Arthur Miller Influences

During the witch-hunt-like fiasco of the Red Scare in America, Arthur Miller was arguably one of the most influential authors. Although his famous play, The Crucible, likely greatly contributed to his indictment in 1956, he continued to criticize the hysteria of the era. Miller was able to remain composed during his trial and retained his opinion on McCarthyism and the hysteria that infected the nation at the time. Many of the social commentary of his plays are still relevant today. Miller’s early life was somewhat uneventful (especially when compared to later). He was born on October 17 1915 on New York. His father owned a coat manufacturing company but during the Great Depression, the business went under and Miller and his family relocated to Brooklyn (Biography.com Editors). After working to pay for college, he attended the University of Michigan where he initially majored in journalism before switching his major to English (Biography.com Editors).
As he grew older, Miller’s life was full of drama; he married three times and cheated on two out of his three wives. He married his first wife, Mary Slattery, in 1940 but they got a divorce in 1956 …show more content…
HUAC refused to renew his passport and summoned to appear before the committee (Biography.com Editors). Miller had likely been put on some kind of communist watch list back in 1951 when writing The Hook, a movie about the corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront. He showed the script to his boss who then showed it to the FBI. Miller’s boss then asked him to change the gangsters to communists, however he refused (Miller). Miller’s boss then accused him of being anti-American (Miller). Some time after this incident he began writing The Crucible. Miller’s main inspiration for it was not only the Red Scare, but also the rise of the extreme anti semitism in Europe during World War II