Arthur Miller is best known for his famous timeless plays. Some examples include “The Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible”, which are his most famous plays. Miller was born in New York City in 1915, and had a successful family who own a clothing business. After the Great Depression in 1929, his family lost everything and had to move from Harlem to Brooklyn. Miller is known for being able to place emotions into the audience, and do what no other playwright or author is able to do. He tends to write about emotions that everyone has felt before in their life, making his stories very relatable and grasping. Throughout tons of his stories, there themes that tend to be very similar, and express the same message. In this essay, these themes are going to be explored in depth.
Historical Context
In the wake of the previously stated Great Depression, many Americans faced unthinkable hardships that they never thought they would face. Like Miller’s family, many other families lost businesses, jobs, and homes. The depression was the worst in U.S. history. While many people experienced this, not many were able to write about it the same way that Miller was able to. He was able to directly envelop people in the emotions they felt during this stressful time, and others.
Realism. One of Miller’s most proficient themes in almost all of his stories is realism. As previously stated, Miller is known for being able to relate to people because he was part of the people. He experienced the same thing that that common man experienced, which is why he was able to to connect to them so easily. Miller is credited with being able to “blend diverse dramatic style and movements because he believed that plays should be a delicate balance between the separate and collective elements of life, the singular personality and polity, and the individual and the rest of society” (Ultius 1). Miller not only wrote about moral problems within the society, but sought to find the reasoning behind these problems, and why they happen (1). This is why Miller was so famous. He was not only talked about present day topics that people were interested in, he also went deeper into the issues, and gave people possible answers when they needed them.
Miller was not only known for relating his plays to social issues in society in his time, but also relating to personal feelings that he faced in his life. Throughout Miller’s life, he had been in many relationships, with some ending worse than others. His most notable relationship is probably his marriage with Marilyn Monroe. Miller and Monroe were “married for 5 years” (A&E Television Networks 1). Miller implemented many instances of this relationship in his plays, even though it was short lived and he was known for barely writing during the marriage (1). Another part of his realism that he used throughout his stories include him using personal experiences about different groups of people throughout the country. As stated, he grew up in New York City, known for being diverse. Here, Miller learned about all kinds of different ethnic backgrounds, which he implemented in his writings. While Miller worked in the inner city “he learned about the Longshoremen, their cultures and values, the way they lived and the underlining codes by which the italian immigrants brought with them from their country of origin” (Hood 1). Miller implements these kind of experiences in plays such as “Death of a Salesman” which takes place in Brooklyn. Miller is able to implement these real life experiences into his works. He is able to successfully relate to the common man because he knows the common man. This is how Miller uses realism throughout his works as a common theme. He takes political issues of the present day, and puts them into his stories, and revolves his stories around them. He also takes real life personalities and emotions and implements them, giving an overall “real” feeling to his plays. Another way he did this was through his scenery. Arnold Aronson stated that:
The visual and spatial environment of a production, its physical texture, as it were, plays a profound if often subliminal role in theatrical reception. Miller’s domestic productions, I would suggest, have frequently been hampered by the generally more literal and even prosaic American approach to design.
Miller not only wrote his plays and incorporated realistic techniques in his words, but he also had it in his scenery. As stated above, he based his scenery off of American ideas and settings, and incorporated an American style. What better way is there to make the play feel real than to make it look exactly, or very close to, what people saw outside the theater in their own lives. Miller’s use of realism is apparent in every aspect of his plays. He is constantly trying to make the unie ce feel like they are watching something that happens in their own home, and through his dialogue and scenery, he achieves his goal.
American Dream. While Miller is very well known for implementing social and personal realism in his plays, there is an underlying theme of the “American Experience” within this theme. Miller directly correlates his plays around American ideologies that affected the way people lived at that time. Miller would implement these ideas in a very cautious manner. With this, “Miller creates an inescapable force that hovers over the action and haunts his characters, who struggle with it” (Mann 1). Miller indirectly wraps his stories around this theme that seems almost like a background detail that shouldn’t be important, but is. Mann goes on to state that in “‘The Death of a Salesman’, it is the American Dream” (1). While not all of Miller’s plays experience this American Dream as noticeably as “Death of a Salesman”, they still indirectly have this theme. For instance, in The Crucible, Miller uses the proctor to be the enemy of hysteria, and a direct enemy to the fanatic temperament experienced during that time (Hayes 2). This idea of hysteria may not seem to be in correlation to American experiences, but in fact it is. The hysteria experienced by the general public is almost the same that people faced during the Great Depression. People began to be worried about their money, and began to not trust the banks, or really trust anyone. In the crucible, people do not trust anyone around them because of the situation they are all in, which leads to hysteria. This idea parallels with American emotions and reactions to the previously stated Great Depression.
While The Death of a Salesman and The Crucible are both great examples of Miller’s wish to show the struggle between the American Dream and reality, his work All My Sons, is probably the best example of this. The play tells the story of a middle class, self-made man named Joe Keller, who framed his partner. The two partners’ children are also planning to marry creating a real conflict in the play. Since this play doesn’t seem to be completely about the American dream, one may ask where it comes into play. To answer this, it simply revolves around it. The entire play, setting and characters show the American Dream idea that Miller uses so much. To start, the main characters show that their personality reflects the American Idealism, that they came from nothing and made something of themselves. Doing this in America is not the American Dream, but instead it is being respected in society. In america, “being honored in society is something that people longed for” (Hussain 2). Miller was not only thinking about the economic opportunity and wishes for people in his age, he also noted the importance of social rank in America. The American Dream was not just hoping to “make it” economically. It was also a hope to stop being looked down upon, or be seen as the “poor” who never got recognized or appreciated for what they did. This is the genius in Miller’s works. He not only showed the better life of America, but also showed the respect given to people for working there hardest to make it up the ranks. Using this, Miller was about to draw the common man to his plays. He knew that there was not only the hopeful wish of not being lower class men anymore, but also of being respected. He knew this because he experienced it himself. In the play, Chris states that he “wants some kids”, and “wants to build something [he] can give to himself” (Act 1: Miller 15). This is representing what the American Dream really is to people. It isn’t just making money, but instead making a life that they want. In the play Chris wants “to move on and get his American Dream by marrying Ann and having children with her” (Hussain 3). Miller uses Chris to represent the part of the Dream everyone wants, which is to make something of himself, and make a family.
Struggles of the Common Man. While realism and the basic struggles of the common man go hand and hand with each other, they can also be separated into separate themes. This is because Miller’s use of relating to the common man was so noticeable in all his plays. He not only tried to make the play seem real by implementing common day issues, but also described things the common folk would go through. As stated by Robert Vaux, “Miller never dealt with fanciful subjects. He favored the common language of the common man – delivered with style, but unvarnished by excessive affection” (1). Here, Vaux is describing how Miller would take the common tongue, and implement it into his plays. Vaux states that he “delivered with style” in his plays, and this is very important to keep in mind. This is part of Miller’s genius. He makes people talk in the common tongue, but adds his own styling to it to make it both relatable and entertaining. While he does use common dialogue to express his idea of relating to the common man, he also does this in another way. It is not the way he talks about things, but what he talks about. Miller often brings questions that people never thought to ask themselves, but directly relate to their lives. Miller often brings up issues retaining to what it means to be someone, whether it be a family man or good friend. Jonathan Freedman discusses Miller’s use of this and asks:
What does it mean to be a man—a father, a son, a husband, a lover? These questions are central to the work of Arthur Miller, who has over the course of his career explored the contradictory penumbras of meaning surrounding each of these with a persistence and an intensity that often—quite literally—reduced audiences to tears. One such access of sentiment was particularly significant (1).
We can understand the meaningfulness behind Miller’s work through this quotation. Miller would often bring up deep questions that we would never think to ask ourselves. It is a daring technique, but if done correctly, can connect the audience to the play in a way no other technique can. Miller indirectly makes the audience question their role in society, as a man, father, son, or husband. Miller creates characters that are exactly like a common father, mother, son, and so on. When people see his plays, they often end up feeling a connection with these characters, which is what brings the audience and the play together. As Bruce Mann points out, “students enjoy reading Arthur Miller’s plays. They are especially drawn to his characters (‘Willy’s just like my father’) and to his intense dialogue and the meaningful conflicts he dramatizes” (Mann 1). So, Miller not only relates to fathers and adults by making them question their lives and who they are, but also relates to the younger generation because they are so familiar with these types of characters. As stated, they see the characters as a fatherly figure, which gives a sense of home. This use of common American characters begs the question, “how are the struggles brought out through these characters?”. While making the audience question what different things mean can bring out the struggles that they have in their daily lives, there is also a different type of struggle that resonates throughout his plays. Mann states that:
Miller creates an unseen presence in the dramatic world—an inescapable force that hovers over the action and haunts his characters, who struggle with it. In Death of a Salesman, for example, it is the modern American dream. InThe Price, it is the regret… (1)
Arthur Miller is able to bring out the struggles of a common man by basing all of the struggles off of one main point, that tend to repeat themselves throughout his plays. As stated, in Death of a Salesman, it was the American Dream which brought up all the struggles that the common man had to deal with. The American Dream brings out all the struggles of people trying to achieve the dream, and those struggles that they have to get to what they want. This ties together both the American Dream and Struggles of the Common man, which tend to be prolific throughout Miller’s Plays. As stated above, The Price has this idea of regret that Miller bases his struggles off of. Every man, whether common or not, faces regret in their life, therefore creating a theme that everyone can relate to. This is Miller’s genius at work once again. His ability to create struggles that every person faces in their daily life, and make a dramatization that will be the basis for his play. Miller uses the struggles a common man faces throughout many of his plays in order to create masterpieces. This theme remains constant through most of his plays, as he realizes that writing about things that everyday people experience is what will really stick in people’s minds and hearts.
Morality. Arthur Miller came from a Jewish family who originally came from modern day Poland. While it was not a major part in the eyes of the media, it was a major part of Miller’s life, as many of his works often related to his experiences as being Jewish. To add to this, when he married Marilyn Monroe, as previously stated, she converted to Judaism to show her affection to Miller. This must have meant Judaism was more than just a small part in Miller’s life. The idea that This Jewish background has an impact on his plays is something that some people do not agree with. Some say that he was not that religious and that he did not mean to base his plays off of his background, though it seems that he did. This, however, seems to be false, as there is a lot of evidence pointing to the opposite standpoint. Miller used his religious background to create a moral basis for his plays. In a selection from Susan Abbotson, she states that:
Miller’s morality, however, seems more deeply rooted in his Judaic roots, springing from the Old Testament (or Torah) rather than the New Testament of Christianity. At Michigan Miller studied the plays of Ibsen; one of the first Broadway plays that deeply affected him had been a 1937 revival of A Doll’s House (adapted by Thornton Wilder). Ibsen taught him the importance of creating believable, psychologically complex characters, as well as the ways in which the past might affect the present and the difficulties of finding happiness in a hostile environment (1)
With this information we can more closely understand where Miller’s ideas for characters were created. Miller learned that in order to create a play that people enjoyed to see and connected to, he had to create characters that did so. Characters were the only way he was going to be able to draw people into his plays the way he wanted to. He did this by using moral concepts that he knew from his religion. Besides the fact that he took moral ideas from the old testament and implemented them into his characters, he also used specific pieces of Jewish culture to develop his characters the way he wanted. In a statement made by Chanan Tigay, he states:
Miller’s work can be viewed through the opposite lens, scholars say: In addressing American themes, Miller gave audiences occasional glimpses into his Jewish core. “In some of his great works, he made Jewish life American life by blurring the focus,” said Jeremy Dauber, a professor of Yiddish language, literature and culture at Columbia University. “How many of us in high school were told that Willy Loman was everyman? What’s interesting is to find how the universal can really be specific. (1)
This shows how Miller used Jewish moral ideas to develop his characters. Miller used specific evidence from his Jewish background to create a moral character that would relate to the audience. Arthur Miller’s use of Jewish and moral points throughout his works have proven to have a profound effect on the response to Miller’s works, and have made them as famous as they are today.
Conclusion
Arthur Miller is one of, if not the most famous playwright of all time. His use of dialogue, scenery, and moral relationships has proven to be extremely effective at making people marvel at his work. Throughout all his works, there are many things that remain constant. These are the themes which he makes the meaning of his plays about, and which he revolves them around. His most important aspect is that of realism. Miller continuously wants the audience to feel everything that the characters feel. To do this, he made the situations in his plays very similar to real life. He brought in real life American political and social issues. Besides this, he also brought in real issues that people deal with on a day to day basis. This brings up the theme of the struggles of a common man. Miller constantly brings the common man into his plays. As stated, he wants the audience to literally feel what is happening in the play. He asks the hard questions that people know they need to ask, but don’t. By bringing ideas that the common man would have, and struggles that the common man would face, he is able to bring out emotions in the audience that no other play could. Miller wraps the common man idea around the American Dream. This may be Miller’s most important constant theme. Miller lived the American Dream. He grew up with little, and made a name for himself, where he began to get respected and known for what he did. This idea is reflected in almost all of his plays, the most prolific being The Death of a Salesman. Miller picks apart the struggles of achieving the Dream, and what it is like afterward. He also takes his Jewish background and combines it into the Dream. He uses his Jewish faith to create a moral basis for which all his other themes come out of. Arthur Miller is most well known for his plays, and how relatable they were. However, most people don’t realize the reasoning behind this. They don’t realize that Miller kept the same message behind each play, each word, and each setting. Miller kept the same common themes throughout all of his works, and that led to his success as one of the most talented playwrights to ever live.
Works Cited
Ultius
A&E television
Hood
Aronson
Mann
Hayes
Hussain
Miller
Vaux
Freedman
Abbotson
Tigay