Arthur miller

Arthur Miller was a prominent American playwright and essayist in the twentieth century who received quite a number of awards. He wrote some very famous plays like Death of Salesman, Who Has Seen the Wind, How I Spent My Summer Holidays, All My Sons, The Crucible, and Broken Glass. The play Death of a Salesman received exceptional recognition all over the world. This play has attained tremendous popularity because Arthur Miller reflected his life experiences in the play: Miller was represented by Biff; the settings were all familiar to Miller; both Miller and Biff failed math; and both Miller and his main characters are womanizers.

Miller was born in 1915 and he wrote the Death of a Salesman in 1949, at the age of 34. In the play, he mentions that Biff is also 34 years old. Miller was a very active young man, who loved to play football and baseball; therefore he portrayed Biff as a very talented football player. Furthermore, Miller used to work in a warehouse on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, so he chose for Biff to be a shipping clerk in the play.

Miller’s father was a rich factory owner and his family all lived in the neighbourhood of Harlem in Manhattan, N.Y. After the recession in 1930, Miller’s father lost almost everything and the family moved to a small apartment in Brooklyn. Their apartment building was surrounded by other high apartment buildings with no trees on the streets or in the parks. Miller portrayed the same sort of settings in his play: Willy’s residence was surrounded by high apartment buildings, with no trees around the house and no cross ventilation.

Miller was not a good student and he failed math three times in high school. He tried to get admission to university on the basis of his football skills, but he c...

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...o their weddings. Happy and Biff’s ruthless womanizing trait was shown when they left with “chippies”, leaving their father alone at the restaurant. All of the main male characters in the play are womanizers, choosing new women over other commitments like marriage or a father in distress.

Arthur Miller is an example of a successful American playwright, drawing from his own life. Death of a Salesman stemmed from Arthur Miller's personal experiences, and its popularity was due to its closeness to reality and its depiction of pursuing the American dream. Miller perfectly and beautifully mixed and mingled his personal experiences with fiction. For example, in the way he represented Biff in the play, how Miller included his childhood neighborhood descriptions, by including his failure in math, and by incorporating his affections for different women throughout his life.