Arthur Miller

Arthur MillerArthur Miller is a great dramatist to come out of the 1940s; he has led the postwar new drama along with Tennessee Williams.Arthur Miller lived in the postwar period. The history background of this period multi-faceted: The world warⅡleaves people in fright and disturbance. Cold war and McCarthyism intensify the sense of fright. People started to doubt that technique really can bring people bliss. Besides, baby boom leads to the surge of population, which causes many environmental problems. Civil right movement in the 1960s gives black people much motivation, promoting the flourish of post war African American literature.Literature in this period is considered as “multi-cultural”literature. Many forms of post-modern fiction appeared, such as metafiction, anti-novel, surfiction, etc. The same mood in this period is despair, but continuing to search absurdity of modern life; lonely, but searching for the meaning of existence; identity.A typical theme of Arthur Miller’s concerns the dilemma of modern man in relation to his family and work. What occurs often in a miller play is that the hero finds himself under a pressure from his society and its ethics, tries in vain to extricate himself from the physical and spiritual quandary into which he has fallen and finds release only in death, often in the form of actual or virtual suicide. The world is harsh. There is little or no choice for the hero. Either he submits to the impossible demands of society, or he rejects them. He dies in either case. Miller is, however, not completely pessimistic. Reading his plays, one feels a faith in man and in life, however vague it may be, though very often gloom overweighs hope.Arthur Miller is best known as author of Death of a Salesman. It is a sad version of the American dream. The staging of death of a salesman, his masterpiece, won him the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and established him once and for all as a writer of no small talent. When miller did was to wipe out the old realistic stage setting and go back to the Elizabethan kind of stage where the audience saw a house which was only a frame.。

Arthur Miller的英文简介Arthur Miller Arthur Miller is a great dramatist to come out of the 1940s; he has led the postwar new drama along with Tennessee Williams. Arthur Miller lived in the postwar period. The history background of this period multi-faceted: The world warⅡ leaves people in fright and disturbance. Cold war and McCarthyism intensify the sense of fright. People started to doubt that technique really can bring people bliss. Besides, baby boom leads to the surge of population, which causes many environmental problems. Civil right movement in the 1960s gives black people much motivation, promoting the flourish of post war African American literature. Literature in this period is considered as “multi-cultural” literature. Many forms of post-modern fiction appeared, such as metafiction, anti-novel, surfiction, etc. The same mood in this period is despair, but continuing to search absurdity of modern life; lonely, but searching for the meaning of existence; identity. A typical theme of Arthur Miller’s conce rns the dilemma of modern man in relation to his family and work. What occurs often in a miller play is that the hero finds himself under a pressure from his society and its ethics, tries in vain to extricate himself from the physical and spiritual quandary into which he has fallen and finds release only in death, often in the form of actual or virtual suicide. The world is harsh. There is little or no choice for the hero. Either he submits to the impossible demands of society, or he rejects them. He dies in either case. Miller is, however, not completely pessimistic. Reading his plays, one feels a faith in man and in life, however vague it may be, though very often gloom overweighs hope. Arthur Miller is best known as author of Death of a Salesman. It is a sad version of the American dream. The staging of death of a salesman, his masterpiece, won him the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and established him once and for all as a writer of no small talent. When miller did was to wipe out the old realistic stage setting and go back to the Elizabethan kind of stage where the audience saw a house which was only a frame.。

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Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005) is universallyrecognized as one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century.Miller' s father had moved to the USA from Austria. Hungary, drawn like so many others by the "Great American Dream".However, he experienced severe financial hardship when his familybusiness was ruined in the Great Depression of the early l930s.Millers' s most famous play, Death of a Salesman, is apowerful attack on the American system, with its aggressive way ofdoing business and its insistence on money and social status asindicators of worth.In Willy Loman, the hero of the play, we see aman who has got into trouble with his worth. Willy is "burnt out"and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment: ifhe can't do the work, then he is no good to his employer, the Wagner Company, and he must go. Willy is painfully aware of this,and at loss as to what to do with his lack of success. He refuses toface the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the end.When it was first staged in 1949, the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, theNew York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize forDrama.It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury,Connecticut, on the evening of February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a Salesman onBroadway.1. Why did Arthur Miller' s father move to the USA?A. He suffered from severe hunger in his home country.B. He was attracted by the "Great American Dream".C. He hoped to make his son a dramatist.D. His family business failed.2. The play Death o f a Salesman ____ .A. exposes the cruelty of the American business worldB. discusses the ways to get promoted in a companyC. talks about the business career of Arthur MillerD. focuses on the skills in doing business3. What can we learn about Willy Loman?A. He treats his employer badly.B. He runs the Wagner Company.C. He is a victim of the American systemD. He is regarded as a hero by his colleagues4. After it was first staged, Death o f a Salesman ____ .A.achieved huge successB.won the first Tony AwardC. was warmly welcomed by salesmenD. was severely attacked by dramatists5.What is the text mainly about?A. Arthur Miller and his family.B.The awards Arthur Miller wonC.The hardship Arthur Miller experienced.D. Arthur Miller and his best-known play. 1-5: BACAD。

Arthur Miller1. Life experienceArthur Miller is an American playwright. He was born in 1915 to a fashion merchant in New York. Unable to afford his tuition, miller went to work after high school. He used his spare time to read a large number of books and developed a keen interest in literature. In 1934, after saving up for a year of college tuition, he enrolled at the university of Michigan, where he achieved scholarship and a night job: editing the Michigan daily. He wrote several plays during his college years and won two awards for dramatic creativity. From 1941 to 1944, Miller worked as a truck driver, waiter and laborer, but he never stopped producing plays, though several of his plays were not successful. In 1947, he published a new work, All My Sons, which was a success and won the New York theater critics prize. In 1949, miller's Death of A Salesman was a success, running 742 times in New York, make him win another New York theater critics award and his first Pulitzer Prizes. In 1953, his Purgatory hit Broadway and won the Tony Awards. In 1953, at the height of the cold war, miller wrote The Crucible. The play was created in response to senator McCarthy's crackdown on alleged communist sympathizers.In 1983, miller went to China to direct Death of A Salesman, a successful performance in China for which he wrote a memoir, A Salesman in Beijing.In 1995, he was awarded the William Engle festival Award. Arthur miller died of heart failure in the United States at the age of 89, on 10, 2005.2. A list of his major worksAll My Sons; Death of a Salesman; The Crucible;A View from the Bridge; Incident at Vichy; The Price3.Summary and appreciation of Death of a SalesmanWillie Lowman was a salesman in his 60s who dreamed of a day that he would be successful in business and have everything he wanted.However, years of hard work did not make him realize his dream, on the contrary, due to his increasinglyweak health, his work was poorer than before and finally he was fired from the company he worked for many years.The shock was a great sudden to him, and though he had a happy family he could not summon up confidence in life. Finally, he broke down and drove himself to death in the middle of the night.Through the death of the insignificant little man Willy Lowman, the play reflected the destruction and strangulation of the modern industrial society, and depicted the ruthless side of the capitalist society for the readers.It is particularly ironic that the author made Willie Lohman recall the lost happiness before he committed suicide, and made him try to recover what was valuable in his old life. However, it still failed to save his life, and he died in despair.The work was full of humor, showing strong dramatic conflict and strong philosophy.4. Features of his writingArthur miller's works are tragic works with realistic methods. His understanding of drama is distinctive and unique. He pushes ordinary people to the leading role of drama and reflects the cruel social reality with the "joys and sorrows" of ordinary people and little people. His plays are mainly presented in the form of tragedy, showing a strong sense of social responsibility.There are multiple internal contradictions between ancient and modern, tradition and innovation, local and foreign in the creation of his plays, which are sometimes puzzling, but also show the unique charm of his social plays.。