Miller, Arthur

Miller, Arthur (1915–2005), American playwright, born in New York and educated at the University of Michigan. He made his name with All My Sons (1947) and established himself as a leading dramatist with Death of a Salesman (1949), in which a travelling salesman, Willy Loman, is brought to disaster by accepting the false values of contemporary society. This was followed by other plays including The Crucible (1952), in which the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 are used as a parable for McCarthyism in America in the 1950s; A View from the Bridge (1955), a tragedy of family honour and revenge; The Misfits (1961), a screenplay written for his then wife, Marilyn Monroe; After the Fall (1964); The Price (1968); Playing for Time (1981); Broken Glass (1994); and Resurrection Blues (2002). He has also published short stories and essays, and adapted Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1951). Although most of Miller's plays are set in contemporary America, and on the whole offer a realistic portrayal of life and society, the overtones from Ibsen and Greek tragedy are frequently conspicuous, and the theme of self-knowledge and self-realization is recurrent.