispute on the reason he wrote the novel to gather awareness to the Government's buried intentions during the Red Scare, Communism, and treason. ... Senator Joseph McCarthy... Word Count: 778 11. Witch Trial Hysteria Arthur Miller"s play The Crucible is a drama based upon the 1960s Massachusetts witchcraft trials. ... There are parallels between McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials in The Crucible; by examining the circumstances and details of both events they become evident. ... This may be the reason Miller made Proctor the center character of stability in the play. When Miller characterizes Proctor, he makes him the tragic hero, who tries to redeem himself from a bad trait. ... Quoting Arthur Miller from Are You Now or Were You Ever?

... Word Count: 1398 12. The Crucible Arthur Miller"s play The Crucible demonstrates the way in which theocracy controls and maintains social order in Salem. This parallels with the McCarthyism in the 1950"s in America, the time in which it was written. ... Arthur Miller"s portrayal of the states authority is seen through Danforth who imposes fear with threats. ... Danforth is representative of many judges who must stay open-minded and pay no attention to the fallacy, but only to the proof in times of such superstition.Arthur Miller"s portrayal of control becomes evident in The Crucible from very early on, again dominant character... Word Count: 1036 13. The Crucible The CrucibleArthur Miller"s 1950 play The Crucible uses literary elements to mirror the Mc Carthy Ear. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a "witch hunt" play that takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. ... This was later given the name McCarthyism. ... Miller"s 1950 play The Crucible expresses a variety of themes. ... Word Count: 366 14.

Arthur Miller The University of East Angelia named it's center the Arthur Miller Centre (Griffin 1). ... Miller used the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century, to make an indirect, but assertive comment upon McCarthyism in American life (Richard Watt, Jr. 536). ... However, Miller was interested in the witch trials before he opposed McCarthyism however. He decided to write the play telling about the fear and hysteria McCarthyism caused. ... The comparison in 1953 was harmful to Arthur Miller and his drama. ... Word Count: 11015 15. The Crucible The Crucible is a wonderfully written book by Arthur Miller in the 1950"s. ... Even though The Crucible was not the most successful book that Miller wrote, it was popular and still is popular in many places around the world.

This book is relevant today and is worth studying because it is essential for our knowledge and is important to know what it was like during the Salem Witch Trials that occurred in the 1900"s.Arthur Miller wrote this book to bring back the past of the Salem Witch Trials so that people could see what it was like, or at least read what it was like during that time. ... It... Word Count: 700 16. The crucible How does Miller create an atmosphere of tension and hysteria in the "yellow bird scene"?In this piece of coursework I will be analysing how Arthur Miller creates an atmosphere of tension and hysteria in the "yellow bird scene". ... The play draws parallels with communism in the U.S., "show trials" and McCarthyism. ... Arthur Miller used repetition, Shouting and crying to build up atmosphere. ... aEArthur Miller also uses strong language to put emphasis on some things and makes it more engaging like when John Proctor calls Abigail Williams a "WhoreaE this shows John"s dislike for he... Word Count: 1767 17.

The Crucible The Communist "witch huntsaE of the 1950s prompted Arthur Miller to write about the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in his play, The Crucible. ... "In his presence, a fool felt his foolishness instantly; consequently, a Proctor is always marked for slander and defamationaE (Miller 20). ... The Crucible, more than anything else, was a kind of a social commentary on the era of McCarthyism that swept through the America in the 1950s. ... McCarthyism had created a time of fear and suspicion, trust and loyalty were lost and we were in a time of turmoil (Oshinsky 549).Miller"s ... Word Count: 2039 18. The Crucible The CrucibleOf the many plays Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible seems to be favored above the rest. The inspiration for this play came from an era during American history known as McCarthyism. ...

Just as "what terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next aE" Arthur Miller,aE John Proctor became that smile or that voice of reason that tried to guide Salem through a desperate time of hatred and vengeance. ... Word Count: 877 19. Paranoia, the Cold War and The Crucible As a victim of McCarthy's accusations, author, Arthur Miller, wrote The Crucible to put the trials in a different perspective. ... The title compares the cartoon to the literal witch hunt presented in are Arthur Miller's, The Crucible The theme of hysteria can also be seen in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. ... Arthur Miller does a similar job of drawing the paranoia of the Red Scare. ... " (Miller). ... Herb Block and Arthur Miller endeavored to shed light on Senator McCarthy's corruption, and portray the nonsensicality of the events by giving a different perspective.... Word Count: 945 20. The Crucible - Fear of the Unknown This idea can be reflected in both the historical events of McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials, which was related by the artist Arthur Miller. ...

One of the many interesting approaches Miller had to critiquing McCarthyism was the fact that he formatted it into a play, rather than a standard novel or article in the paper. ... Lastly, plays were a major form of entertainment during Arthur Millers time, even more than it is today, so he was able to reach a broader audience. ... Additionally, many people were very sensitive about the subject of McCarthyism, so Miller didnt directly address it... Word Count: 595 21. Joseph McCarthyism When the Republicans took control of the presidency in 1952, "McCarthyism,aE as it is now known, spun out of control into a witch hunt-like frenzy that imprisoned everyone from politicians to film producers because of feared communist ties. ... Arthur Miller, author of the play "The Crucible,aE was one of the many Hollywood writers who faced public scrutiny because of alleged ties to the communist movement in America. ... Miller compared the two events as equally asinine because neither was based on strict evidence, but rather on the fears of the public. When asked about the tri... Word Count: 745 22.

Salem Witchcraft Arthur Miller's play " The Crucible" dealt with the witchcraft trials of 1692, which took place in Salem, Massachusetts. ... Even in McCarthy story, Arthur Miller uses similar plot to convey the reader his own inner beliefs against the false accusations. ... People's ignorance made them believe McCarthyism easily and not doubtfully. McCarthyism the Salem witchcraft hysteria thought me that fear, ignorance, and abuse of power can create turmoil. ... Word Count: 302 SparkNotes: The Crucible: Context The Crucible Table of Contents Plot Overview Early in the year 1692, in the small Massachusetts village of Salem, a collection of girls fell ill, falling victim to hallucinations and seizures. In extremely religious Puritan New England, frightening or surprising occurrences were often attributed to the devil or his cohorts. The unfathomable sickness spurred fears of witchcraft, and it was not long before the girls, and then many other residents of Salem, began to accuse other villagers of consorting with devils and casting spells. Old grudges and jealousies spilled out into the open, fueling the atmosphere of hysteria. The Massachusetts government and judicial system, heavily influenced by religion, rolled into action.

Within a few weeks, dozens of people were in jail on charges of witchcraft. By the time the fever had run its course, in late August 1692, nineteen people (and two dogs) had been convicted and hanged for witchcraft. More than two centuries later, Arthur Miller was born in New York City on October 17, 1915. His career as a playwright began while he was a student at the University of Michigan. Several of his early works won prizes, and during his senior year, the Federal Theatre Project in Detroit performed one of his works. He produced his first great success, All My Sons, in 1947. Two years later, in 1949, Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, which won the Pulitzer Prize and transformed Miller into a national sensation. Many critics described Death of a Salesman as the first great American tragedy, and Miller gained an associated eminence as a man who understood the deep essence of the United States. Drawing on research on the witch trials he had conducted while an undergraduate, Miller composed The Crucible in the early 1950s.

Miller wrote the play during the brief ascendancy of Senator Joseph McCarthy, a demagogue whose vitriolic anti-Communism proved the spark needed to propel the United States into a dramatic and fractious anti-Communist fervor during these first tense years of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Led by McCarthy, special congressional committees conducted highly controversial investigations intended to root out Communist sympathizers in the United States. As with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were encouraged to confess and to identify other Red sympathizers as means of escaping punishment. The policy resulted in a whirlwind of accusations. As people began to realize that they might be condemned as Communists regardless of their innocence, many “cooperated,” attempting to save themselves through false confessions, creating the image that the United States was overrun with Communists and perpetuating the hysteria. The liberal entertainment industry, in which Miller worked, was one of the chief targets of these “witch hunts,” as their opponents termed them. Some cooperated; others, like Miller, refused to give in to questioning.

Those who were revealed, falsely or legitimately, as Communists, and those who refused to incriminate their friends, saw their careers suffer, as they were blacklisted from potential jobs for many years afterward. At the time of its first performance, in January of 1953, critics and cast alike perceived The Crucible as a direct attack on McCarthyism (the policy of sniffing out Communists). Its comparatively short run, compared with those of Miller’s other works, was blamed on anti-Communist fervor. When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of spying for the Soviets and executed, the cast and audience of Miller’s play observed a moment of silence. Still, there are difficulties with interpreting The Crucible as a strict allegorical treatment of 1950s McCarthyism. For one thing, there were, as far as one can tell, no actual witches or devil-worshipers in Salem. However, there were certainly Communists in 1950s America, and many of those who were lionized as victims of McCarthyism at the time, such as the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss (a former State Department official), were later found to have been in the pay of the Soviet Union.

Miller’s Communist friends, then, were often less innocent than the victims of the Salem witch trials, like the stalwart Rebecca Nurse or the tragic John Proctor. If Miller took unknowing liberties with the facts of his own era, he also played fast and loose with the historical record. The general outline of events in The Crucible corresponds to what happened in Salem of 1692, but Miller’s characters are often composites. Furthermore, his central plot device—the affair between Abigail Williams and John Proctor—has no grounding in fact (Proctor was over sixty at the time of the trials, while Abigail was only eleven). Thus, Miller’s decision to set sexual jealousy at the root of the hysteria constitutes a dramatic contrivance. In an odd way, then, The Crucible is best read outside its historical context—not as a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, but as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance and hysteria can intersect and tear a community apart. In John Proctor, Miller gives the reader a marvelous tragic hero for any time—a flawed figure who finds his moral center just as everything is falling to pieces around him.

More Help Why did Arthur Miller write The Crucible? | eNotes Why did Arthur Miller write The Crucible? Lori Steinbach | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Distinguished Educator Posted on August 16, 2013 at 2:17 PM The most obvious reason Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible (or anything else, really) is because he had a story to tell. Without that, he would not have been inspired to write. It is true, however, that what inspired him to write this particular story is quite personal. As a Jewish man, Miller was a political advocate against the inequalities of race in America, and he was vocal in his support of labor and the unions. Because he was such an outspoken critic in these two areas, he was a prime target for Senator Joseph McCarthy and others who were on a mission to rid the country of Communism. Miller was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities because of his connections to these issues but refused to condemn any of his friends. This experience, a rather blind and sweeping condemnation of anything even remotely connected to Communism without sufficient (or any) evidence, is what prompted him to write about the Salem Witch trials.

In a later interview, Miller said the following: It would probably never have occurred to me to write a play about the Salem witch trials of 1692 had I not seen some astonishing correspondences with that calamity in the America of the late 40s and early 50s. My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralysed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse. However, the more he began to study the tragic events in Salem, the more he understood that McCarthy's hunt for Communists was nothing compared to the fanaticism which reigned in Salem in the 1690s. In time to come, the notion of equating the red-hunt with the witch-hunt would be condemned as a deception. There were communists and there never were witches. The deeper I moved into the 1690s, the further away drifted the America of the 50s, and, rather than the appeal of analogy, I found something different to draw my curiosity and excitement.

Anyone standing up in the Salem of 1692 and denying that witches existed would have faced immediate arrest, the hardest interrogation and possibly the rope. Every authority not only confirmed the existence of witches but never questioned the necessity of executing them. It became obvious that to dismiss witchcraft was to forgo any understanding of how it came to pass that tens of thousands had been murdered as witches in Europe. To dismiss any relation between that episode and the hunt for subversives was to shut down an insight into not only the similar emotions but also the identical practices of both officials and victims. In his note about the historical accuracy of the play, Miller writes: I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. Though his interest in the comparisons between the trials and McCarthyism began with his own experience, it was the horrific nature of the trials themselves which motivated Miller to write The Crucible. Here's a great interview with Arthur Miller about why he wrote the Crucible and its parallels to modern life: Sources: December 11, 2011 at 11:19 AM Arthur Miller is an American playwright who wrote The Crucible in 1952.

Thus, the play was written on the heels of World War II, which ended in 1945, and was written during a time in which the United States was becoming increasingly concerned about the rising power of the Soviet Union. Worries that the Soviet Union's communist ways would infiltrate the United States led to a significant amount of paranoia within the American government (compare the paranoia about witchcraft in Miller's play). Accordingly, a number of governmental committees and investigations arose. The most famous of which were those conducted by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who, early in 1950, just two years before Miller's play, claimed to have a list containing the names of many communists and Soviet spies who worked for the American government. Given the air of paranoia present in the late 1940s and early 1950s about America being infiltrated by communists, it is easy to see why Miller could comment on this societal situation by comparing it to the witch trials that occurred in America some two and a half centuries earlier. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, Miller himself became the target of one of these anti-communist investigations four years after The Crucible appeared.

Sources: Arthur Miller Biography and important facts Arthur Miller, born 1915, has been the dean of American playwrights since the opening of Death of a Salesman in 1949. His steady output as a writer and a playwright began with his first publications after college in 1939, when he worked in the New York Federal Theatre Project, a branch of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), Franklin D. Roosevelt's huge Depression effort to put Americans back to work. Miller, the son of a Jewish immigrant, was born and raised during this early years in Harlem section of Manhatten and later in Brooklyn after his father's business failed. In high school, Miller thought of himself more as an athelet than a student, and he had trouble getting teachers' recommendations for college. After considerable struggle and waiting, he entered the University of Michigan, where his talent as a playwright emerged under the tutelage of Kenneth Rowe, his playwriting professor. His undergraduate plays won important university awards and he became noticed by the Theatre Guild, a highly respected theater founded to present excellent plays (not necessarily commercial successes). His careeer was under way.

Miller wrote radio plays, screenplays, articles, stories, and a novel in the eight years it took him to write a successful Broadway play. His work covered a wide range of material, much of it growing out of his childhood memories of a tightly-knit and somewhat eccentric family that provided him with a large gallery of characters. But he also dealt with political issues and problems of anti-Semitism, which was widespread in the 1930s and 1940s. Miller's political concerns have been a constant presence in his work since his earliest writings. All My Sons (1947) was his first successful play. It ran on Broadway for 300 performances, a remarkable record for a serious drama. The story centers on a man who knowlingly produces defective parts for airplanes and then blames the subsequent crashes on his business partner, who is ruined and imprisoned. When the man's son finds out the truth, he confronts his father and rebukes him. Ultimately, the man realizes not only that he has lost his son because of his deceit, but that the dead pilots were also "all my sons." The play won the New York Critics Circle Award.

We also know Miller's work because of his other two famous plays: The Crucible and Death of a Salesman. It was clear to many people that The Crucible's subtext was about contemporary witch hunts orchestrated by Senator Joseph McCarthy (1909--1957) in the early 1950s. McCarthy conducted Senate hearings that were supposed to flush out suspected communists from government and other areas of American life, including the Arts. In the anti-communist hysteria that possessed the nation, many writers, artists, and performers came under close, often unfair, scrutiny for their political views and allegiances. Some were blacklisted--prevented from working in comercial theaters and movie companies--some were imprisoned for not testifying at others' trials, adn some had reputations and careers destroyed. Arthur Miller was fearless in facing down McCarthy's committee. He was convicted of contempt of court for not testifying against his friends. For a time he too was blacklisted, but the conviction was soon reversed, for he was not imprisoned for his resistance to the committee. Given his personal political stance during this dangerous time, it is not a surprise to find that his themes usually center on matters of social concern.

No matter what the circumstances, when we look at a Miller play, it is as if we are looking in a mirror. What we have seen had always involved us, although it may not always make us pleased with ourselves. 05.03.13: Arthur Miller's History Lesson: The Crucible as a Link from the Past through Mccarthyism to Present-Day Terrorism Video Response Sheet for The Crucible--Act III 1. How is the music helping to define the tone of the action? Is there a particular scene in which the music is effective? 2. Have you changed your opinion about the characters you liked and disliked since watching Acts I & II? Offer examples and explain. 3. What do you think of the crowd scenes in the film? Is it more effective on the screen or reading it? Offer examples and explain. White-Beck Video Response Sheet for The Crucible--Act IV 1. Does the action seem more real and moving when you see and hear it than when you read it aloud? Why do you think this is so? 2. Now that you've seen the end of the film what is your overall impression? Would you recommend the film to anyone? Who and why?

Arthur Miller Biography - eNotes.com Arthur Miller Biography Trivia Arthur Miller Biography Arthur Miller defined American theater in the 1950s with seminal plays such as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. But he was not simply a literary phenomenon. He became a pop-culture sensation when he married Marilyn Monroe in 1956. On the whole, his works are about an individual’s struggle with an oftentimes indifferent, harsh, or irrational society—something he learned about firsthand when he stood against Senator Eugene McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities. Before his death in 1996, Miller had also written screenplays, novels, short stories, nonfiction, and an autobiography. He based his works on his family, his friends, and his own life, and he filled them with the rage, the love, and the self-doubt that Miller himself felt. Facts and Trivia Miller got the idea for Death of a Salesman from his uncle Manny, who was a salesman. Manny came to the opening of Miller’s earlier play All My Sons and bragged about his two unfortunate sons.

Salesman opened at the Morosco Theatre on February 10, 1949, and closed 742 performances later on November 18, 1950. Due to an old football injury, Miller was ineligible for military service during World War II, so he wrote patriotic plays for the radio. He also volunteered to repair military boats in New York harbor. Miller’s honors include the Pulitzer Prize, seven Tony Awards, two Drama Critics Circle Awards, an Obie, an Olivier, the John F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award, and honorary doctorate degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University. Miller was investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956, the same year he married Marilyn Monroe. He refused to give up the names of any people he thought might be Communists and was cited for contempt of Congress. The Supreme Court reversed this ruling in 1958. Miller’s most fateful personal decision was to marry Marilyn Monroe. The tabloids called it a marriage between “the Owl and the Pussycat,” the union of intellect and beauty.

Labeled as Miller’s femme fatale, Monroe helped destroy his reputation and was the only person he ever allowed to keep him from writing. Article abstract: Considered one of the foremost dramatists in the United States, Miller has penetrated the American consciousness and gained worldwide recognition for his probing dramas of social awareness. Early Life On October 17, 1915, Arthur Miller, son of Jewish immigrants, was born in Manhattan in New York. His father, Isadore, ran a prosperous garment business, and his mother, Augusta Barnett, was at onetime a school teacher. When Isadore’s firm began to fail in 1928, the Millers moved to Brooklyn, an area that would be the model for the settings of All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949). He inherited a strong sense of mysticism from his mother that would inform his later work. As a young boy, Miller came to resent his father’s withdrawal from failure. The figure of the failed father would play a significant role in Miller’s plays. The young Miller came of age during the Great Depression, and seeing once-prosperous people on the streets begging for work deeply affected him.

To Miller, the Depression signified the failure of a system and the tragedy of a generation of people who would blame this failure on themselves. The Depression’s impact on the aspects of personal success and failure would lead Miller to probe into individuals’ relations to their work and the price they had to pay for success or lack of it. Like Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman, Miller was more of an athlete than a scholar. He read mostly adventure novels and some Charles Dickens. Unable to get into college, he worked for his father and became moved by the sad plight of salesmen. After a series of odd jobs, Miller worked in an auto parts warehouse, where he was able to save $500 for college on a $15-per-week job. He recreated this experience in A Memory of Two Mondays (1955). While working, Miller became an avid reader and was especially impressed with Fyodor Dostoevski’s Bratya Karamazovy (1879-1880; The Brothers Karamazov, 1912), a novel that focuses on a failed father, fraternal rivalry, and a trial motif, themes that would repeatedly occur in Miller’s works.

After much convincing, Miller finally got accepted into the University of Michigan, where he became interested in social causes and began to form his liberal philosophy. He studied playwriting under Kenneth Rowe and won two Hopwood Awards, in 1936, for “No Villain” and in 1937, for “Honor at Dawn.” In 1938, he won the Theater Guild National Award for “They Too Arise.” Following the style of the 1930’s, Miller’s early plays focus on young idealists fighting to eliminate social injustice. After college, he worked for the Federal Theater Project and wrote radio scripts. In 1944, he tried to recreate the feelings of the ordinary soldier in his screenplay for The Story of G. I. Joe but was thwarted by motion-picture executives who wanted him to romanticize his work. That same year, he had his first Broadway production, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944). This drama of a man dismayed by his incredible success was a flop. Life’s Work After this initial failure, Miller rose up to become one of the United States’ leading playwrights and gained an international reputation.

In 1947, Miller achieved his first success with All My Sons, the tragedy of Joe Keller who, in order to save his business, sells defective airplane parts to the military and leaves his partner to bear the blame. He indirectly becomes responsible for the death of his own son, who condemns his father’s action and flies a suicide mission. Faced with the guilt for many deaths, Keller kills himself. In 1949, Death of a Salesman achieved unprecedented critical acclaim and established Miller as a significant American playwright. Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman, relives his past, trying to discover the reasons for his failure. Unable to accept failure, he pressures his son into far-fetched business schemes and commits suicide in order to leave his son the legacy of his insurance. In 1949, Death of a Salesman won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The play ran for 742 performances. In 1966, the television production played to seventeen million people. In 1975, it was successfully produced at the Circle in the Square with George C.

Scott in the lead; in 1984, it played Broadway again with Dustin Hoffman in the lead. In 1985, Hoffman was featured in a new television production of the play. Furthermore, Death of a Salesman has been acclaimed and produced around the world. In his book Salesman in Beijing (1984), Miller documents an unprecedented Chinese production. The play still appears in most college anthologies and continues to be taught as an American classic. Disturbed by the repressive climate of the 1950’s Cold War, the scare tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the betrayal by his one-time liberal friends who cited names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Miller wrote The Crucible (1953), which connected the witch hunts of seventeenth century Salem with the hunt for Communists of the 1950’s. In The Crucible, Miller shows how an ordinary individual living in a repressive community gains tragic stature by sacrificing his life rather than betraying his conscience. The Crucible opened on Broadway in 1953 to a lukewarm reception but was later revived Off-Broadway with more success.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the screenplay for the French film version of The Crucible, Les Sorcieres de Salem (1955). In 1961, The Crucible was converted into an opera, and, in 1967, it was adapted for television with George C. Scott in the lead role. In 1997, it was made into a motion picture with Miller writing the screenplay. According to Miller, The Crucible is his most frequently produced work both in the United States and abroad. His next works were two one-act plays: A Memory of Two Mondays (1955) and A View from the Bridge (1955). An expanded version of A View from the Bridge (1956) told the story of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman who is driven by incestuous desires for his niece to inform on his niece’s boyfriend and other illegal immigrants living with him. During the mid-1950’s, Miller entered a troubled period of his life. After divorcing his first wife, Mary Grace Slattery, Miller married film star Marilyn Monroe and became involved in her turbulent career.

He was also cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Although acquitted on appeal, this ordeal took a financial and emotional toll on him. In 1961, his marriage to Monroe ended in divorce; in 1962, he married photographer Ingeborg Morath. After a nine-year hiatus from the American stage, Miller wrote After the Fall (1964) and Incident at Vichy (1964). Both plays dealt with the universal guilt associated with the genocide of the Jews. Miller returned to the form of family drama with The Price (1968), a drama depicting the rivalry of two brothers. Continuing to experiment, Miller wrote The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), a comedy based on Genesis; The American Clock (1980), a montage view of the Depression focusing on the trials of one family; The Archbishop’s Ceiling (1984), a play about power and oppression in a European Communist country; and Danger: Memory! (1986), two short, symbolic dramas exploring the mysteries hidden in past actions. In the 1990’s, Miller experienced a resurgence.

The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991) captures the gaudy materialism and egotistical self-absorption of 1980’s America. As scenes from his life pass before him in his hospital room, an insurance magnate and bigamist lives for the unabated gratification of his pleasures as he struggles with the phantom of death. In The Last Yankee (1991), Miller examines the marital relationships of two women confined to a mental institution—one who cannot adjust to her husband’s apparent failure to achieve the American Dream and the other isolated by the success of a husband who can only give her material comforts. In this play, Miller critiques the immigrant dream of unbridled success and issues a plea for self-acceptance. In Broken Glass (1994), Miller probes the indifference to the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews by exploring the psyche of a Jewish woman in New York who undergoes hysterical paralysis when confronted with both an impotent, demanding husband and a world on the brink of chaos. Mr.

Peters’ Connections (1998) captures the inner world of a retired and ailing airplane pilot sitting in a broken-down saloon watching the phantoms of his past inexplicably parade before him. In Mr. Peters’s inability to find continuity in the events of his life, Miller focuses on the alienation of modern humans in an ever-changing world. In the plays of the 1990’s, Miller continued to examine private relationships in light of social criticism. Between 1997 and 1998, Miller saw the revival in New York of All My Sons, The American Clock, I Can’t Remember Anything (a part of Danger: Memory!), The Last Yankee, and A View from the Bridge, which won Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Revival. Miller continued producing new plays, and the continuous revivals of his dramas both onstage and on television and his burgeoning international reputation have kept Miller in the forefront of American theater. Miller, a serious dramatist who believes in drama’s ability to effect change, explores the social as well as the psychological aspects of his characters. For him, individual dilemmas cannot be removed from their social contexts.

His dramas attempt to go beyond simple protest pieces or self-absorbed psychological studies to deal with moral and ethical issues. He is interested in how ordinary individuals can live in unity and harmony with their fellow humans without sacrificing their individual dignity. Although labeled a realist, Miller has experimented with a number of innovative dramatic techniques. Also, Miller’s poetic use of idiomatic speech and his subtle deployment of dramatic symbols show that his drama has moved beyond photographic realism. Using a variety of approaches, Miller most often puts characters in confrontation with their past actions so that they may define themselves not only in terms of their social situation but also in terms of their moral convictions. Miller’s ability to probe the human psyche as well as to question the social fabric of the United States has made him a towering presence in the American theater. Summary Arthur Miller examines both the psychological and sociological makeup of his troubled characters. His heroes are common men who relentlessly pursue either their firm convictions or their misguided illusions. Using family relationships as a starting point, Miller’s plays confront contemporary moral dilemmas and focus on people’s responsibility to be true to themselves as well as their responsibility to be a part of the human race.

In showing how individuals confront their past actions, Miller employs a variety of dramatic forms, including flashbacks, stream-of-consciousness monologues, direct narration, and dynamic symbols. His concern with the struggle to define oneself in a troubled world has made him a popular American playwright and has also gained him worldwide attention. Bibliography Bigsby, Christopher, ed. Arthur Miller and Company. London: Methuen, 1990. A series of impressions on Miller’s works from noted writers and theater personalities. Presents a variety of insights into Miller and his work. Bigsby, Christopher, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. A comprehensive examination of Miller’s work that includes not only his major works but also his fiction and cinema. Contains an exhaustive bibliographic essay and a chronology of Miller’s life. Carson, Neil. Arthur Miller. New York: Macmillan, 1982. A good introductory work to Miller’s major plays with chapters on his early work and nontheatrical writings. Schlueter, June, and James K. Flanagan. Arthur Miller. New York: Ungar, 1987.

Contains a detailed analysis of Miller’s major and minor plays, a concise biography that includes his political activity, a detailed chronology of his life and works, and a bibliography of his primary works, including radio plays and unpublished manuscripts. Welland, Dennis. Arthur Miller: The Playwright. 3d ed. London: Methuen, 1985. A thorough analysis of Miller’s major work, including a detailed list of American and British premieres of Miller’s plays and films and a short bibliography. More Content: Biography (hide)

Question: Which play by Arthur Miller used events from early US history to mirror Senator McCarthy's communist witch hunts in the 1950's?
Answer: The Crucible