Arthur Miller
2 books analyzed
Biography
Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was born in New York to a prosperous clothing manufacturer father who lost everything in the 1929 Depression. The family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn; Miller watched his father's business and confidence collapse simultaneously. He attended the University of Michigan on borrowed money, worked in a Brooklyn auto parts warehouse while writing, and became one of the most important American playwrights of the twentieth century. Death of a Salesman (1949) won the Pulitzer Prize. Miller was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 — he refused to name names and was cited for contempt of Congress. He was briefly married to Marilyn Monroe. He understood what it meant to watch a man's identity collapse around his work.
Arthur Miller at a glance
Works
Death of a Salesman
1949 · 139 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
The most devastating autopsy of the American Dream ever staged — a salesman who sold himself a lie and couldn't stop paying for it.
The Crucible
1953 · 152 pages · ★★☆☆☆ Moderate
A play about a 1692 witch hunt that Miller wrote while he himself was being hunted — and they were trying to make him name names.
Diction Across Works
realist-expressionist hybrid
pseudo-archaic formal