Arthur Miller - 1915
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Village Community School, New York City
I. Biography
Arthur Miller was born to Augusta and Isidore Miller in 1915. His family at the time was living at West 111th Street in Harlem. The Millers, along with much of Harlem, were of Jewish-German descent. He was the second of the Miller children. His older brother was Kermit and his younger sister was Joan. He spent most of his childhood growing up in Harlem. Then in 1929, his family moved to a totally different area of New York City. They moved to Brooklyn where they lived in a house at 1350 East 3rd Street. The house was later described by Miller to be like the house of Willy Loman, who is the main character in his play Death of Salesman . Arthur finished high school in New York at Abraham Lincoln High School.
After his graduation, Miller went on to work as a clerk in an automobile parts warehouse working for two–and-a half years to save money for his college education. Although he earned a lot of money, it didn't cover his whole college bill. The National Youth Administration gave him financial aid so he could pay for college. He attended the University of Michigan through 1938.
During College he had already begun his career in play writing. In 1936 he won the Avery Hopwood Award for $500. In 1938 Miller won $1200 from the Theater Guild National Award for The Grass Still Grows.
The next few years were very busy. After winning the prizes, Miller moved back to Brooklyn where he worked on the Federal Theater project. When this project was completed, Arthur worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Here he wrote radio scripts heard on Columbia Workshop and Calvacade of America. In 1940 he married Mary Grace Slattery. They lived together at 62 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Arthur and Mary had two children, Jane and Robert. During this time he wrote Situation Normal, a children's book, in 1944. Also in 1944, The Man Who Had All the Luck opened on Broadway. In 1945, he wrote the novel Focus . These past years for Miller had been a time where his personal life was blooming and his career was flourishing.
Arthur Miller wrote his first masterpiece All My Sons in 1947 while living at 102 Pierrepont Street. This play gave him his big break. He was now recognized by the public. After the huge success of this play he was able to buy 31 Grace Court. His next big success was Death of a Salesman which he wrote in his new home in 1949. It won Miller a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
After Death of a Salesman, the Millers moved to 155 Willow Street where Miller would take walks from his house to the Red Hook area of Brooklyn where he would explore the docks. He had grown up in a working class family and he had also worked on the docks in his youth. This inspired Miller to write the play A View From the Bridge in 1955. He also wrote other plays based on New York City life such as The Price, and Broken Glass.
In 1955 Mary Grace Slattery and Arthur Miller divorced. The following year Miller married Marilyn Monroe. They moved out of Brooklyn to 444 East 57th Street in Manhattan. Early on this marriage was headed for disaster. Miller wanted a divorce and got one on November 11th, 1960.
Miller wrote about Marilyn in a controversial play called After the Fall. The play is autobiographical; it discusses his marriages and other important events in his life. He fictionalizes Marilyn Monroe in it, which posed a problem because she had been so beloved by so many people. It opened at the new Lincoln Center. Not surprisingly critics didn't like it. Some of them even seemingly took personal blows at Miller in their reviews. Ever since then Miller and the New York Theater industry have not had such a great relationship. Although his plays continued to occasionally open in New York, Miller has had more success in recent years with London and countries abroad. Even though Miller's shows might open elsewhere, he remains one of the best American playwrights of all time.
In 1961 Miller remarried for the third time to Ingeburg Morath. Together they had one daughter named Rebecca. In 1986, Arthur Miller wrote an autobiography, Timebends A Life, dedicated to Inge. Today, they live together quietly in their Connecticut home.
II. Literary Discussion
Although Arthur Miller wrote a wide variety of plays on many topics, he likes to focus on certain themes and moral dilemmas. He often takes controversial world issues and works them into his writing. In The Crucible Miller expresses his opinion that scapegoating innocent people is not justifiable. He explains how wrong the Salem Witch trials of the 1690's were. Since he wrote the play during the Communist "witch hunts" of the 1950's, the play hit home for many people. Here he took a contemporary issue and disguised it in a historical event while condemning both events and the consequences of them. Another example is A View From the Bridge . Here Miller is trying to bring up the issue of the acceptability of going against your friend. This play aims to make readers question the act of betrayal and when, if ever, it is just. In both of these plays, Miller is raising moral issues, questioning, praising or condemning people for their actions and their behavior. These types of themes are repeatedly seen in Miller's work.
We can see in the play All My Sons, many of these same issues come up. The play is about a family named Keller, living in the post-World War II era in small-town America. The Keller family has two sons, one of whom was killed in the war. Much of the play is about how the mother believes that her son, Larry, is still alive. The other son, Chris, and the father have no hope of Larry coming back because it has been over three years. There is also conflict, which arises when the mother finds out that Chris has proposed marriage to Annie, Larry's girlfriend before he died. She believes that Annie is still "Larry's girl." The play has an underlying dirty secret that comes out. The father's factory allowed defective parts to be put in the airplanes being used in the war because he knew that if he remade the parts, he would lose money. As a result of his greed and desperation for money, many American boys died in the defective planes. He kept it a secret for many years of how much involvement he had in the scandal. When his son Chris finds out it creates turmoil and tension in the family. We see how money can make "good" people do irrational things, which in the long run can ruin their lives. It can make a business untrustworthy and a man selfish and self-involved. Joe Keller ends up only living for himself, not even caring what happens day-to-day in the rest of the world. In the end, money has torn strong bonds apart and his loved ones pay for his greed.
III. Literary Works
Plays
After the Fall (1967)
All My Sons (1949)
The American Clock (1980)
The Astonished Ceiling (1999)
Broken Glass (1993)
The Creation of the Word and Other Business (1972)
The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts (1953)
Danger: Memory! (1986)
Death of a Salesman (1953)
Elegy for a Lady (1983)
Incident at Vichy (1964)
The Last Yankee: With a New Essay About Theater Language (1994)
A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)
Mr. Peter's Connections (1999)
The Price (1968)
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991)
A View from the Bridge (1958)
Screenplays
The Crucible: Screenplay (1996)
The Misfits (1961)
Playing for Time (1985)
Novels
Focus
Stories
I Don't Need You Any More (1967)
Autobiography
Timebends: A Life (1987)
IV. Bibliography
Bryfonski, Dedria, ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism volume 10. Detroit, Michigan:
Gale Research Company, 1979.
Corbett, William. New York Literary Lights. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 1998.
Hart, James D. The Oxford Companion to American Literature. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995.
Miller, Arthur. Timebends: A Life. New York: Grove Press, 1987.
Riley, Carolyn and Barbara Harte, eds. Contemporary Literary Criticism volume 2.
Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1974.
Stine, Jean C, ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism volume 26. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1983.
Online sources
The American Writing Gateway, The American Collection Web site.
"Arthur Miller." Online. Netscape. Internet. 27 Feb. 2000. Available
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc10.htm
"Miller, Arthur." Online. Netscape. Internet. 05 March. 2000. Available
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=02FF0000
This essay was submitted by 8th grade students of Joan Brodsky Schur, a teacher at the Village Community School in New York City.