preview

arthur miller

Better Essays

A
In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken.
Arthur Miller was born in Manhattan in 1915 to Jewish immigrant parents. By 1928, the family had moved to Brooklyn, after their garment manufacturing business began to fail. Witnessing the societal decay of the Depression and his father’s desperation due to business failures had an …show more content…

His insight into the psychology of desperation and his ability to create stories that express the deepest meanings of struggle, have made him one of the most highly regarded and widely performed American playwrights. In his eighty-fifth year, Miller remains an active and important part of American theater.

B. Before analysing Miller’s view of tragedy one must reconsider the traditional view, originally formulated by Aristotle and his critics, which Miller adapted and reinterpreted. Aristotelian tradition in the broadest terms defined tragedy as the imitation in prescribed dramatic form of a serious, complete human action, of great enough significance to be worthy of representation, which will strike the audience with pity and fear, two emotions far removed from sentimental tears. The hero of such a tragedy must be neither perfectly virtuous nor completely base but rather a man, great yet humanely fallible, who is preordained to suffer because of the fate of his inward character and a catastrophic series of events in the outward world. Also, he must never die ignorant of the circumstances of his fall, at somepoint, usually just before his death, he must undergo the painful process of discovery or revelation through which he will come to understand the reasons for and the significance of his role(and may make ‘tragic reconciliation” with life).
Aristotle specified that in Tragedy, the characters are portrayed as men far above the

Get Access