Miller, Arthur (1915-2005), was a leading American playwright. His works record the conflict between the individual and the society that influences the individual’s moral code. In All My Sons (1947), the desire for profit comes into conflict with a larger responsibility to the community. Death of a Salesman (1949), which received a Pulitzer Prize, is generally considered Miller’s masterpiece. It tells of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman who chooses popularity and material success as his goals. Destroyed by his choice, Loman commits suicide. The play typifies Miller’s belief that the “common man” could be a modern tragic hero.
Miller’s work generally follows the Ibsen school of realistic drama. But much of the action in Death of a Salesman is seen through Loman’s mind, thus establishing Miller’s debt to Expressionistic drama.
Miller based The Crucible (1953) on the Salem witch trials in 1692. The play was Miller’s response to the politics of McCarthyism in the 1950’s (see McCarthyism). The play proposes that the individual conscience is the highest authority. Miller’s early novel Focus (1945) and his plays Incident at Vichy (1964) and Broken Glass (1994) explore anti-Semitism. His other notable plays include A View from the Bridge (1955), The Price (1968), and The American Clock (1980).
Miller was born on Oct. 17, 1915, in New York City. He was married to actress Marilyn Monroe from 1956 to 1961. His autobiographical play After the Fall (1964) and his last play, Finishing the Picture (2004), both deal with his relationship with Monroe. Miller’s other writings include The Misfits (1961), a motion-picture script; The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (1978); and an autobiography, Timebends: A Life (1987). His essays were collected in Echoes Down the Corridor (2000). Miller died on Feb. 10, 2005. In 2006, 2012, and 2015, the Library of America published authoritative editions of three volumes of Miller’s Collected Plays.
