아더 밀러와 20세기: 텍스트의 역사성

This study is to investigate the historicity of texts in Arthur Miller’s well-known plays by comparing them with the 20th century’s historic events. As a Jewish-American writer, Miller experienced or witnessed the Depression, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and suffered from McCarthyism. He married Marilyn Monroe and divorced. Marilyn committed suicide after divorce. Miller dramatized all these tragic events in his major Plays. It can be said that his text is history and history is his text. The economic shock of the Depression was traumatizing to Miller. In Death cf a Salesman and The Price, he criticizes the relentlessly inhumane attitude of American business world. In All My Sons, Miller considers individual’s moral responsibility during the war. Miller is opposed to the people who take advantage of a war to take their profit The Crucible represents both of the 17th century’s Salem witch hunt and 1950’s McCarthyism, which was one of the most shameful events in American history. The Second World War and the Holocaust made Miller recognize that everybody has the root of evil in his mind. In After the Fall and Incidents at Vichy, he thinks Nazism as part of an ubiquitous sin. The nightmare of the Holocaust seems to be not only confined to the past but also to the present. As a social dramatist, Miller never forgets the confrontation and committment with the history he belongs to.