Arthur Miller: A Tribute

His work reflected his sensitivity for the underlying malaise in American society, writes Binay Kumar.

Arthur Millers' quiet death last week at age 89 precipitated reams of newsprint and media commentaries; and I was struck by the manner of the writer's portrayals on the broadsheet covers and the electronic media. The stories - including those sympathetic or indifferent - conjured images of Miller with a sultry Marilyn; those of us who missed the papers could listen to the radio and one could yet picture him in a nondescript suit and big round accountant frames, looking somewhat worried by the flashes and attempting to feign a smile, and her in a bright white dress, oozing style and Hollywood glamour from every pore.

Monroe's public image was an acute representation of the superficial, successful America; her skin was fine, and her hair was always flowing; her lips were full, and her smile, as one star-struck correspondent once noted in his dispatches, was 'resonant of a million lightbulbs powered by a million watts of electricity'; she looked perfect, flawless and almost without any mortal competition.

And despite his marriage, Miller was always concerned with exposing flaws in this mosaic of magical perfection. His work reflected the writer's acute sensitivity for the underlying malaise and the undercurrent of desperation that fraught suburban yearnings in the American sensibility. I have serious doubts whether the decision to run that last image of him and his former wife was motivated by a sense of this juxtaposition; however, it was, perhaps, the perfect play on his last and final day - one that might have been penned by Miller himself.

His great insight was (what I have always thought of as) the hidden nightmare in the American dream. I remember reading Death of A Salesman, his magnum opus, and having that 'revelation' which only works of geniuses instantly inspire: I wished, rather timidly, that I had thought of it first. The idea was obvious and simple, and despite its American setting, was universal in its extension; through the family of Willy Lomans, Miller exposed the frailty of human life, and the utter hopelessness of subscribing to the fashion of the times.

The play ripped through the heart of the quintessential American life, its ethos, and its much vaunted dream of a nirvana that was almost, and at least materially, divine. And although he believed in the strength of American ideas, Miller the writer made it his mission to expose the corruption spawned by parochialism and ignorance.

Why is Miller important or relevant anymore? Because, as one tribute noted grimly, he "knew the impossibility of sharply dividing the political from the moral and the public from the personal. Miller instructed us on the individual's obligation to stand up to frightened, and thus dangerous, majorities. But he also offered a withering moral critique of an empty individualism that saw no connection between personal actions and a common good that Miller devoutly believed existed. He preached against selfishness because he knew its strong tug on our souls. He was a moralist deeply suspicious of how moralism is used."

Think of him today and we can make sense of the damage caused by the likes of Donald Trump in the life of America, and depressingly, more and more, in the life of the world. The louche panache of Trump's prime-time motto, 'You're Fired', spotlights Millers message. Packaged dreams of the kind peddled on 'reality television' actually distort reality - the reality of, as he put it himself, the problems of living.

Critically he never managed to outdo Death of a Salesman. The Crucible, his next big success, was an account of contemporary McCarthyism. But my personal favourite has always been The Price, written in 1968 - another suburban story, of two estranged brothers who return to their family home after 16 years apart to dispose of their deceased father's furniture.

The play takes sharp turns as the elder son, Victor Franz, a 50-year-old cop, his wife, Esther, and a 90-year-old furniture appraiser, Gregory Solomon, discuss the value of the heirloom. They are joined by Walter, a successful doctor and Victor's brother, who has just returned. The contents of the house soon begin to explain and tell the painful memories that initially cause the brothers to part ways, hauntingly recreating a time of family acrimony for the audience.

I could go on for pages, recounting smart turns and intelligent storylines from Miller's corpus, but I want to end this tribute with some of the sharpest words that I have ever read anywhere, from the Death of A Salesman. The scene is set for Linda, Willy Loman's wife, to tell her sons, Biff and Happy, why their father, despite his conventionally unsuccessful life, matters. Already, without the dialogue, the setting is enough to stoke an array of ideas about family and society, how one compliments the other, and how the depravity of one can lead to the destruction of the other -

I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid!

And yes, attention will always be paid to Arthur Miller, for a realistic portrayal of human life caught in the dialectics of a material world.