Arthur Miller

Conscience of the American Stage · Playwright · 1915–2005

The American playwright who turned the Salem witch trials into 'The Crucible', a mirror held up to the anti-communist hysteria of his own day, and who dramatised the individual conscience against the frightened crowd.

Who was Miller?

Arthur Miller was born in New York, and his family's ruin in the Depression sowed the seed of 'Death of a Salesman' and its broken dreamer, Willy Loman. In 1953, as Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee hunted supposed communists and demanded that people name names, Miller wrote 'The Crucible', dramatising the 1692 Salem witch trials, where accusation became proof and confession the only escape. Its hero John Proctor chooses death over a lie that would blacken his name. Miller himself was called before HUAC, refused to name others, and was convicted of contempt (later overturned). He married the film star Marilyn Monroe. His great theme was the individual conscience tested by the pressure of a fearful society.

Major achievements

• Wrote 'The Crucible', a classic of the modern stage and classroom
• Wrote 'Death of a Salesman', a landmark American tragedy
• Wrote 'A View from the Bridge' and 'All My Sons'
• Refused to name names before HUAC, at personal cost
• Shaped modern drama's engagement with social and moral responsibility

Life in brief

• 1915 — Born in New York: To a family later ruined in the Depression.
• 1947 — All My Sons: His first Broadway success.
• 1949 — Death of a Salesman: Wins the Pulitzer Prize.
• 1953 — The Crucible: Salem as an allegory of McCarthyism.
• 1956 — Called before HUAC: Refuses to name names; is convicted of contempt.
• 1957 — Conviction overturned: On appeal.
• 2005 — Dies: A giant of the American theatre.

Explore the life of Miller — five chapters

1. 1929 — A father's business, and a warehouse job to pay for college
2. Death of a Salesman — Attention must be paid
3. The Crucible — Salem in 1692, McCarthy in 1953
4. Before the Committee — 1956, and a conviction overturned
5. The Long Late Career — PEN, a farmhouse, and one private failure

Read the five-chapter life of Arthur Miller →

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