Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. Born on October 17, 1915, in Harlem, Arthur was the second of three children of Isidore and Augusta Miller. He was often in the public eye, during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this period he also testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe.
He was a far-famed and an important figure in the American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All my sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A view from the bridge (one-act, 1955; revised two-act, 1956), as well as the film The Misfits (1961).
In 2002, he received the Prince of Asturias Award and in 2003 the Jerusalem Prize.
In order to help his family, during his teen ages, Miller delivered bread every morning before school. In 1932, he graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School, yet he had to pay for his college tuition so he worked at several menial jobs.
Miller started his studies at the University of Michigan, from where he graduated in journalism and worked as a reporter and night editor for the student paper, the Michigan Daily. During this time, he wrote his first play, No Villain. Miller switched his major to English, and subsequently won the Avery Hopwood Award for No Villain. With this award Miller became renowned subsequently, he begun to consider that he could have a career as a playwright.
Miller decided to enroll in a playwriting seminar where he met Kenneth Rowe, a very influential professor who instructed him in his early forays into playwriting.
Miller wrote Honors at Down, in 1937, with which he received the Avery Hopwood A...
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...reat practitioner of the American stage, and Broadway theatres darkened their lights in a show of respect. Miller's alma mater, the University of Michigan opened the Arthur Miller Theatre in March 2007. As per his express wish, it is the only theatre in the world that bears Miller's name.
Others saw Miller as morally compromised or boring. Some considered Miller's artistic accomplishments meager.
Christopher Bigsby wrote Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography based on boxes of papers Miller made available to him before his death in 2005. The book was published in November 2008, and is reported to reveal unpublished works in which Miller "bitterly attack[ed] the injustices of American racism long before it was taken up by the civil rights movement".
Miller's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.
The Crucible is a play in which Arthur Miller parallels events of the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the problems that were plaguing his own society. The statement that most readers today bring out of the play is that history has a way of repeating itself. Miller's play was an extreme hit upon release and won a Tony award. The play is so popular today that many teachers in secondary schools use it to base their lesson around when teaching their students about 1692 Salem and there are multimedia activities based on Salem through The Crucible's view. Miller is often asked to speak at events where similar "witch hunts" occur, acting as a sort of expert on the subject of Puritan Salem and acts of hysteria.
Arthur Miller was an American author who was born in 1915. He wrote ‘the crucible’ in 1953 during the McCarthy period when Americans were accusing each other of pro-communist beliefs. Many of Miller’s friends were being attacked as communists and in 1956; Miller himself was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee where he was found guilty of beliefs in communism. The verdict was reversed in 1957 in an appeals court. The crucible was written to warn people about the mass hysteria that happened in Salem and how the McCarthy period could follow the same route.
Miller, Arthur. Why I Wrote The Crucible. New York: The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 1996. Print.
based his story, “The Crucible” A fictional play on the Salem witch trials. He wrote the play to
Arthur Miller was born in Harlem, New York on October 17, 1915 (“Blooms Notes” 8). Miller and his family lived in upscale Harlem for the first fourteen years of his life (8). Then after a terrible stock market crash that affected the family heavily, they moved to Brooklyn, New York (8). He attended the University of Michigan where he studied playwriting (8). Besides writing plays he wrote radio scripts, and worked as a steamfitter in World War II (Gioia and Kennedy 1763). He began writing plays around 1936, but “It was the next play that secured his
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Literature, Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes. Ed. Ellen Bowler, et al. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.
Writers may use literature as a vehicle of social criticism. In which ways does Arthur Miller criticize society?
Arthur Miller’s success first began with his Broadway play, All My Sons, in 1947. This award winning play “Struck a note that was to become familiar in Miller’s work: the need for moral responsibility in families and society”. (Anderson 1212) Later, his production Death of a Salesman left him the group of America’s top playwrights....
Arthur Miller was a good man, and with a good man comes character strengths. He always put forth the effort to judge a man by his rightful position and his fair play. He also attempted to judge a man by his moral sanity and his welfare of the community (Foner and Garraty, 1). Miller never judged someone based upon a first impression. He made great attempts to know people thoroughly before finally judging them. This was one of the greater strengths he posses in life. This helped him build the reputation that stuck with him over the years and that he became known for.
In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the madness of the Salem witch trials is explored in great detail. Arthur Miller was an American playwright, who was born in 1915. He grew up in a Jewish family in New York City. While attending the University of Michigan in the mid 1930’s, he began to characterize himself as a distinguished writer. His first plays were Honors at Dawn and No Villain. The Death of a Salesman, which he wrote in 1949, won him the Pulitzer Prize for literature.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller has been considered a modern classic for some time now. Millions of theaters have performed the show, and it has now become a staple in educational theater. The Playmakers Repertory Company decided to take on The Crucible for this year 's season, and director Desdemona Chiang took the modern classic and reinvented it to be something fresh and interesting.
Hugh Wheeler was one of the most unique playwrights of all time. He was innovative in his storytelling skills and could challenge the most prolific writer. In his life, he wrote numerous plays and over 30 mystery novels under three different pseudonyms. However, his award winning works included the play Sweeney Todd, Candide, and A Little Night Music. Take a look at Wheeler’s life and also, look at each of these works. See inside the man and the brilliant playwright.
Authors write with a purpose, sometimes this purpose is hidden and political, while sometimes it challenges the norm, while yet other times they write just to tell a moving story. In the end, however, all writers have the same goal: to produce a work that causes their readers to think about the plot and use their own mind to decipher the meaning. Arthur Miller is an exceptional author who possesses talent that exceeds the traditional author. Miller is one of the authors who chooses to challenge political figures, the norm, and many other assumed things about society, at least for his time. Arthur was born in 1915 and died in 2005; this gives a relative idea of the time period in which
Miller, Arthur.The Crucible.Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience. Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Pearson, 2010. 1126-233. Print.