Portrait of Arthur Miller
Meet the Author

Arthur Miller

American · 1915–2005 · Playwright

Portrait: Wolfgang Fischer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A New York playwright who put ordinary people under public pressure on stage, from a worn-out salesman in Brooklyn to the accused of Salem in 1692.

2 StoryBites Editions2 Big Books
Start with The Crucible → Browse the editions

Why read Arthur Miller?

The Crucible returns to the Salem witch trials to show how fear, old grudges, and the demand to confess can take hold of a whole town, and how John Proctor weighs his good name against his life. Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman through his last days as his job, his memories, and his hopes for his sons give way at once, and the play slides between present and past the way Willy’s mind does. Both plays ask what a person owes to the truth when a lie would be easier. Start with The Crucible for its clear drive, then read Salesman.

A life in six dates

  1. 1915Born in New York City
  2. 1929The stock market crash begins the ruin of his father’s coat business
  3. 1947All My Sons becomes his first Broadway success
  4. 1949Death of a Salesman opens on Broadway and wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
  5. 1953The Crucible opens on Broadway
  6. 1956Refuses to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and marries Marilyn Monroe
  7. 1957Convicted of contempt of Congress, a verdict overturned on appeal the next year
  8. 2005Dies in Roxbury, Connecticut

Themes across the collection

PlaysAmerican literatureTragedyAmerican DreamFamilyHistorical dramaAllegoryGuiltBetrayal and loyalty

The StoryBites Editions

Context that actually matters

The Salem witch trialsIn 1692 accusations in Salem Village, Massachusetts, led to trials in which twenty people were executed. Miller kept many real names but changed facts, such as making Abigail Williams a young woman rather than a girl of about eleven.
McCarthyismIn the early 1950s congressional committees pressed witnesses to name former Communist associates, and careers ended over a name. Miller wrote The Crucible in that climate and later refused to name names himself.
Selling and successWilly believes charm and popularity are the road to success, a version of the American Dream the play tests against an economy that has stopped needing him.

Reading the plays and snagging on the language? A Glossary of Common Shakespearean Words →