SparkNotes: Death of a Salesman: Context Death of a Salesman Table of Contents Plot Overview 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, 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 eminence as a man who understood the deep essence of the United States. He published The Crucible in 1953, a searing indictment of the anti-Communist hysteria that pervaded 1950s America. He has won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award twice, and his Broken Glass (1993) won the Olivier Award for Best Play of the London Season.

Death of a Salesman, Miller’s most famous work, addresses the painful conflicts within one family, but it also tackles larger issues regarding American national values. The play examines the cost of blind faith in the American Dream. In this respect, it offers a postwar American reading of personal tragedy in the tradition of Sophocles’ Oedipus Cycle. Miller charges America with selling a false myth constructed around a capitalist materialism nurtured by the postwar economy, a materialism that obscured the personal truth and moral vision of the original American Dream described by the country’s founders. A half century after it was written, Death of a Salesman remains a powerful drama. Its indictment of fundamental American values and the American Dream of material success may seem somewhat tame in today’s age of constant national and individual self-analysis and criticism, but its challenge was quite radical for its time. After World War II, the United States faced profound and irreconcilable domestic tensions and contradictions. Although the war had ostensibly engendered an unprecedented sense of American confidence, prosperity, and security, the United States became increasingly embroiled in a tense cold war with the Soviet Union.

The propagation of myths of a peaceful, homogenous, and nauseatingly gleeful American golden age was tempered by constant anxiety about Communism, bitter racial conflict, and largely ignored economic and social stratification. Many Americans could not subscribe to the degree of social conformity and the ideological and cultural orthodoxy that a prosperous, booming, conservative suburban middle-class championed. Uneasy with this American milieu of denial and discord, a new generation of artists and writers influenced by existentialist philosophy and the hypocritical postwar condition took up arms in a battle for self-realization and expression of personal meaning. Such discontented individuals railed against capitalist success as the basis of social approval, disturbed that so many American families centered their lives around material possessions (cars, appliances, and especially the just-introduced television)—often in an attempt to keep up with their equally materialistic neighbors. The climate of the American art world had likewise long been stuck in its own rut of conformity, confusion, and disorder following the prewar climax of European Modernism and the wake of assorted -isms associated with modern art and literature.

The notions of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung regarding the role of the human subconscious in defining and accepting human existence, coupled with the existentialist concern with the individual’s responsibility for understanding one’s existence on one’s own terms, captivated the imaginations of postwar artists and writers. Perhaps the most famous and widely read dramatic work associated with existentialist philosophy is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Miller fashioned a particularly American version of the European existentialist stance, incorporating and playing off idealistic notions of success and individuality specific to the United States. The basis for the dramatic conflict in Death of a Salesman lies in Arthur Miller’s conflicted relationship with his uncle, Manny Newman, also a salesman. Newman imagined a continuous competition between his son and Miller. Newman refused to accept failure and demanded the appearance of utmost confidence in his household. In his youth, Miller had written a short story about an unsuccessful salesman. His relationship with Manny revived his interest in the abandoned manuscript. He transformed the story into one of the most successful dramas in the history of the American stage. In expressing the emotions that Manny Newman inspired through the fictional character of Willy Loman, Miller managed to touch deep chords within the national psyche.

More Help Arthur Miller Interview | National Endowment for the Humanities Lecture For the March-April 2001 issue of Humanities magazine, NEH Chairman William R. Ferris spoke with Miller about morality and the public role of the artist. William R. Ferris: I'd like to begin with Death of a Salesman. In the play Willie Loman's wife says, "He's not the finest character that ever lived, but he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him, so attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog." What kind of attention do you mean? Arthur Miller: I suppose she was speaking about the care and support that his family might give him, in that context. Of course, there is a larger context, which is social and even political-that a lot of people give a lot of their lives to a company or even the government, and when they are no longer needed, when they are used up, they're tossed aside. I guess that would encompass it. Ferris: When Death of a Salesman opened in 1949, Brooks Atkinson wrote in his New York Times review that you had written a superb drama.

He went on to say, "Mr. Miller has no moral precepts to offer and no solutions of the salesman's problems. He is full of pity, but he brings no piety to it." Is there more of a moral message in Salesman than Atkinson saw there? Miller: It depends on your vantage point. Willie Loman's situation is even more common now than it was then. A lot of people are eliminated earlier from the productive life in this society than they used to be. I've gotten a number of letters from people who were in pretty good positions at one point or another and then were just peremptorily discarded. If you want to call that a moral area, which I think it is, then he was wrong. What I think he was referring to was that the focus of the play is the humanity of these people rather than coming at them from some a priori political position. I think that is true. Ferris: So many of your best plays, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, The Crucible, besides being personal tragedies, are also a commentary on society, similar to Ibsen's work. Do you feel one person's story can transcend itself and speak to all of us?

Miller: I think it depends primarily on the writer's orientation. There is a lot of work being done today which is very sharp, but there doesn't seem to be a moral dimension to them. In other words, they are not looking out beyond the personal story. That is a difficult thing to trace in a work. I suppose if you took Moby-Dick, he could have written that as an adventure story about a whale and hunting it. Instead it became a parable involving man's fate and his struggle for power, over God even. The intensification of a work generally leads in the direction of society if it is indeed intense enough. Ferris: How do you take daily life and turn it into the stuff of art? Miller: Well, that's the secret. Ferris: You're not talking. Miller: I really don't know the answer to that. It is part of temperament. It is a part of a vision which is only definable through the work of art. You can't start analyzing it into its parts because it falls to pieces. Ferris: Then what do you think are the core issues that a playwright should deal with? Miller: There is no prescription that I know of, period.

Whatever he feels intensely about and knows a lot about is the core issue for him. If he feels sufficiently about it and is well informed enough about it, factually and psychologically, emotionally, then that's the core issue. You make an issue. The issue isn't there, just lying around waiting to be picked up off the sidewalk. It is what the author is intense about in his life. Ferris: Would you say there is a process of playwriting that's been a constant since Greek drama, or has this process changed over time? Miller: You know, the Greeks used to use the same stories, the same mythology, time after time, different authors. There was no premium placed upon an original story--and indeed, Shakespeare likewise. A lot of people wrote plays about great kings. They didn't expect a brand-new story. It was what that new author made of the old story. It is probably the same now. We disguise it by inventing what seem to be new stories, but they're basically the same story anyway. Ferris: When you wrote Death of a Salesman, how were you trying to take drama and make it new, as Ezra Pound said?

Miller: That play is several inventions which have been pilfered over the years by other writers. It is new in the sense that, first of all, there is very little or no waste. The play begins with its action, and there are no transitions. It is a kind of frontal attack on the conditions of this man's life, without any piddling around with techniques. The basic technique is very straightforward. It is told like a dream. In a dream, we are simply confronted with various loaded symbols, and where one is exhausted, it gives way to another. In Salesman, there is the use of a past in the present. It has been mistakenly called flashbacks, but there are no flashbacks in that play. It is a concurrence of a past with the present, and that's a bit different. There are numerous other innovations in the play, which were the result of long years of playwriting before that and a dissatisfaction with the way stories were told up to that point. Ferris: In your recent article in Harper's Magazine, you write about a colorful script doctor called Saul Burry who used to hold court at Whelan's drugstore in New York City.

You say that he advised one writer, "You've got too much story. Slow it down. Examine your consequences more. We're in the theater to hear our own hearts beat with brand-new knowledge, not to get surprised by some stupid door slowly opening." Is that Saul Burry or Arthur Miller talking? Miller: That was Burry. Burry was a very insightful person. He was the best critic I ever encountered, and he was perfectly capable of talking like that. In fact, I wish I could remember more of what he said, but it's so long ago that a lot of it's just slipped away. He had a marvelous way of encapsulating ideas that had to do with playwriting and the theater. Ferris: What does Saul Burry's advice mean for the audience? Miller: Pay for the ticket and arrive on time, and nowadays, not to have a cell phone go off. He expected the audience to cooperate and to appreciate what was in front of him as best he could. He also, I would have thought, probably wanted them to educate themselves so that they were less inclined toward what was specious and stupid.

Ferris: In many of your plays, from Willie and Biff, Joe and Chris Keller, to Victor Frank and his father's memory in The Price, fathers and sons are a theme. You grew up during the Depression and you've said that you witnessed a lot of grown men lose themselves when they lost their jobs. You've also said your relationship with your own father was "like two searchlights on different islands." How has what you saw during the Depression influenced your work? Miller: Fundamentally, it left me with the feeling that the economic system is subject to instant collapse at any particular moment--I still think so--and that security is an illusion which some people are fortunate enough not to outlive. On the long run, after all, we've had these crises--I don't know how many times in the last hundred years--not only we but every country. What one lived through in that case was for America a very unusual collapse in its depth and its breadth. A friend of mine once said that there were only two truly national events in the history of the United States. One was the Civil War and the other one was the Depression. Ferris: I think that's so true.

Miller: It leaves one with a feeling of expectation that the thing can go down, but also with a certain pleasure, that it hadn't gone down yet. Ferris: What is it about father-son relationships that provides such good material? Miller: The two greatest plays ever written were Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, and they're both about father-son relationships, you know. So this goes back. Ferris: It is nothing new. Miller: It is absolutely nothing new. This is an old story. I didn't invent it and I'm sure it will happen again and again. Ferris: Three plays are usually named as the great works of the early twentieth century--your Death of a Salesman, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, and Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. I heard that after you saw Streetcar, you rewrote the play you were working on at the time, Inside of His Head, and that turned into Death of a Salesman. What did you see in Streetcar that changed your vision of your own play? Miller: Actually, Salesman was practically written by the time I saw Streetcar.

What it did was to validate the use of language the way Salesman uses language. People have forgotten that, thank God, that Willie Loman isn't talking street talk; Willie Loman's talk is very formed and formal, very often. It's almost Victorian. That was the decision I made: to lift him into the area where one could deal with his ideas and his feelings and make them applicable to the whole human race. I'm using slang in the play and different kinds of speech, but it is basically a formed, very aware use of the English language. Of course, Tennessee was similarly a fundamentally formal writer, and he was not trying to write the way people speak on the street. So it had a relationship. Ferris: What about O'Neill? Did he influence your work? Did other playwrights? Miller: He really didn't. When I started seriously writing in the late forties, he had come to a hiatus in his writing. He hadn't been writing or hadn't at least been producing or publishing plays for some years. His vantage point was basically religious rather than personal at that time. I'm speaking now of the late thirties and up to the end of the forties and early fifties.

What certainly was a force was his dedication and his integrity. Those were maybe more important than anything else because I don't have to tell you that the spirit of Broadway is always vulgar, it's always a show shop, it's always the same thing. It never changes. To try to impose upon it something with a longer vision is very difficult. These plays usually fail the first time around and are rejected, if not worse. You need strong teeth and to hold on like a bulldog, and that was a great example. Ferris: Is there something coming out of theater right now that is setting standards the way those three plays did in their day? Miller: If there is, I don't know about it. I don't go to the theater all that much, but I do go where there seems to be something of value. I'm not aware of anything at the moment, but that doesn't mean there isn't. It's simply I don't see enough to make an overall judgment. Ferris: In our society of sound bites and short attention spans, is theater anachronistic? Miller: Not at all, not at all. No, it isn't by any means. Quite obviously, there is an enormous audience still there.

For all I know, it's bigger than it's been in the past years. Death of a Salesman just finished a national tour, and there was no problem getting an audience. There is a problem on the so-called commercial stage in New York, of course. The price of a ticket is exorbitant, and there are no longer original productions possible, apparently, on the commercial stage. They are all plays that were taken from either England or smaller theaters, off-Broadway theaters, and so on. The one justification there used to be for the commercial theater was that it originated everything we had, and now it originates nothing. But the powers that be seem perfectly content to have it that way. They don't risk anything anymore, and they simply pick off the cream. It leaves most theater at the mercy of the market, and that doesn't always reflect what's valuable. So, there you are. Ferris: What would you like to see in theater today? Miller: Good stuff. There is no definition for these things. Theater is a very changeable art. It responds to the moment in history the way the newspaper does, and there's no predicting what to come up with next.

Ferris: In your life, you've often taken a very visible stand for what you believe in, whether it was refusing to name names at the House Un-American Activities Committee or doing advocacy against censorship. What is the artist's role in political life? Miller: I would hope that he would just be a good--if I may use that corny old phrase--a good citizen. People do look to others for some leadership, and it's not bad for them to supply it when they feel that way. I wouldn't lay it down as a rule that an artist has to do anything he doesn't feel like doing, but sometimes there are issues. For example, censorship is of immediate importance to us. They should be taking positions on that and any number of issues that are very close to us, for example, whether or not the humanities are financed, and financed sufficiently, and how they are administered. All that is political policy, but it certainly affects the arts. Ferris: Do you see a public life having an impact on your creative life? Miller: In a way, sure. You gain a lot of different kinds of experience that way, and it's not bad to take a cold bath in a public pool occasionally.

It's hard to trace it, but you become more and more aware of what things mean to people. Ferris: When you took Death of a Salesman to China in 1983, were there any surprises? Miller: There were a number. I wrote a book called The Salesman in Beijing, a daily diary of what was happening during the course of that production. Ferris: The cultures seem so different, one wonders how Chinese audiences reacted to what seems to be a very American story. Miller: It is an American story, but its applications are pretty wide. It doesn't really matter where it's played. Of course, it's not played as much as The Crucible. But it's played enough around the world, and it doesn't seem to matter where it is. Ferris: Although Death of a Salesman got rave reviews the first night, that was not so with The Crucible, though it went on to great success around the world. You write about colleagues walking out of the theater the night The Crucible was premiered and not even speaking to you. What was it like to witness that? Miller: It was very discouraging.

At the same time, I felt a certain happiness that the play had dealt with the issue that everybody was worried about privately, and that I had brought it to the surface. There is an old rule of psychology that if something doesn't meet resistance, it is probably not true. I knew The Crucible was what it was. I withstood the coldness at the moment, but it certainly wasn't comfortable. But I have the ability to slough things off when they get too tough. Ferris: I want to thank you for taking the time from your writing to do this interview. It has been a pleasure talking with you. Miller: Thank you. Compare and Contrast Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. | eNotes Compare and Contrast Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. e-martin | College Teacher | (Level 1) Educator Emeritus Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:14 PM Arthur Miller wrote plays with well-developed themes focusing often on the conflict between an individual's responsibility and his or her deepest weaknesses. Both The Crucible and Death of a Salesman deal with this conflict.

One play looks at the social effects of individual (moral) decisions and the other looks at the effects of one person's weaknesses on a family unit. Each play, at its heart, is concerned with illusion and delusion as methods of coping, as intentional deception and, importantly, as symptoms of personal emotional weakness. What appears to be true to the characters in Death of a Salesman is often a far cry from reality, and this is communicated numerous times throughout the play. We can see this dynamic in The Crucible as well. For The Crucible, deception and illusion are obvious in their importance to the story of the play. Abigail and her friends spread lies that lead to witch trials and death. Those who choose to stand up to the lies are examples of characters taking personal responsibility for the actions of the community, attempting also to suggest that the young women and judges should realize what kind of moral decisions they are making. Proctor and Hale are two characters in the play preaching personal responsibility which means also that they attempt to dispell the illusion under which the town has been working. In Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman is also subject to illusion and deception, but his deception is self-induced.

He is unwilling to take responsibility for his failure as a father and as a salesman and so clings to the dream that he was once a great salesman, widely liked and widely admired. The fog of his dream is purposeful and functions as a defense against accepting his responsibility. Only Biff tries to force Willie to face the reality of his life and his failure, and in this Biff fails. The themes of these two plays can be connected in the above ways but the form of each play is very different. The prose sections and historical information of The Crucible make this play longer and, arguably, more allegorical than the psychologically driven Death of a Salesman. Also, Death of a Salesman features a small set of characters compared to The Crucible, focusing largely on Willie Loman and his relationships. The Crucible, while focused largely on Proctor and his relationships, presents a wider interest in the play's secondary characters like Elizabeth, Abigail, Parris and Hale. Beyond the obvious differences in time period, these plays also differ in subject. We might refer to the subject of each play as a thematic subject with Death of a Salesman tackling the problems of the American Dream and The Crucible examining moral corruption among the "professed righteous".

Arthur Miller Biography | American Masters | PBS Arthur Miller Biography Arthur Miller: Private Conversations on The Set of Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller Biography August 23, 2004 0 SHARES In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken. Arthur Miller was born in Manhattan in 1915 to Jewish immigrant parents. By 1928, the family had moved to Brooklyn, after their garment manufacturing business began to fail. Witnessing the societal decay of the Depression and his father’s desperation due to business failures had an enormous effect on Miller. After graduating from high school, Miller worked a number of jobs and saved up the money for college. In 1934, he enrolled in the University of Michigan and spent much of the next four years learning to write and working on a number of well-received plays.

After graduating, Miller returned to New York, where he worked as a freelance writer. In 1944, his first play, “The Man Who Had All the Luck”, opened to horrible reviews. A story about an incredibly successful man who is unhappy with that success, “The Man Who Had All The Luck” was already addressing the major themes of Miller’s later work. In 1945, Miller published a novel, FOCUS, and two years later had his first play on Broadway. “All My Sons,” a tragedy about a manufacturer who sells faulty parts to the military in order to save his business, was an instant success. Concerned with morality in the face of desperation, “All My Sons” appealed to a nation having recently gone through both a war and a depression. Only two years after the success of “All My Sons,” Miller came out with his most famous and well-respected work, “Death of a Salesman.” Dealing again with both desperation and paternal responsibility, “Death of a Salesman” focused on a failed businessman as he tries to remember and reconstruct his life. Eventually killing himself to leave his son insurance money, the salesman seems a tragic character out of Shakespeare or Dostoevsky.

Winning both a Pulitzer Prize and a Drama Critics Circle Award, the play ran for more than 700 performances. Within a short while, it had been translated into over a dozen languages and had made its author a millionaire. Overwhelmed by post-war paranoia and intolerance, Miller began work on the third of his major plays. Though it was clearly an indictment of the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, “The Crucible” was set in Salem during the witch-hunts of the late 17th century. The play, which deals with extraordinary tragedy in ordinary lives, expanded Miller’s voice and his concern for the physical and psychological wellbeing of the working class. Within three years, Miller was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and convicted of contempt of Congress for not cooperating. A difficult time in his life, Miller ended a short and turbulent marriage with actress Marilyn Monroe. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote very little of note, concentrating at first on issues of guilt over the Holocaust, and later moving into comedies.

It was not until the 1991 productions of his “The Ride Down Mount Morgan” and “The Last Yankee” that Miller’s career began to see a resurgence. Both plays returned to the themes of success and failure that he had dealt with in earlier works. Concerning himself with the American dream, and the average American’s pursuit of it, Miller recognized a link between the poverty of the 1920s and the wealth of the 1980s. Encouraged by the success of these works, a number of his earlier pieces returned to the stage for revival performances. More than any other playwright working today, Arthur Miller has dedicated himself to the investigation of the moral plight of the white American working class. With a sense of realism and a strong ear for the American vernacular, Miller has created characters whose voices are an important part of the American landscape. His insight into the psychology of desperation and his ability to create stories that express the deepest meanings of struggle, have made him one of the most highly regarded and widely performed American playwrights. In his eighty-fifth year, Miller remains an active and important part of American theater.

READ NEXT ARTHUR MILLER: 1915-2005 / Playwright defined a nation's conscience / Author of 'Death of a Salesman,' 'The Crucible' won every major prize in his field - SFGate MenuSections ARTHUR MILLER: 1915-2005 / Playwright defined a nation's conscience / Author of 'Death of a Salesman,' 'The Crucible' won every major prize in his field Published 4:00 am, Saturday, February 12, 2005 Image 1of/5 Close Image 1 of 5 **file**Actress Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller embrace on the lawn of Miller's home in Roxbury, Conn., on June 29, 1956, several hours before they were married in White Plains, N.Y. Miller, the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American Dream gone awry, has died, his assistant said Friday, Feb. 11, 2005. He was 89.

Miller died Thursday evening, said his assistant, Julia Bolus. (AP Photo) less **file**Actress Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller embrace on the lawn of Miller's home in Roxbury, Conn., on June 29, 1956, several hours before they were married in White Plains, N.Y. Miller, the ... more Image 2 of 5 **FILE**Playwright Arthur Miller, speaks at a news conference at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minn., July 3, 2002. Miller, the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American Dream gone awry, has died, his assistant said Friday, Feb. 11, 2005. He was 89. Miller died Thursday evening, said his assistant, Julia Bolus. (AP Photo/Janet Hostetter) less **FILE**Playwright Arthur Miller, speaks at a news conference at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minn., July 3, 2002. Miller, the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, ...

more Photo: JANET HOSTETTER Image 3 of 5 SONS08_025_OHARA.TIF Luci Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield rd. Palo Alto, CA Dress Rehersal of "All my Son's" by Arthur Miller Joe Keller/Will Marchetti/father Kate Keller/ Carla Spindt/Mother Chris Keller/Jeffery Cannata/Son Father Joe Keller (Will Marchetti), mother Kate (Carla Spindt) and son Chris (Jeffery Cannata) in Arthur Miller's &quo;All My Sons.'' ProductName Chronicle less SONS08_025_OHARA.TIF Luci Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield rd. Palo Alto, CA Dress Rehersal of "All my Son's" by Arthur Miller Joe Keller/Will Marchetti/father Kate Keller/ Carla Spindt/Mother Chris ...

more Photo: John O'Hara Image 4 of 5 **FILE**Actors Kevin Anderson, left, Brian Dennehy, center, and Ted Koch perform in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." Dennehy and the revival won Tony Awards in 1999, 50 years after it won the Tony Award as best play. (AP Photo/Kornberg Associates,Eric Y. Exit) Ran on: 02-12-2005 &quo;All My Sons&quo; less **FILE**Actors Kevin Anderson, left, Brian Dennehy, center, and Ted Koch perform in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." Dennehy and the revival won Tony Awards in 1999, 50 years after ... more Photo: ERIC Y. EXIT Image 5 of 5 CRUCIBLE3-C-07MAR01-DD-JO Mill Valley, CA. "Marin Theater Company" The Crucible, by Arthur Miller directed by Lee Sankowich.

Abigail Williams/Jessa Brie Berkner (lft) John Proctor/Rod Gnapp (cntr) and Betty Parris/Jamie Sherman PHoto/John O'Hara Ran on: 02-12-2005 &quo;All My Sons&quo; less CRUCIBLE3-C-07MAR01-DD-JO Mill Valley, CA. "Marin Theater Company" The Crucible, by Arthur Miller directed by Lee Sankowich. Abigail Williams/Jessa Brie Berkner (lft) John Proctor/Rod Gnapp (cntr) and Betty ... more Photo: JOHN O'HARA ARTHUR MILLER: 1915-2005 / Playwright defined a nation's conscience / Author of 'Death of a Salesman,' 'The Crucible' won every major prize in his field 1 / 5 Back to Gallery "If Arthur Miller had written nothing more than 'Death of a Salesman, ' " critic Martin Gottfried wrote in his 2003 biography of the playwright, "it would have been enough to establish him among the giants of dramatic literature." He did much more than that.

Arthur Miller died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury, Conn., of congestive heart failure at the age of 89. For decades the nation's pre- eminent playwright, Miller not only defined the destructive side of the American dream in "Salesman" and other works, he embodied the dream's promise as the son of an immigrant who achieved enormous success. He also, in the person of his second wife -- international sex icon Marilyn Monroe -- could be said to have married that dream. In a career that spanned more than half a century, Arthur Miller wrote 25 plays -- many almost as highly regarded as "Salesman" -- as well as screenplays, essays, stories, novels and an autobiography, "Timebends." He received every major award in his field, including three Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award and a John F. Kennedy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1984. By the end of his life, he had achieved the iconic stature of one whose name lends dignity to the award given. He also devoted himself tirelessly to human rights causes, becoming, in the eyes of many, the moral conscience of the nation for standing up against McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee .

He confounded many who had applauded his stand by continuing to work with actors and others, notably the director Elia Kazan , who had famously cooperated with the committee by naming names. He was, he explained, opposed to blacklisting of all kinds. As the first international president of the professional writers association PEN, he championed the freedom of dissident writers in Soviet-bloc countries and throughout the world. He campaigned for progressive causes and against all forms of censorship throughout his life and was outspoken in his criticisms of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and of what he considered the Bush administration's abridgements of civil liberties. In his life and writings, Miller was representative of his times -- the bulk of the 20th century. Born Oct. 17, 1915, in Manhattan, Arthur Asher Miller was the second son of an illiterate but very successful clothing manufacturer, Isidore Miller, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, and his wife, Augusta (called Gussie), the New York-born daughter of German Jewish immigrants. A prosperous childhood, during which he showed more of an inclination for sports than school, came to a dramatic close with the stock market crash of 1929.

As Isidore Miller struggled to save his company, the family moved from its spacious uptown Manhattan apartment to a cramped, flimsy house in the outlying Gravesend section of Brooklyn -- a home not unlike that of the Loman family in "Salesman" (the character of Willy Loman was partly based on one of Arthur Miller's uncles). "The presumption of a permanent prosperity exploded in a matter of weeks, " Miller wrote in "Timebends." "A month ago you were riding around in a limousine, now you were scraping to pay the rent." The stock market crash and its aftermath had a major impact on Miller's life and work, not only in fixing his attention on social and economic justice and the hollow promise of the American dream as major themes. His much-admired older brother, Kermit, who had shown more promise as an athlete and a student, quit college to help their father try to save the family business. Arthur, through hard work at a variety of jobs and creative writing on his application letter, managed to go to the University of Michigan . Financial need influenced his turn toward theater.

Miller entered a playwriting contest administered by the university, winning a $250 prize that enabled him to attend for a second year. He won the Avery Hopwood Award again the next year as well as a $1,200 award from New York's Theater Guild . Though most of his next six plays were rejected, and his first Broadway production -- "The Man Who Had All the Luck" in 1944 -- was an instant failure (closing after four performances), he decided to make one last attempt at a life in the theater. "All My Sons," produced in '47, enjoyed a substantial run and started his career. At the time, Miller was working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to support his family. In 1940, he had married Mary Grace Slattery , with whom he had two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 1955, in large part because of Miller's affair with Monroe, whom he married the next year. By then, he was the famous author of "Salesman" ('49) and "The Crucible" ('53). She, recently divorced from baseball legend Joe DiMaggio , was Hollywood's leading sex symbol.

The marriage has been widely interpreted -- at the time and increasingly ever since -- as a union between American icons representing everything from high and popular culture to the mind and the body, tragedy and comedy and intellect and sex. It also coincided with Miller's opposition to the anti-communist witch hunts of the '50s, his refusal to name names before HUAC and his citation for contempt of Congress. The marriage with Monroe ended in 1961, the year the movie "The Misfits," which he had written for her, premiered. The following year, Miller married Austrian photographer Inge Morath , with whom he had a daughter, filmmaker Rebecca Miller. Morath, with whom he also wrote several books, died in 2002. Both marriages were reflected in "After the Fall," Miller's most nakedly autobiographical drama. The play also chronicles his stand against McCarthyism and his split with Kazan, who had staged Miller's initial successes "All My Sons" and "Salesman" -- and would also direct the controversial premiere of "Fall" in '64. Miller, who professed to be puzzled by criticisms that he had exploited Monroe's memory, staunchly denied that the play chronicled their marriage.

He returned to the subject in his final play, "Finishing the Picture, " which opened last fall in Chicago -- about the making of a movie under circumstances very similar to those that plagued "Misfits." Though Miller never considered himself an autobiographical playwright, the major themes of his plays clearly derive from his life. The Depression, which he compared to the Civil War as a turning point in American history, haunts his work from "Salesman" on through his epic "The American Clock" in 1980. His sibling rivalry with his brother Kermit and his conflicted feelings about pursuing his own career while Kermit sacrificed his prospects to help the family are expressed in the relationship between brothers in "Salesman," "Sons" and "Price," among others. His guilt about his affair with Monroe crops up in "The Crucible," and that play -- and his adaptation of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" -- are defiant reactions against McCarthyism.

With "Fall," Miller began exploring his Jewishness more explicitly, a theme that recurs in many of his later works, including "The Price," "Incident at Vichy" ('65), "The Creation of the World and Other Business" ('72) and the Emmy Award-winning "Playing for Time" ('80). Themes of personal responsibility, political repression and individual integrity continued to hold center stage through the seemingly indefatigable Miller's later plays -- "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan" ('91), "Broken Glass" ('94), "Mr. Peter's Connections" ('98) and the satirical "Resurrection Blues" ('02). Few of his later plays met with critical or popular favor. After his success with "Sons" and "Salesman," Miller was attacked by conservative writers for his politics in the '50s and abandoned by most of the critical establishment after "Fall." As with most major American writers, high regard gave way to a period of critical neglect and hostility, which -- in Miller's case -- roughly coincided with the same arc in the career of his contemporary, Tennessee Williams .

Unlike Williams, who died during his critical eclipse, Miller lived long enough to reap the rewards of rediscovery. Even during the '70s and '80s, when he was almost invisible on Broadway, "Salesman," "Crucible" and "Sons" in particular continued to hold their own on regional stages throughout America and abroad. Even as American producers turned their backs on his new plays, they received major productions and attention in London. Starting in the '90s, Broadway began rediscovering Miller with highly regarded revivals of "Salesman, " "A View From the Bridge," "Price" and "Crucible." Throughout their lives, Miller and Williams often were set up as rivals for the title of greatest American playwright. Williams was characterized as the more poetic, dreamy and, in his latter years, daringly experimental artist; Miller as the rigid moralist and social realist. The contrast isn't fair to either writer, each in his way a legitimate artistic heir to Eugene O'Neill, the giant of American drama in the first half of the 20th century. A gritty realism pervades the poetry of much of Williams' best work, as does a social conscience and a moral sense as fierce as Miller's.

Both men approached mainstream culture with the consciousness of outsiders, and Miller's Jewish identity is almost as cloaked in his early works as Williams' homosexuality is in his. Miller also experimented with form throughout his career. The structure of "Salesman" -- with dream and memory sequences intruding on the present - - confounded and excited audiences in 1949. If the play no longer seems experimental, that's only a measure of the pervasive influence "Salesman" and its author have had on the American theater. From 'Death of a Salesman' "I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.

Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person." A career that spanned more than half a century Arthur Miller's plays, with first year produced "Honors at Dawn," 1936 (University of Michigan Hopwood Award) "No Villain: They Too Arise," 1937 (Hopwood Award) "The Man Who Had All the Luck," 1944 (Theater Guild National Award) "All My Sons," 1947 (New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, Donaldson Award) "Death of a Salesman," 1949 (Pulitzer Prize, Antoinette Perry [also known as Tony], N.Y. Drama Critics, Donaldson, Theater Critics award, among others) "The Crucible," 1953 (Tony, Donaldson awards) "A View From the Bridge," 1955 "A Memory of Two Mondays," 1955 "After the Fall," 1964 Arthur Miller Biography | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays | GradeSaver Miller, Arthur Biography of Arthur Miller Arthur Miller was one of the leading American playwrights of the twentieth century.

He was born in October 1915 in New York City to a women's clothing manufacturer, who lost everything in the economic collapse of the 1930s. Living through young adulthood during the Great Depression, Miller was shaped by the poverty that surrounded him. The Depression demonstrated to the playwright the fragility and vulnerability of human existence in the modern era. After graduating from high school, Miller worked in a warehouse so that he could earn enough money to attend the University of Michigan, where he began to write plays. Miller's first play to make it to Broadway, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), was a dismal failure, closing after only four performances. This early setback almost discouraged Miller from writing completely, but he gave himself one more try. Three years later, All My Sons won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award as the best play of 1947, launching Miller into theatrical stardom. All My Sons, a drama about a manufacturer of faulty war materials, was strongly influenced by the naturalist drama of Henrik Ibsen.

Along with Death of a Salesman (his most enduring success), All My Sons and The Man Who Had All the Luck form a thematic trilogy of plays about love triangles involving fathers and sons. The drama of the family is at the core of all of Miller's major plays, but nowhere is it more prominent than in All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Death of a Salesman (1949) secured Miller's reputation as one of the nation's foremost playwrights. In this play, Miller mixes the tradition of social realism that informs most of his work with a more experimental structure that includes fluid leaps in time as the protagonist, Willy Loman, drifts into memories of his sons as teenagers. Loman represents an American archetype: a victim of his own delusions of grandeur and obsession with success, and haunted by a sense of failure. Miller won a Tony Award for Death of a Salesman as well as a Pulitzer Prize. The play has been frequently revived in film, television, and stage versions that have included actors such as Dustin Hoffman, George C. Scott and, most recently, Brian Dennehy in the part of Willy Loman.

Miller followed Death of a Salesman with his most politically significant work, The Crucible (1953), a tale of the Salem witch trials that contains obvious analogies to the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings in 1950s America. The highly controversial nature of the politics of The Crucible, which lauds those who refuse to name names, led to the play's mixed response. In later years, however, it has become one of the most studied and performed plays of American theater. Three years after The Crucible, in 1956, Miller found himself persecuted by the very force that he warned against, when he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Miller refused to name people he allegedly saw at a Communist writers' meeting a decade before, and he was convicted of contempt. He later won an appeal. Also in 1956, Miller married actress Marilyn Monroe. The two divorced in 1961, one year before her death. That year Monroe appeared in her last film, The Misfits, which is based on an original screenplay by Miller. After divorcing Monroe, Miller wed Ingeborg Morath, to whom he remained married until his death in 2005.

The pair had a son and a daughter. Miller also wrote the plays A Memory of Two Mondays and the short A View from the Bridge, which were both staged in 1955. His other works include After the Fall (1964), a thinly veiled account of his marriage to Monroe, as well as The Price (1967), The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977), and The American Clock (1980). His most recent works include the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1993), and Broken Glass (1993), which won the Olivier Award for Best Play. Although Miller did not write frequently for film, he did pen an adaptation for the 1996 film version of The Crucible starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. Miller's daughter Rebecca married Day-Lewis in 1996.

Study Guides on Works by Arthur Miller Playwright Arthur Miller Biography Born: October 17th, 1915 Died: February 10th, 2005 Over the course of seven decades, Arthur Miller created some of the most memorable stage plays in American Literature . He is the author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible . Born and raised in Manhattan, Miller witnessed the best and the worst of American society. Childhood His father was a productive shop-keeper and clothing manufacturer until the Great Depression dried up virtually all business opportunities. Yet, despite being faced with poverty, Miller made the best of his childhood. He was a very active young man, in love with such sports as football and baseball. When he wasn’t playing outside, he enjoyed reading adventure stories. He was also kept busy by his many boyhood jobs. He often worked along side his father. During other times in his life, he delivered bakery goods and worked as a clerk in an auto parts warehouse. College Bound In 1934, Miller left the east coast to attend the University of Michigan. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States He was accepted into their school of journalism.

His experiences during the depression made him skeptical towards religion. Politically, he began leaning towards the "Left." And since the theater was the cutting edge way for socio-economic liberals to express their views, he decided to enter the Hopwood Drama competition. His first play, No Villain, received an award from the University. It was an impressive beginning for the young playwright; he had never studied plays or playwriting, and he had written his script in just five days! Broadway Bound After graduation, he continued writing plays and radio dramas. During World War II, his writing career gradually became more successful. (He did not enter the military due to an old football injury). In 1940 he crafted The Man Who Had All the Luck. It arrived on Broadway in 1944, but unfortunately it departed from Broadway four days later! In 1947, his first Broadway success, a powerful drama titled All My Sons, earned him critical and popular acclaim. From that point on, his work was in high demand. Death of a Salesman, his most famous work, debuted in 1949. It earned him international recognition.

Major Works Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe During the 1950s, Arthur Miller became the most recognized playwright in the world. His renown wasn’t simply because of his literary genius. In 1956 he married his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. From then on, he was in the limelight. Photographers hounded the famous couple at all hours. The tabloids were often cruel, puzzling over why the “world’s most beautiful woman” would marry such a “homely writer." A year after divorcing Marilyn Monroe in 1961 (a year before her death), Miller married his third wife, Inge Morath. They remained together until she passed away in 2002. Controversial Playwright Since Miller was in the spotlight, he was a prime target for the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In an age of anti-communism and McCarthyism , Miller’s political beliefs seemed threatening to some American politicians. In retrospect, this is quite amusing, considering the Soviet Union banned his plays. In response to the hysteria of the time, he wrote one of his best plays, The Crucible. It is an insightful criticism of social and political paranoia set during the Salem Witch Trials .

Miller v. McCarthyism Miller was summoned before the HUAC. He was expected to release names of any associate he knew to be a communist. Before he sat before the committee, a congressman requested a signed Marilyn Monroe photograph, saying that the hearing would be dropped. Miller refused, just as he refused to give up any names. He stated, “I don’t believe a man has to become an informer in order to practice his profession freely in the United States.” Unlike director Elia Kazan and other artists, Miller did not submit to the demands of the HUAC. He was charged with contempt of Congress, but the conviction was overturned. Miller's Later Years Even into his late 80s, Miller continued to write. His newer stage plays did not gain the same amount of attention or acclaim as his earlier work. However, film adaptations of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman kept his fame very much alive. In 1987, his autobiography was published. Much of his later plays dealt with personal experience. In particular, his final drama, Finishing the Picture mirrors the turbulent last days of his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. In 2005, Arthur Miller passed away at the age of 89.

1947 – Best Author (All My Sons) 1949 – Best Author and Best Play (Death of a Salesman) 1953 – Best Play (The Crucible) 1968 – Nominee for Best Play (The Price) 1994 – Nominee for Best Play (Broken Glass) 2000 – Lifetime Achievement Award ARTSEDGE: Master+Work: Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman Meet the master artist through one of his most important works Art Imitates Life House Un-American Activities Committee in session, 1947 Miller’s most famous plays are based on events from his life or on current events of the time: A family’s economic struggles, the life of Miller’s salesman uncle, and the Brooklyn house where Miller grew up inspired the story and setting of Death of a Salesman. All My Sons is based on the true story of a businessman who sold faulty machine parts to the U.S. military during World War II.

The Crucible, set during the Salem witch trials in the 1600s, is really about Joseph McCarthy’s congressional hearings, which were designed to find communist sympathizers in the United States. Miller’s troubled marriage to movie star Marilyn Monroe is portrayed in After the Fall. A View From the Bridge is based on a story that Miller heard from a Brooklyn longshoreman. Changing the World Arthur Miller said that other than a doctor saving someone’s life, “writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human being could do.” Why? Because he believed that plays could ask difficult questions about morality and responsibility and then challenge people to change their lives and the world. “The mission of the theater,” he said, “is… to raise the consciousness of people to their human possibilities." And that’s exactly how Miller changed American theater in the twentieth century. Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. By the time he was a teenager, his family—like many others—was struggling through the Great Depression. His father lost his clothing business during the Wall Street Crash and the family had to move to a smaller house in Brooklyn.

After working his way through high school and college, a young Miller learned first-hand how hard it could be to make a living in tough times. It’s clear that the Depression and the after-effects of World War II influenced Miller to write plays about vulnerable, everyday people—working and struggling to get ahead. Miller revealed, "I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity." Miller wrote his most successful plays early in his career. Between 1947 and 1964, Broadway played host to All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A View From the Bridge, and After the Fall. While their stories may be different, there are common threads among them, including morality, responsibility, compassion, and the fragility of human relationships—especially between fathers and sons. And there is one more thread—all are based on real-life events that were either personal or political or both.

You see, by the mid-1950s, Miller was famous not only for his plays, but also for when he was called to appear before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. Just as other Americans had been subpoenaed, Miller, too, was asked to identify writers who he believed were communists. Miller stood his ground, held to his principles, and pretty much risked his career by refusing to name names. The result? He was convicted of contempt of Congress. (The conviction was overturned in 1958.) A theater critic at the time said that Miller’s refusal to cooperate showed “the measure of the man who has written these high-minded plays.” Miller continued to write plays, articles, film scripts, books, and speeches throughout his life, exploring the great political, social, and moral questions of our time. Arthur Miller died in 2005 at age 89. He remains one of the most frequently produced playwrights—and a giant of American theater. Questioning “The American Dream” What exactly is “The American Dream”? It’s the promise that life can be better for every person if he or she has the opportunity and willingness to work hard— regardless of their background or social class.

During his life, Miller saw that some people would never be able to realize that dream, no matter how hard they worked. He knew that not everyone had equal opportunities to succeed. What does it mean to live in a society that promises a lot but guarantees nothing? Miller wrote Death of a Salesman with that question in mind. It’s a play about the struggle for success and disappointment of the American Dream. Willy’s Broken Dreams Arthur Miller once said that Death of a Salesman was a “tragedy of the common man.” Think about it: The main character, Willy Loman, is a regular, everyday guy—an aging, travelling salesman weighed down by his sample case. With each trip, he’s finding it increasingly difficult to cover his territory in search of the next big order. His mind is starting to slip away but he still believes that his charm and optimism will make him rich. But the realities of life haunt him. He’s ashamed that he can’t pay the bills. He’s been unfaithful to his wife. And as Willy turns to his memories and delusions to combat any feelings of failure, he begins to lose touch with reality. Willy is flawed and is brought to ruin by his own weaknesses.

In Willy Loman, Miller created a tragic hero—twentieth-century style. Why the Play Endures: Story When you see or read the play, you might think that it’s the story of one man and his family. And that’s partially true. But Death of a Salesman also tells a larger story about American society. Willy Loman is a metaphor (or symbol) for something else. The play isn’t as much about the death of a salesman as it is about the death of something bigger. It’s about the death of the promise of the American Dream. Here’s another sign that Willy is a metaphor: We never learn exactly what kind of product Willy is selling. That’s because the only thing he really seems to be selling is himself. Miller said that “we are all salesman,” meaning that we are all trying to impress others so that we can be popular (or “well-liked,” as Willy says). Without giving too much away, here’s what happens: Willy Loman lives in Brooklyn with his wife Linda and two grown sons, Biff and Happy. He’s a salesman who’s spent his whole life following the rules.

He’s raised his sons to believe that if they also follow the rules, they can make something of themselves. But Willy has come to realize that his life might have been a failure. His dreams for himself and sons are crumbling. Biff can’t keep a job. Happy isn’t exactly, well, happy. Willy and Linda struggle to make payments on their old house that’s surrounded by newer apartment buildings. In order to deal with the failures of his life, Willy escapes by remembering the past and fantasizing about how things could have been. In doing so, he loses touch with reality and makes plans to commit suicide. His family tries to prevent it by enabling Willy’s fantasies and lying to him. One day—and after working his whole life for the same company—Willy loses his job and gets desperate. He’s been arguing with Biff and can’t accept that Biff doesn’t want to be a businessman. Even worse, Willy can’t face the fact that his own life has been a disappointment. As the play reaches its conclusion, the audience is left to consider an important question: What does a man do when he considers his life to be a failure?

Why the Play Endures: Production Death of a Salesman is considered to be Miller’s masterpiece not only for its compelling story and characters but also because of its inventive, theatrical elements including: The play’s form and structure. The play tells Willy’s entire life story over the course of 24 hours. Miller structured the play so that it follows Willy’s thoughts, dreams, and memories, which are shown in flashbacks and fantasy scenes. Set design. Miller’s description of the set is precise. The walls of the Lomans’ house are transparent; the house almost looks like the skeleton of a house. Characters either walk around or through the walls, depending on whether the scene they’re in happens in the present or the past. And the space around the Lomans’ house gets smaller as the play progresses. By the end of the play, the apartment buildings that surround the house are lit so that—as Miller specifies—they “rise into sharp focus.” Lighting. Miller’s lighting descriptions are also exact. Scenes happening in the past are lit as if leaves (not apartment buildings) surround the Loman house. The lighting for scenes in the past is softer and warmer than scenes set in the present.

By paying attention to the lighting effects, audiences know when time passes from present to past and back again. Music. Willy hears the sounds of the flutes that his father (also a salesman) made and sold. The flute is a sound of the past—and represents the betrayal of that past as the reality of Willy’s failures closes in on him. < previous: The Master Learn More Even though Death of a Salesman was written in 1949, it still speaks powerfully to audiences today. So there’s a lot of information out there about the play. Here are some places to learn more about the play, about Miller, and about some historical events that inspired his work. Read about Death of a Salesman’s 2011 revival on Broadway . You can also read about how graphic designers interpreted the play to create posters for different productions; how modern audiences respond to the play; and why director Mike Nichols decided to use the play’s original set design for the revival. The Arthur Miller Society. Website. Berger, Marilyn. «Arthur Miller, Moral Voice of the American Stage, Dies at 89.» The New York Times, February 11, 2005. Block, Haskell M.

and Shedd, Robert G., eds. Masters of Modern Drama. New York: Random House, 1962. 1018-19. Brater, Enoch. Arthur Miller: A Playwright’s Life and Works. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2005. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Website. Miller, Arthur, «The 'Salesman' Has a Birthday.» The New York Times, February 5, 1950. National Endowment for the Humanities. Website. PBS Newshour. Website. Transcript: «Arthur Miller: An American Classic.» Shmoop Editorial Team. "Death of a Salesman Themes." Shmoop University, Inc., 11 November 2008. University of Michigan. Website. «Miller at Michigan.» Voice of America. Website. Transcript: «Arthur Miller: 1915-2005: One of the Greatest American Playwrights of the 20th Century” Weber, Bruce. «Early Miller: Birth of a Playwright.» The New York Times, May 2, 2002.

Question: Who wrote Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible
Answer: Arthur Miller