Arthur Miller Biography

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

heart failure. He was 89 years old.

Career Highlights

Miller's prolific writing career spans a period of over 60 years. During this time, Miller has written 26 plays, a novel entitled Focus (1945), several travel journals, a collection of short stories entitled I Don't Need You Anymore (1967), and an autobiography entitled Timebends: A Life (1987). Miller's plays generally address social issues and center around an individual in a social dilemma or an individual at the mercy of society.

Miller's first play, No Villain, produced in 1936, explores Marxist theory and inner conflict through an individual facing ruin as a result of a strike. Honors at Dawn (1937) also centers around a strike and contrasting views of the economy but focuses on an individual's inability to express himself. The Great Disobedience (1938) makes a connection between the prison system and capitalism. The Golden Years (1940) tells the story of Cortes despoiling Mexico, as well as the effects of ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

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 ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: