Twaynes United States Authors Series

Download or read book Arthur Miller written by Leonard Moss and published by New College & University Press. This book was released on 1967 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Arthur Miller's plays register indignant protests against injustice, suggesting a humanistic thesis on social repsonsibility. In his best writing, however, that thesis is implied, not prescribed. Miller's moral insight focuses most clearly upon psychological processes: when his characters fervently defend egocentric attitudes, their futility evokes a genuine sense of terror and pathos that indirectly but powerfully reinforces his theory on the necessity for meaningful accommodation between individual and society. Centering his attention on Miller's technical resources - dialogue styles, symbolic devices, and structural principles - the author undertakes to judge the success with which the progressions of personality, theme, and tension have been executed. He concludes that Miller has often been led into enlarging the "interior psychological question" with "codes of social and ethical importance" (Miller's phrases) in a way that has weakened his work. Nevertheless, Miller's achievement remains an exceptional one in the American theater."