Structure, Character, And Theme In The Plays Of Arthur Miller

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Content This dissertation h u been microfilmed exactly u n c d n d MURRAY, Edward James, 1928- STRUCTURE, CHARACTER, AND THEME IN THE PLAYS OP ARTHUR MILLER. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1966 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms. Inc.. Ann Arbor, M ichigan - Copyright by Edward James Murray 1966 STRUCTUREf CHARACTER, AND THEME IN THE PLAYS OF ARTHUR MILLER by Edward James Murray A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (English) June 1966 UNIVERSITY O F SO U TH ERN CALIFORNIA TH E GRADUATE SCH OOL U N IVERSITY PARK LO S ANGELES, C A LIFO R N IA 0 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by __________J& dw .ard.Jaxn£j& .M iu;x& ¥__________ under the direction of Ms. Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF P H ILO SO P H Y DISSERTATION COM M ITTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION...................................... 1 Chapter I. THAT THEY MAY WIN...................... 11 Structure Character Theme Summary THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK Structure Character Theme Summary II. ALL MY SONS.............................. 41 Structure Character Theme Summary HI. DEATH OF A SALESMAN........................ 77 Structure Character Theme Summary ii Chapter IV. THE CRUCIBLE................ Structure Character Theme Summary V. A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS .... Structure Character Theme Summary VI. A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE . . . . f 1 Structure Character Theme A Note on the Two Versions of A View from the Bridge Summary VII. AFTER THE FALL .............. Structure Character Theme Summary A Note on The Misfits vill. IflCIPEHT AT VICHY . . . Structure Character Theme Summary CONCLUSION . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY Page i 135 | 178 209 264 320 356 367 JLii_ INTRODUCTION Discussing Arthur Miller several years ago, Gerald Weales said: i * ! There are many ways of approaching Miller's work. In the late Forties . . . popular reviewers tended to em brace him enthusiastically while consciously intellectual critics, displaying the carefulness of their kind, hoped that in explaining him they might explain him away. For | a time, his plays were lost in discussions of the author's politics . . . or were buried beneath the pointless aca demic quibble about whether or not they are true trage dies . . . In the last few years, however, with no new Miller play to stir up opinion, his work has begun to be considered outside the immediate context that produced it. i I Weales adds that, for him, "the most profitable way of look-j i ing at [Miller's] work is through his heroes," and he then abstracts from each Miller play an image of the hero.1 If Weales's method is what he means by a new critical "Arthvjr Miller: Man and His Image," Tulane Drama Re view, . VII (Fall 1962), 165-166. Miller, of course, has pre sented two plays since this article was written, but that fact does not, unhappily, alter the situation which has prompted my quotation from Weales. approach, I find it something less than encouraging. Weales is a fair and sane critic, and his method is a familiar and fairly useful one; but, in the final analysis, it fails through incompleteness. A play is a totality. Fragmenta tion is the shortcoming, to express it charitably, of all criticism of Miller up to the present time. There is not one book, not one article, not one thesis or dissertation I that devotes itself adequately to an analysis of a single I I Miller play as a unique dramatic entity. In spite of the i fact that even hostile critics admit that Miller, along with i Williams, is our only dramatist worthy to be mentioned with O'Neill, there are no studies of Miller comparable to the work of, say, David Magarshack on Chekhov. If it be ob- i jected that Miller does not deserve such close study, I ! I I reply that he seems to have inspired more than his share of "distant" study— the kind referred to by Weales. Much of what does purport to be technical discussion of Miller is in I reality no more than bald assertion. Robert Warshaw, for example, says that Miller's "plays 2 are . . . neatly put together and essentially . . . empty." 2 " T h e Liberal Conscience in The Crucible." Commentary. XV (March 1953), 265-271. Arthur Ganz declares that Miller "has seen human character as‘ simpler than it is, as too easily— too cheaply— made 3 virtuous. ..." A sympathetic critic, Dennis Welland, remarks that Miller's problem has been "to keep in dramatic balance his natural ability to create human and sympathetic characters and his tendency to didactic moralization of his 4 scenes and themes." Mary McCarthy, not so much in rapport I with Miller's work as Welland, says that Miller is "vague" on "concrete detail" and the "particularthat he regards the "specific as trivial," and that his paramount aim is "a hollow reverberant universality."5 Usually, critics re duce Miller's themes to a single preoccupation, namely, the question of "integrity."6 Similarly, Miller's aesthetic bias has been tidily restricted to being chiefly "objective" 3"The Silence of Arthur Miller," Drama Survey. Ill (October 1963), 225. 4Arthur Miller (Iondon, 1961), p. 49. 5,1'Realism' in the American Theater," Harper's. CCXXIII (July 1961), 51. ®"It is a critical commonplace that the commitments of Mr. Miller's plays are ideological rather than personal . . . His characteristic theme is integrity, and its obverse, compromise." (Richard Hayes, "The Stages The Crucible." Commonweal, February 20, 1953, p. 498.) ! 7 and "sociological." John Howard Lawson is convinced that Miller's characters have lost their will, and, for that reason, "Miller's dilemma is central to the theatrical cul- i * I 1 8 Iture of our time." In line with Lawson' s view is Henry | jPopkin's belief that, "Whatever personal contributions Miller's heroes may make to their misfortunes, the main i l burden of guilt is usually borne by the dominant forces in 9 their society." It has been said that Miller's view of man is too narrow and too limited, that he fails to reveal ! j j"the ontological ground upon which the truly meaningful act must stand. Richard Gilman puts it less delicately: [Miller] is a master faute de mieux. a playwright whose dramatic imagination has always operated within the most stringent limitations, a narrow realist with a hopeless aspiration to poetry, and a moralist with greatly inade quate equipment for the projection of moral complexity. ^Richard Watts, Jr., " Introduction" to The Crucible (New York, 1959), p. xiii. ^Theory and Technique of Plavwritina (New York, 1960), p. xxxii. 9"Arthur Miller: The Strange Encounter," Sewanee Re view. LXVIII (Winter 1960), 44. l°Tom F. Driver, "Strength and Weakness in Arthur Mil ler," Tulane Drama Reviewr IV (May 1960), 48-52. ll"The Stage: Still Falling," Commonwealr February 14, 11964, p. 600. 5 If Miller, along with Williams, Aa. in fact our only drama- j tist comparable to O'Neill, then this brief review of criti- I cal opinion about him— and much of this opinion, as I shall show, is contradictory— underlines the need for a close study of his individual plays. j My subject, then, is all Miller's plays, with the ex ception of his adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemv of the People (1950), starting with That They Mav Win (1943), and includ- ing The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), All Mv Sons (1947), Death Of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A Memory of XHQ Mondays (1955), A View from the Bridge (1955), After the Fall (1964), and Incident at Vichv (1965). My method is technical analysis, and by that I intend the following: first, to isolate structure, giving particular attention to a summary of the action and an examination of exposition, foreshadowing, the point of attack, point of view, conflict, tension, the turning point, and climax and conclusion; sec ond, to describe and analyze character, focusing chiefly on traits, logical development, and credibility; and, finally, to analyze theme, to determine whether the parts fuse into unity— whether, in short, the play has completed form. It might be objected that I have not devoted a section in my Study to dialogue. The reason for this omission is that i i jMiller's language Is, in itself, far from being "poetic," land a study that focused on this feature of his writing i would merely report the obvious in play after play. There I i is, however, another way of looking at dialogue, namely, in terms of its ability to forward the action, to reveal char- ! | jacter, and to extend, thematically, the scope of the action, !and in my study I have not neglected this feature of Mil ler's art but have subsumed it under structure, character, land theme. A few additional remarks would seem to be in order. First of all, I sun aware that a strictly "literary" approach to a play has certain limitations. For a long time now, we have been told that a play has values that only performance can bring to realization, and I would not, of course, deny the obvious fact. I would deny, however, that a play cannot 12 be "read" at all. Few critics point out the opposite fact, that performance may also obscure certain elements in a play, for one reason or another, that only a study of the 12"Stanislavsky used to say that it was impossible to i'read1 a Chekhov play. And, of course, this is quite true of any play. ..." (David Magarshack, Chekhov the Drama tist [New York, 1960], p. xii.) text can correct.13 Second, I want to define my terms. By ; I [structure r I mean the division of a play into acts and j ! i {scenes, plus the causal or logical relationships of part to i i ipart. By scene. I intend "a portion of the total play in } p/hich the stage is occupied by an unchanging group of play- 14 ^ers." When the grouping changes in any way, there is a 1 * new scene. By characterizationr X mean the specific tech niques employed in dialogue and action which the playwright I invents to project, a three-dimensional image— or character. j By form. I mean the "shape" which results from the fusion of all parts of a play. I want to emphasize the distinction between "theme" and "thesis." As John Gassner says: So long as the individual is not dwarfed by the social analysis or transformed into the puppet of social forces, "theme" is in little danger of being reduced to "thesis." So long as theme is not whittled down to thesis, there is little danger of the characters being reduced to pup pets .15 13"Even the painstaking Jed Harris production [of The Crucible 1 failed to capture the movement toward tragedy and toward unity through character drama Miller developed in his script. This achievement can be observed in the published Viking Press text." (John Gassner, Theater at the Cross roads [New York, I960], p. 276.) i4Alan S. Downer, The Art of the Plav (New York, 1955), p. 170. i | 15"Tragic Perspectives: A Sequence of Queries," Tulane Drama Review. II (May 1958), 14.---------------------------- |The question is important because, as I have already sug gested, Miller has been criticized for being a didactic i ! playwright. Miller, in his "Preface" to the Ibsen adapta- ! j tion, says that he changed certain parts of An Enemy of the I People because, in his view, those parts "no longer prove i 16 jthe theme." This is, perhaps, an unfortunate expression. One critic suggests that Miller's burning desire "to prove 17 the theme" is manifest in all his plays. The present study assumes that unity of theme is important in a play. There must be coherence; there must be inner consistency. According to William Archer: Though the presence of logic should never be forced upon the spectator's attention, still less should he be dis turbed and baffled by its conspicuous absence.^ But the theme should also square with a "mature" vision of experience, and "the maturity of a work of art is its in clusiveness, its awareness of complexity, its ironies and 19 tensions." The critic, in this view, need not concur with 16(New York, 1951), p. 10. 17William Wiegand, "Arthur Miller and the Man Who KnowsWestern Review. XXI (1957), 85-103). | 18plav—Making (New York, 1960), p. 194. ^Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature |the dramatist in order to value his work: j [The dramatist] can show us that he has at least a sat isfactory arasn of experience; that is, whatever his j conclusions, he sees things with sufficient flexibility, comprehensiveness, and consistency. He can . . . guard against our accusing him of (1) oversimplifying the situation; (2) failing to grasp all the implications and ramifications; (3) arriving at too easy a solution; I and (4) being inaccurate through partisanship.2° | : The criteria, then, remain as nearly as possible for malist ones. If the theme of a play is unified, complex, tand relevant; if the structure is sound, logical, and dynam- I ic; if character is vivid, believable, consistent, and pal pable; if there is tension and integrity; if dialogue is functional— if the play has all these, that, to my judgment, i I is dramatic art of rare achievement. | Raymond Williams has said: j Miller, for all the marks of difficulty, uncertainty, and weakness that stand within the intensity of his effort, seems clearly a central figure in the drama and con sciousness of our time.21 In the study that follows, I wish to show whv. as an artist, (New York, 1942), p. 236. 20deanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman, Understanding Drama (New York, 1945), p. 75. 21"The Realism of Arthur Miller," Critical Quarterly. I (Summer 1959), 117. 10 Arthur Miller deserves to be considered "a central figure in the drama and consciousness of our time.1 1 i CHAPTER I ! i THAT THEY MAY WIN I Structure j That They Mav Win (1943) ,1 Arthur Miller's early one- i i i act play, was not written- to be taken seriously as a work of dramatic art. According to Margaret Mayorga, the play j > was written with a specific acting group in mind: Stage for Action is a socially-minded dramatic group in New York . . . The productions are frankly propaganda for sound social thinking, designed to drive home a point in half the time a speech can, and with twice the effec tiveness .2 : - i The play calls for brief mention, however, because with its ! emphasis on message at the expense of other dramatic ele ments, it underscores a recurrent problem in Miller's work. That They Mav Win is set in the kitchen of a married *The Best One-Act Plavs of 1944. ed. Margaret Mayorga (New York, 1945), pp. 45-49. ^Mayorga, p. 47. ! 12 I couple during the second World War. The problem is focused I immediately. Delia, the wife, tells her troubles to her i friend, Ina. Danny, who has returned from the army with a I ! ' {disability discharge, is not happy with their apartment: the rent is too high and their income is too low. Enter | Danny then, and exit, after a few jokes, Ina. The young i couple attempt to solve their problem. Danny offers several personal solutions to the discussion, but Delia quickly disillusions him about the effectiveness of such proposals. Soon Danny begins to scream at his wife for not protesting against the situation while he was fighting in Italy. This is the turning point of the action. Suddenly a Distressed Man speaks from the audience, criticizing Danny for abusing j Delia when nothing can be done about the situation anyway. A Second Man reminds the Distressed Man that it is "only a play" (p. 56). Danny, laughing, assures the Distressed Man that there is "a solution to the play" (p. 57). At this point, the Man Who Knows enters the fray. He agrees with Danny— the problem can be solved; but he is impatient with histrionics: "To hell with the play!" (p. 57). The solu tion, he argues, is a social one. The "people" must organ ize and lobby in Washington: "Get us more funds for the 6PA s o there'11 be money enough to see that price control is really enforced!" (p. 58). After "driving home the Ipoint," the Man Who Knows says: "I'm awfully sorry I in- i I iterrupted the play; you can go ahead and finish now"; to which Danny replies: "That is just the way it was supposed i jto end" (p. 59). I I This crude and simple structure requires little com ment. The vague designation of place— "The home front" — suggests Miller's didactic intentions. The problem is i baldly outlined at the beginning; the solution is baldly proposed at the end. The solution is merely asserted; the audience is not made to experience the solution in dramatic action. For exposition, Miller uses a venerable and not very imaginative device, a confidant. In a form where econ- i omy is everything, Miller allows two out of a total of i i eleven pages to Delia and Ina. A more experienced craftsman would have eliminated Ina from the script and permitted the feu: from complicated facts to emerge in dialogue between the chief actors in the piece. Foreshadowing is also unsatis factory. Danny's calm assurance, for example, that a solu tion is forthcoming looks back to Anthony Trollope's gauche- rie in the novel form. At the turning point, the structure ceases to be consequential and the play becomes wholly de scriptive; instead of action there is subject. The climax, ' 14 j thanks to Miller's impatience to deliver his message, is joutside the realm of dramatic illusion entirely; it is non- art. Character The characters are constructed along very simple lines jand sympathy for their plight is aroused in an obvious and transparent fashion. Danny is the perfect war hero; Delia is the perfect self-effacing wife; Ina is the perfect loyal friend. 'Miller divides humanity neatly in half. The "good guys" are the "people" and the American soldiers; the "bad guys" are the war profiteers and the Nazi soldiers. At one point, Danny says: "I killed twenty-eight of the lowest dogs in the world" (p. 52). Thus, the "bad guys" are ban ished from the human community. Danny is the archetype of the Simple Man; says Delia: "I want him like he was when he went away, all full of nice thoughts . . ." (p. 51). When Danny "went away," then, there were no "bad thoughts" mixed with the "nice thoughts" to make him disturbingly human. A similar unreality surrounds Ina, chiefly because of the way she expresses herself: "Listen, I brought you a steak. I'm allergic to steaks" (p. 50); "My Saturday night special is detained in New Guinea" (p. 51); "My foreman's got a crush on me. He keeps putting ration stamps in my locker. Could 'it be love?" (p. 51). This language is derived from Grade B films and popular recordings of the period, not from a freshly observed character. Delia says: "They cut your throat for a bunch of carrots. I go out and I spend five dollars and I come back with a bag full of nothing" (p. 54). This is better— *it catches the vernacular perfectly. In view of the fact, however, that there is no density or com plexity in the play, it is a stylistic feat only; unlike even the worst cliches of Willy Loman (such as "The woods are burning"), which succeed in establishing him as a suf fering individual in a specific context, this does nothing to place Delia. Life-like dialogue is valuable, even mov ing, only when there is a life-like character to utter the words and to engage the reader's interest. Theme That They Mav Win is a simple thesis drama: "The people must get together to enforce the OPA1" The implica tion is that man, through social action, can control his fate. Instead of being shades of gray, the issues are black and white, and there is no longer any interest in the speci fic problem. That They May Winr the most dated of Miller's plays, has a single merit— it is a convenient yardstick With which to measure the playwright's future course of development. Summary The structure of That They Mav Win is crude and simple; i <it is a bald thesis play. The characters are black and white puppets, and the dialogue fails to individualize the speakers sufficiently. The thesis is over-simple in treat ment, verbalized rather than dramatized, and no longer spe cifically relevant. j THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK Structure Arthur Miller's first published three-act play, The Man 3 Who Had All the Luck, was produced in 1944 and closed after four performances. In his "Introduction" to the Collected Plays. Miller says: iThe Man Who Had All the Luck! was an investigation to discover what exact part a man played in his own fate. It deals with a young man [David Frieber] in a small town who, by the time he is in his mid-twenties, owns several growing businesses, has married the girl he loves, is the father of a child he has always wanted, and is daily becoming convinced that as his desires are gratified he is causing to accumulate around his own ; head an invisible but nearly palpable fund ... of retribution. The law of life, as he observes life around him, is that people are always frustrated in some important regard; and he conceives that he must be too, and the play is built around his conviction of impending disaster. The disaster never comes, even when, in effect, he tries to bring it on in order to survive it and find peace. Instead, he comes to believe in his own super iority, and in his remarkable ability to succeed.4 3In Cross-Section: A Collection of New American Writ ing (New York, 1944), pp. 486-552. 4(New York, 1957), pp. 13-14. 17 18 Miller adds, quite rightly I feel, that "far from being a waste and a failure this play was a preparation, and pos sibly a necessary one, for those that followed. . . . "5 | The first act is divided into two scenes. Scene One takes place in Shory's store, part of which, out of sight in this scene, is used by David Frieber as a garage. A problem is immediately posed: David is in love with Hester Falk and he wants to marry her, but Hester's father, Andrew, forbids the marriage. The solution would seem to be for David to elope with Hester; however, as Shory points out, that would entail the loss of David's business. Shory, who was crippled in the first World War, disparages David's attempts to solve his problem, for, according to Shory: "About what happens to him a man has got nothin' to say" (p. 489). David refuses to accept this dreary view of life. J. B. Feller, a local businessman, shares David's optimism: "the smell of luck . . . hangs on [David] like a coat" (p. 491). Two more optimists, Patterson Beeves and his son Amos, enter. Ever since Amos was a child, Patterson has been training him to be a big league baseball pitcher. The secret of success, Patterson believes, is concentration, the ^Miller, "Introduction," p. 14. 19 pursuit of one fixed goal. Patterson refuses to call a big league scout, however, because he feels that the big moment j ;should arrive "naturally." After the inconsequential en trance and exit of David's Aunt Belle, Hester appears and I implores David to confront her father before the latter i ! sends her away from David. A complication develops when J. B. informs David that he must not leave town in pursuit |of Hester because Dan Dibble, J. B.'s brother-in-law, wants jDavid to repair his Marmon, and, if David succeeds in re pairing it, J. B. suggests, the young man will be the bene ficiary of increased business stemming from Dibble's grati tude. David, who is basically unsure of himself, is not certain that he can repair the Marmon. Suddenly Mr. Falk puts in an appearance, informing David that, in view of the fact that David is an orphan and hence unstable, he will kill the boy if he does not cease his attentions to Hester. After Falk exits, David curses the fate that has made Andrew Falk an impediment to his romance. Shory reminds David that no man can control his fate. As if to substantiate Shory's philosophy, fate steps into the act and eliminates Andrew Falk as an obstacle to David's happiness. Hester and Dan Dibble return and relate that Mr. Falk was killed by iDibble's car— the same car that, if David can repair it, 20 will be the means of making David rich. Scene Two of the first act takes place several hours !later in David's garage. David, baffled by the Marmon, is beginning to feel that perhaps he will not be able to repait the car and become rich. Happily, however, Gustav Eberson, i ; a mechanic who has just moved into town and who plans to i I open a garage himself, appears and introduces himself. Gus i does not care about becoming rich; his gaze is fixed on more |lofty goals. Consequently, he proceeds, as a gesture of ; friendship, to repair the Mar mo n for David. Later, when |J. B. and Hester enter, David neglects to inform them that I it was Gus who had repaired the car. Although David feels ; guilty about this deception, J. B. and Hester are very op** timistic about the future and they predict great things for i 1 David. The act ends, though, on a slow and ominous curtain. The first scene of Act Two is in the living room of % David's house, three years later. In spite of his marriage j to Hester and his increased business, David is not complete* ly happy because he and Hester remain childless. Gus, who works for David now, advises him to see a doctor, but David |is reluctant to force the issue, in view of his conviction that he does not deserve to be sterile: "If people don't ! I receive according to what they deserve inside then we're i living in a madhouse"; to which Gus replies: "Madhouse, l jyes . . . that's a wonderful word for it!" (p. 517). Harry I Bucks, a mink dealer, appears then and seeks to interest I David in a mink farm. As David sees it, his various suc- icesses in love and business have come to him through luck, ! whereas raising mink would place the responsibility square- i ly in his own hands— hence, the mink would become a means oi: David's discovering his intrinsic value. The final decision is postponed, however, as Patterson and Amos arrive. The whole town is going to the ballpark to watch Amos pitch, j because a big league baseball scout will be in the stands watching Amos. The scene ends as "all rush out yelling and laughing. . . ." (p. 524). Scene Two, Act Two takes place later that day in an- i other room of David's house. Pat, confident that everything! is going to be all right, is watching the sleeping Amos when David, J. B., and Hester enter. J. B., whose wife is having a baby, is afraid to go home because he is drunk. His con fession that he used to be an alcoholic prompts David into a discussion of his favorite topic, namely, whether man gets what he deserves or whether man's fate is wholly in the istars. David startles everyone by avowing that he had I j called the baseball scout to prove that man makes his I 22 I (destiny, for he is fully persuaded that Amos will be a big i I league pitcher. This hope, however, is proved illusory when the scout rejects Amos as big league material. Pat, the (scout explains, made one fatal error; by training Amos in j j (the cellar during the winter months, he taught his son the i habit of hurling in isolation from the noise and tension of an actual game, with the result that "as soon as a man gets (on base . . . something happens to [Amos]. His control i goes, his pace goes, he loses his head" (p. 532). For David, this is the final revelation as he tells Amos: There is no man I ever knew who didn't carry a curse. J. B., Shory, Gus, your father, you, me— the world is made that way as if a law was written in the sky some where. Nobody escapes 1 I almost believed I was spe cial in the world, but tonight I know what's waiting for me, and I'm not afraid. I don't lay down, I don't die, Amos, because I'll have no kids! (pp. 535-536) Hester surprises David by announcing that he is. going to be a father. Amos bitterly remarks: "Nobody escapes . . . ex cept you" (p. 536). Anxiety suddenly grips David. This is the turning point of the play. He informs Gus that he will take no chances; he is going to put all his property in Hester's name and sixty per cent of the shop in Gus's name; only the mink will remain for himself: So if any one of them goes . . . it won't pull them all down with it like it would if they were all connected to 23 I me ... The mink . . . They're all mine ... if they live it's my doin', and if they die . . . I'll know for sure . . . That nothing came to me because of what I am, what I myself am worth; and that everything can go smashing j down the same way it came— for no reason. I'm going to measure myself, Gus, once and for all. (p. 537) | The scene for Act Three, which takes place the follow- ! I jing March, is in David's living room at evening. David's i I various business ventures have continued to flourish, but i 9 |on this night— the very night that the mink are whelping— a I |storm arises. David feels persecuted by fate. While he is joutside with the mink, Gus and J. B. visit Hester and the audience learns that David has been suffering from an ob sessive idea that his business ventures have not been j ' I I flourishing; he has also been troubled by an obsessive idea that some harm might come to the baby. Hester analyzes her i husband 's behavior and decides that when David learned he i was going to be a father he must have believed that his I curse would be to lose his child. Once the baby was born, however, there was no assurance where the blow of fate would % descend— hence he began to fear he was losing money, or that the child might be struck down— anything but admit the fear that something might happen to the mink, the one thing that jhe had chosen to test his intrinsic value. To complicate I 24 i matters further, Harry Bucks calls to Inform Hester that, if the storm doesn't destroy the mink, then the poisoned fish i j David is unwittingly feeding them will do so. David re- ! turns, then, and the climax of the play is prepared for when jHester issues David a challenge. He must not try to save i | the mink; he must permit them to die. Says Hester: It's not that they must die. It's that you've got to kill them. You'll never rest until you've had a great smash down . . . but I want you to do it, and I want you to know ... it was you who did it! (p. 550) I • * I i David vacillates, but Hester persists: "there was nothing in the sky that gave you things, nothing that could take them away!" (p. 550). Finally, the crisis passes and at the climax of the play David suddenly agrees with Hester and j i allows the mink to perish. The curtain descends on a poorer but apparently happier David Frieber. It is not difficult to locate the defects in The Man Who Had All the Luck. Exposition, for example, is particu larly faulty. The characters have a tendency to feed each other lines in an obvious manner. Instead of permitting the necessary information to leak out in an unobtrusive fashion, Miller, still inexperienced as a craftsman, drenches the audience with a steady spray of facts: I Shory: Davey, boy . . . six years since the day you | walked in here and said I want a job so I can marry my { girl, six years you been askin' me 'What'll I do Shory?' | And what's my answer? I only got one answer. (p. 489) I i David is well aware of Shory's "answer"— in fact, he knows |everything that Shory has said; and the audience is pain- i fully aware that it has been receiving vital information. | Foreshadowing and suspense are similarly crude. The most stagy moment in any Miller play occurs when Shory, like \a character in the old melodrama, points upstage and shouts: ; "You'll have to deal with [Falk], Davey, one way or another. Make up your mind" (p. 488). Having established Andrew Falk as the menace, Miller has led the audience to anticipate a long and brutal struggle of opposing wills. The scene be tween David and Falk, which lasts three pages, ends with Falk, as he exits, issuing the following threat: Frieber, if you ever step onto my land I'll put a bullet through you, may God write my words, I'll shoot you dead. I don't fool, Frieber, don't go near her again. I'm old enough to know what I'll do. (p. 500) This is, of course, mere rhetoric which arouses false sus pense . Although Miller's theme is "luck," a choice of subject which seems an unfortunate one, particularly for a beginning i j .dramatist, to select, Miller strains the credibility of his I |structure to the breaking point. Falk, for instance, ap- d i pears at precisely the appropriate moment because his car 1 < battery just happened to cease operating in front of David's garage. Continuing to be obliging, Falk then steps outside jand is killed by an auto driven by the man who becomes the i prime mover in David's rise to success. The second act 'continues in this vein. Just when David is near to admit ting defeat by the Marmon, Gus appears; true, it is two hours before dawn, but no matter--Gus wants to get acquaint- i i ed. Moreover, he cheerfully solves his competitor's prob lem. The last act calls for special comment. In its pub lished version, Act Three covers fifteen pages of double- ; columned print. After three pages of dialogue, David de- , i parts in order to tend his mink. Eight pages then intervene between David's exit and his next, and final, appearance. Four pages with David and Hester as the focus of interest conclude the play. In the middle eight pages, Hester, J. B., and Gus take the spotlight and the play bogs down in an ex cessive amount of exposition. One of Hester's speeches, for example, goes on for seventy-three lines. This is, as my summary of Act Three should suggest, an over elaboration of i | details, for the plot is not as complex as Miller seems to ! 27 i |assume. More important, while Miller keeps his protagonist i j off-stage and has Hester explain at length David's past ac- I tions, the focus, which properly should be on the hero in ithe present. is lost. Proof that this loss of focus seri- l jously deunages the play lies in the concluding four pages of i jthe text. David's sudden decision to allow his mink to j perish— one page, it should be noted, before the curtain 'descends— is simply not credible. There is obviously a jump here in the place of smooth transition. It is worth observing that no subsequent Miller play i spreads itself over such a long period of time. (The spe cial devices for coping with the time-sequence in Death of a Salesman and After the Fall are a separate consideration.) I The four years that elapse in The Man seem to contribute to t the looseness of its structure. As Dennis Welland remarks: "There is no real reason why the opening scene should be a store, but the stage directions are meticulous" in their description.6 One might add here that there is no real reason why one place rather than another is chosen for two or three of the scenes. No later Miller play, finally, 6ftc.thur Millar, p . 30. I 28 i i {partitions its acts in such a stiff and formal manner, that i is, by dropping the curtain to denote scene changes; when I necessary, more imaginative devices are employed. i Character i ! Physically, David Frieber is described as twenty years i old, "intent," "quiet of movement," and "neat, seemingly i self-possessed" (p. 487). The fact that David is an orphan ;is psychologically important, for it has made him feel lost jin the world, uncertain about his origin and destiny (p. 494). He has not had much education because "nobody ever told [him] what [he] was supposed to be" (p. 494). Hence, David is a victim of self-doubt; he constantly suspects, for instance, his real worth as an auto mechanic (p. 508) . He also possesses several other traits. David can sympa thize with others, for he deplores the fact that most people cannot attain the little they desire to make them moderately happy (p. 525). But he can also be harsh on occasion, as his remarks to J. B. demonstrate: "I got no pity for you. A man gets what he deserves" (p. 528). He also has deter mination; he asks questions of— and demands answers from— life. His reasoning, though, betrays a curious primitive {strain when he admits to wishing that his child was still- j I 29 iborn in order to atone for his good fortune (p. 549). Ambi- i jtion drives David; he is willing to lie about repairing the jMarmon because the lie will benefit his business. Neverthe-i ! I i less, at the conclusion of the play, David agrees to settle for forty per cent of the business (unlike later Miller t jheroes who will not, or cannot, "settle for half," or less i than half). The other characters also cast light on David. Shory, |for example, calls David a "little boy," one who will not jface the "facts" (p. 488). For Shory, consequently, David evinces a decided want of intelligence (p. 489). Gus claims that David "suffers from an overdeveloped sense of responsi- i I bility" (p. 518). Hester considers her husband "proud" (p. ,547). In the course of the play, David is made to grow. Act One finds him unsure of himself and of his place in the world. Act Two shows him grappling with experience in an effort to find himself and to receive answers to his philo sophical questions. In Act Three, David is purported to be a changed man; he has apparently overcome his guilty obses sions, he has learned to accept himself as he is, and he jhas received a reply to his questions. None of the other characters has a depth approaching David's. Gus is a "strong man" (p. 506), who has left l j I j Detroit, where people are without true friendships, and j ! ' 1 settled in a small town in an effort to "understand" life I (p. 507). In odd moments, Gus reads encyclopedias (p. 516). |He is clearly a fatalist: "biology always decides. There is no justice in the world" (p. 517). His desires are sim- ple. He looks forward to being called "Uncle Gus" by Da vid' s child "like a career" (p. 541). He wants to marry a redhead: "It always seemed to me in a small town would be j many red-headed girls. Probably this is because in general I like a small town" (p. 509). And so forth. Shory is described as a hairless creature in a wheel chair who "gives the impression" of being "very sharp, very thoughtful." Miller adds that Shory is "capable of great laughter, and terrible sneers" (p. 487). In the play it self, though, Shory's capacity for sneering is chiefly in evidence. The "very thoughtful" quality of his mind can be gauged by his favorite observation: "A man is a jellyfish laying on the beach," and by a typical "sharp" Shoryism: "When you can cover the moon with an overcoat you can con trol the tides . . ." (p. 501). Shory's background is vague. His fatalism, though, is attributed to the fact that I i when Shory departed for France he was handsome and positive- thinking, but while he was in bed with a French tart the boiler in the brothel exploded, thanks to a drunken janitor, with the result that Shory returned to America without any j i hair or legs, and committed to a pessimistic view of life (p. 501). At present, Shory apparently desires nothing more from life but "to go fishin1 . . (p. 524). ! How satisfactory are these characters? The fact that j David is an orphan is relevant, for an orphan may grow into i adulthood feeling, perhaps unconsciously, that the world is moved by unseen powers that can, at any moment, take away |one's love and happiness. The difficulty with portraying an orphan, however, is that it remains a stock device for ^eliciting sympathy. There is little social depth in David's | characterization. The action unfolds in a "small Middle- Western town" (p. 486), according to the stage directions, but the environment, which reveals no necessary relation i with character or theme, seems merely arbitrarily selected. ! Miller's comments on David, on the other hand, are perti nent. Only an "intent" person would become obsessed as David becomes obsessed; only a "neat" person would demand } j tidy rational explanations for all events in life; while ^David's apparent "self-possession" contrasts with his inner {insecurity. Most of David's traits are made to count in the forward movement of the play; a few, such as his sympathy and harshness, while not directly causal, do succeed in giving him bulk as a character. J i j On the whole, however, David remains an unsatisfactory jcreation. Character cannot be viewed in isolation. David is caught up in so much logical absurdity, and he is sur rounded by such static figures, that the realistic attention i his own person receives goes largely for naught. His jgrowth, as has been said, is not convincing. If David were I permitted to develop organically rather than mechanically, he could not share the same environment with other charac ters without the interaction producing modifications in at ; least one or two other figures. Although David sent for the baseball scout, and though the latter ended the dreams ; ' I of Pat and Amos, there was no causal link between David's action and Pat's character flaw. Furthermore, David's prob lem is rather abstract; his metaphysical search, as pre sented, seems faintly unreal and contrived, and it is overly articulated. Finally, the names of some of the characters, such as Dan Dibble, also cast an unwanted aura of unreality {about David. The minor characters, with the exception of Pat and Amos who will be discussed below, are unsatisfactory. Gus !is a stereotype; Shory is another stick. Dialogue often {seems detachable from specific characters. Gus, for exam ple, reads encyclopedias and refers to biology, but it is i i Shory who goes fishing and calls man a jellyfish. One of j these two characters would seem to be superfluous. Shory gradually fades in importance as Gus moves increasingly intc prominence, and by the last act Shory is nowhere in sight. Similarly, Andrew Falk, Dan Dibble, and Harry Bucks are usee i jwith little sense of maximum economy. Aunt Belle serves no i discernible function, and lacks even the compensatory grace | of being interesting. Aside from Fat and Amos, none of the I minor characters develops. One reason for this is that s ! character contrast is not strong in the play. Shory and Gus are foils to David, but the other characters offer lit- i ■ i tie in the way of orchestration. Perhaps the episodic structure of the play contributes to the fact that the characters are not made to exert sufficient pressure on one i [another. Theme Theme is reduced to thesis in The Man Who Had All the Luck. and, moreover, Miller fails to prove the thesis. i Hester articulates the message; "Man makes his own fate." 34 |But Hester's argument, upon which Miller hangs his thesis, j |and which persuades David to act, is not, in the concrete J I actions of the play, made plausible. True, David allows I the mink to die (granting that he might have saved them); but this does not prove that "there was nothing in the sky" previously, nothing that was not "irrational," or inexplic- i able. When Hester says: "It was always you, Davey," (p. 550, italics mine), the evidence for this bare assertion is I |conspicuously absent. David has had no logical relation to the good or bad things that came to him in the course of the play. Thi gs just "happened"; that is all. Not only is there no confirmation of the thesis in the main action, there is no clear support for it in the subordinate actions either. i Since Stanislavsky, some critics of the drama have 7 found it useful to consider plays in anatomical terms. Thus, the play is an organism; the theme, or thesis, is the "spine"; and each character is a thematic "rib." Needless to say, the various ribs should be arranged so that belief in the spine is justified. Stanislavsky stressed that the 7See, for example, John Gassner, ed., Producing the jPlav (New York, 1952), or Alan S. Downer, The Art of the Plav. theme must be articulated in terms of an infinitive phrase. j In the case of The Man. the action would be formulated as i I {follows: "to show man makes his own fate." Emphasis is on ithe word "show." If the various ribs in Miller's play are I j exposed to the critical scalpel, do they "show man makes his own fate?" Shory's philosophy of the "jellyfish," says Welland, j"exists only to be repudiated by the play's moral; it is i g {never adequately explored or developed." The "play's j moral," however, does not convincingly "repudiate" anything. i Shory remains a static exhibit, a "proof" that boilers can explode at embarrassing moments. If boilers repeatedly ex ploded when American soldiers jumped into bed with French j tarts, if drunken French janitors consistently became agents | of punishment for lecherous American soldiers, there might be an inductive basis for stating a theory of necessary moral causality. Events, says Gus, are irrational; look to biology. If man is thus and so, it is due to his glands and his body structure. No indication is given how Gus arrived at this view of life, nor is there any development of Gus in terms I I Bwelland, p. 31. of the thesis. The failure of Gus's business would seem to ! suggest that economics, not character, is fate. t i J J. B. Feller says that his first wife died "for no i {reason" and as a result he became an alcoholic (p. 527). He implies, however, that he is responsible for his drink ing because he refers to it as a "mistake" (p. 528). When I he is told his second wife is going to have a baby, J. B. is happy; when she nearly loses it, he is unhappy; when it is {reported that she will have it after all, he is again happy. What does this prove? As a thematic rib, J. B. seems dis located from the spine. Similarly, Hester is unsatisfactory. She is simply there, without background or dimension, repeatedly verbaliz ing the thesis. Dramatically, she shows nothing; thematic- t ally, she proves nothing. Patterson had tried to plan a career for his son Amos, but he had overlooked one item and the result was that his i dream of glory exploded like the boiler in Shory's brothel. There is, however, a significant difference in this case. Patterson's flaw is made specific and clear. He was a lit tle man with a big dream, and the flaw is clearly an error in judgment. In terms of the thesis, then, Patterson i # 9 "shows man makes his own fate." (The relation of Patterson 37 and Amos looks forward, as will appear, to other father and son themes in Miller's work, most notably the relation of i Willy Loman and Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman.) With !the exception of the Patterson and Amos subordinate action, j then, none of the various ribs are helpful in support of the professed thesis. Less serious, but worthy of note, is one of the several I minor thrusts of the play which is also not satisfactorily j resolved. The play raises the question: How can a man achieve a sense of personal worth and real ownership in a capitalistic, industrial society? The problem is posed when David asks: "Does a thing really belong to you because your name is on it?" (p. 521). Gus suggests an answer when he advises David to return to the shop, fire some of the help, and work with his hands again. According to Gus, that would give David a feeling of ownership (p. 521). David, however, remains unconvinced by Gus's argument up to one page before the end of the play: Nothing is mine but what I'm good enough to make. Money is a bitch . . . that'll bear for any man, and what it bears can never really be yours. (p. 551) Nevertheless, on the last page of the play David decides to i return to the shop. It is difficult to reconcile this step 38 ! |with what David has just said on the preceding page. Nor I i [does David's action convince the reader that Gus is correct [in his analysis. David is returning to the shop because that is about all that remains for him to do. Perhaps Mil ler intends that David has accepted Gus's evaluation of the i iproblem? If so, the playwright has not made that acceptance I i [credible— for David, in that event, would happily embrace a situation which a moment previously he had vehemently de nounced . Miller has said: in The Man Who Had All the Luck I had tried to grasp wonder, I had tried to make it on the stage, by writing wonder. But wonder had betrayed me and the only other course I had was the one I took— to seek cause and ef fect, hard actions, facts, the geometry of relationships, and to hold back any tendency to express an idea in it self unless it was literally forced out of a character's mouth; in other words, to let wonder rise up like a mist, a gas, a vapor from the gradual and remorseless crush of factual and psychological conflict.9 The "course" resulted in All Mv Sons. Miller's -second produced full-length play, and the first play that the au thor himself felt was good enough for inclusion in his 9"Introduction" to the Collected Playsr p. 15. I Summary j The Man Who Had All the Luck. Arthur Miller's first i full-length play, is largely a defective one. I The structure is unsatisfactory. Exposition, fore shadowing, suspense, and conflict tend to be crude, mechani cal, and stagy. Logical probability is frequently violated, with the result that much of the action is unbelievable. i Disregard of the unities, while not censurable in itself, i jhelps to loosen the structure. Dialogue is often rhetorical I i land, chiefly in the last act, suffers from a lack of con ciseness . Although David Frieber, thanks to several traits, is perhaps round, he nevertheless remains a forgettable charac- ter. The chief reasons are: the numerous logical absurdi- i ties that vitiate the play generally; the static and mechan- iical relations of the characters; the abstract nature of David's problem; and the play's failure to prove its theme. i Dialogue does not always seem to proceed from character, ana it often fails to illuminate the character's background and motives. As a result, the minor characters, save for Pat | and Amos, are flat and static. | Theme is thesis in The Man Who Had All the Luck, and l Miller fails to make the thesis convincing. David's action, 40 in view of the fact that the articulated message bears no relation to the events of the play, proves nothing. More over, the ending betrays a jump instead of effective transi tion. With the exception of the Patterson and Amos subplot, none of the subsidiary actions substantiates the thesis either. Several minor thematic questions are raised in the play, most notably an economic one, but none of the problems is adequately explored or developed. That They Mav Win and The Man Who Had All the Luck should be properly viewed as clumsy but necessary steps in Miller's advance as a dramatist, and as preparation for later, and better, Miller plays. CHAPTER II ALL My SOWS Structure i ! l All My Sgng (1947), unlike the episodic The Man Who j Had All the Luck, is a tightly constructed three-act play. jMiller has explained his intentions in the following manner: ! The form of All Mv Sons is a reflection and an expression of several forces . . . I desired above all to write rationally . . . The accusation I harbored against the earlier play was that it could not make sense to common- sense people . . .If there is one word to name the mood I felt it was Forego. Let nothing interfere with the shape, the direction, the intention. I believed that I had felt too much in the previous play and understood too little ... A play, I saw then, was an organism of which I had fashioned only certain parts . . . My intention ... was to be as untheatrical as possible. To that end any metaphor, any image, any figure of speech, however creditable to me, was removed if it even slightly brought to consciousness the hand of a writer. So far as possible nothing was to be permitted to interfere with its art lessness ... I wanted then to write so that people of common sense would mistake my play for life itself and not be required to lend it some poetic license before it ^Miller, Collected Plavs. pp. 58-127 41 42 could be believed. I wanted to make the moral world as real and evident as the Immoral one so splendidly is.2 ; i The time-sequence in All Mv Sons covers less than 'twenty-four hours: Act One opens "early Sunday morning"; Act Two begins "that evening"; and Act Three commences at "Two o'clock the following morning." There is a single j I setting: the backyard of the Keller family "in the out skirts of an American town." Action proceeds along a single jline, culminating in a climactic explosion. i In Act One, Miller is at pains to carefully set the stage for the action which follows. Thus, about the first half of the opening act is merely introductory. Miller's strategy here is to focus steadily on Joe Keller as a pros perous businessman, devoted husband and father, and friendly neighbor. As Joe reclines in his yard, scanning the Sunday papers and talking to his neighbors, he emerges as a simple but shrewd man of middle age, whose oldest son, Larry, was reported missing during the second World War, and whose wife, Kate, influenced by a neighbor's horoscope, refuses to believe that Larry is dead. The younger son, Chris, who o cFor convenience, I have brought together a number of remarks scattered throughout Miller's "Introduction" to the Collected Plavs. pp. 15-19. returned safely from the war, has invited Ann, Larry's old | girl friend, to visit the Kellers. When Chris informs Joe jthat he plans to marry Ann, Joe warns his son that if he I I I jdoes so it will destroy Kate's dream that Larry will one day ireturn. Conflict is focused sharply when Chris threatens j I to take Ann to New York. This upsets Joe because the move j will be a rejection of the Keller business, and the business i means everything to Joe. Each of the three chief characters ! — Joe, Kate, and Chris--is seen, then, to have something j vital at stake. In the introduction various suggestions are made about a guilty secret in Joe's past, but the prob lem becomes more than a vague hint when Kate objects to a game that Joe is playing with a neighbor's boy, a game that I Kate calls a "jail business" one, and Joe, "alarmed" and "angered," asks, "What have I got to hide?" To this Kate repliesx "I didn't say you had anything to hide . . ." (p. 74). This is the point of attack, which occurs slightly past the middle of Act One, for, although conflict is fore shadowed earlier, the major dramatic question— Joe's prob- able guilt— is unmistakably pointed to here for the first time. Miller has said: Its first act was later called slow, but it was designed to be slow. It was made so that even boredom might 1 threaten, so that when the first intimation of the crime_ ! 44 j ! is dropped a genuine horror might begin to move into the heart o£ the audience . . . born of the contrast between the placidity of the civilization on view and the threat to it that a rage of conscience could create. | ("Introduction," p. 18) j J This problem will be discussed below in my criticism of the structure. | In the last half of Act One, Ann appears and informs Kate that she has stopped waiting for Larry to return. Kate, however, remains inflexible in her belief. Exposition I reveals that Joe and Ann's father had both been in jail for i shipping defective airplane parts during the war, an action which resulted in the death of twenty-one American pilots, but that Joe had managed to get exonerated by claiming to be >ill at home the day that the parts were shipped. Ann's jfather, however, remained in prison. Chris and Ann, who ;consider Ann's father a murderer, cannot understand Joe's tolerant attitude toward his former partner. Chris 'is es pecially critical on the subject because his conscience i ! troubles him about his returning alive from the war when so many of his company died in combat. Ann assures Chris, however, that he has a right to happiness. The curtain de scends on an ominous note with the report that George, Ann's brother, after visiting his father in jail, is coming to visit the Kellers. _____________ ' ___________________________ 45 Conflict rises in Act Two when George accuses Joe of being guilty of the crime which has ruined George's family. jThe Kellers manage to placate George, and for a little while i ! the situation seems more promising for the Kellers. It is jKate, finally, who destroys the pretense of Joe's innocence when she blunders and says: " [Joe] hasn't been laid up in fifteen years" (p. 111). This "slip of the tongue" reveals jthe deception that Joe has perpetrated, and from this reve- i i jlation— which is the turning point of the play— various I effects swiftly result. George demands that Ann leave the house with him, and Kate, for her own reasons, agrees with George. When Chris refuses to part from Anne, Kate says: Your brother's alive, darling, because if he's dead, your father killed him . . . God does not let a son be killed by his father. Now you see, don't you? (p. 114) Chris then confronts Joe with the dramatic question suggest ed in Act One at the point of attack: "Then . . . you did it?'1 (p. 114). Presently Joe confesses, and the curtain falls on a confused Chris: "What must I do . . . what must I do?" (p. 116). In Act Three, Joe tells Kate: "if there's something bigger than [the family] I'll put a bullet in my head!" (p. 1120). This line is preparation for Joe's suicide six and a half pages later. According to Joe, Larry was not like jchris; Larry was "practical": "To him the world had a forty-foot front, it ended at the building line" (p. 121) . Ann enters, announces that she will not expose Joe, but in sists that Kate release Chris from feeling "guilty with me" I (p. 121). When Kate refuses, Ann declares that Larry is jdead. After sending Joe into the house, Ann produces a i letter which was written by Larry on the day that he died. ! Chris enters with Joe and it is related that Chris hesitates I to deliver Joe to justice because the business world shares the guilt with Joe. After reading Larry's letter, however, Chris changes his mind, for the letter reveals that Larry was not so "practical" as Joe had supposed. This is the crisis of the play. In the letter, Larry says: i they flew in a load of papers from the States and I read about Dad and your father being convicted ... I can't bear to live any more . . . How could he have done that? Every day three or four men never come back and he sits back there doing business . . .I'm going out on a mis sion in a few minutes. They'll probably report me mis sing. If they do, I want you to know that you mustn't wait for me. I tell you, Ann, ... I could kill him— (p. 126) The climax occurs when Joe offers to surrender himself to justice. Kate, however, argues with him: "Larry was your json . . .he'd never tell you to do this"; to which Joe 47 repliess "I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were. . . ." (p. 126). While Joe is inside the ihouse. Chris tells Kate: ! 9 i i i Once and for all you can know there's a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it, and unless you know that, you threw away your son because that's why he died. (pp. 126-127) Immediately a "shot is heard in the house" (p. 127). Joe has put a bullet in his head—-for Larry has evidently shown Joe that there is "something bigger" than the "family." The play concludes with Chris "almost crying," but with Kate i i telling him: "Don't take it on yourself . . . Live I" (p. 127). Although the structure of All Mv Sons shows a decided i advance in technical control over The Man Who Had All the Luck, the later play remains open to a number of serious criticisms. My summary of the introduction in Act One fo- jcuses on essential items only and thus fails to reveal the repetition and inconsequential byplay contained in the first sixteen pages of the text. Miller would have it that every i step in All Mv Sons was carefully calculated. We need not i necessarily accept this view. The critic who wrote the "Introduction" in 1957 was not the dramatist who wrote the iplay in 1947. Granting, for the sake of argument, that 48 |every move in the play were carefully plotted, one might t question whether contrast, which is indeed a powerful dra- I jmatic device, could not have been established in a more | economical manner, whether a relatively static and lengthy introduction threatening "boredom" was absolutely essential. A more cautious approach might suggest that Miller, in his second full-length play, had not as yet thoroughly mastered certain difficult problems of craft— chiefly, as Miller himself acknowledges, "the biggest single dramatic problem, namely, how to dramatize what has gone before" ("Introduc tion," p. 21). Miller is open to the charge of having made his dra matic problem easy for himself at the turning point of the play. A "slip of the tongue" is certainly possible, but in jthe context of the play, is it not made to seem fortuitous? And is it not precisely the fortuitous nature of events that i the form of the play is at pains to deny? According to j Miller: "the structure of the play is designed to bring a man into the direct path of the consequences he has wrought" ("Introduction," p. 18); and: "The fortress which All Mv Sons lays siege to is the fortress of unrelatedness1 1 ("In troduction," p. 19). How is Kate's "slip of the tongue" 'related to the events of the play? Not only by intention, 49 jbut through the achieved tightness of structure, Miller j |forces the reader to question the logic of his play. The jmost influential interpretation of verbal "slips" in our i time is the Freudian one. Miller, however, provides no i I ! evidence in the play for such an interpretation; in fact, | there is no explanation given for Kate's "slip"— it must simply be attributed to chance. In dramatic terms, then, Ithe "slip" is not made plausible. When one considers the i | {events that immediately follow upon Kate's blunder, one is i i ^ inclined to feel that Miller has not faced the dramatic tasfc I in a forthright manner. The arbitrary nature of the action continues in Act ! j Three. Aside from the crude foreshadowing device quoted in j my summary, Joe Keller shows no evidence of being a poten- j I ; tial suicide. As a description of his character will reveal shortly, Joe is lacking in inner conflict; but if modern psychology has taught us anything, it is that none of us— i least of all a suicide— is lacking in inner conflict. Kate, it should be noted, is made to threaten suicide in Act One; she says: "if [Larry's] not coming back, then I'll kill 'myself'." (p. 73). This, like Joe's threat in Act Three, |looks like foreshadowing. It is beside the point to say I that it is in character for Kate to choose life over death. 50 Perhaps, one might argue, Miller intends that Kate's refusal to kill herself reflects freedom in the world of his play; it demonstrates that Joe is not being jerked about arbi trarily by the author, that Joe wills his own destruction. Whatever the rationale behind the strategy, however, it seems to make for confusion rather than complexity, for it tends to weaken Joe's motivation instead of making it appear freely chosen. The question arises: Why must Joe kill him self? (One critic has speculated why Joe is strong enough to bear the guilt of his first act but not strong enough to 3 shoulder the second guilt.) One is forced to conclude that Joe Keller kills himself because his suicide is an effective jway to "drive home a point." The appearance of the letter in Act Three is the most I censured device in the play. Only Dennis Welland defends 'it; he argues that Ann's reluctance to produce it earlier is credibly enough ex- 1 plained by her and it would not be easy to devise a more economic— or a more telling— method of bringing home the two things essential to the action at that point. . . .4 | | 3Ganz, p. 232. i 4 Arthur Miller, p. 39. ! 51 i I This is a valiant critical defense, but no more convincing, jfinally, than the play itself. As Kate brought about the I ! turning point, Larry— a character never seen on stage— pre pares the climax. The focus, it seems, should be on Joe, {not Kate, or Larry, or even Chris. The audience should be I I made to see— should have been made to see from the first— jthe slow stages of Joe's movement toward self-destruction. This is why the leisurely introduction is blameworthy. Twenty-four hours is a short time in which to propel a man i from "placidity" to a "rage of conscience." The letter it self might very well be "credible" and "economical"; this, however, is not enough. It is, for one thing, a stock de vice suggesting the "well-made play." Moreover, as H. D. F. Kitto observes; "It is not enough that [the] order of events be logically right; it must also be dramatically 5 convincing." Most critics, including the present one, are inclined to feel that the letter is not "convincing." Con trivance also suggests itself in the stagy juxtaposition of Chris's indictment of his parents and the resounding report that immediately follows, signalizing the end of Joe Kel ler's existence. This too is an "economic" and "telling" j j 5Greek Tragedy (New York, 1954), p. 185. 52 way to "drive home a point." The question has been raised about who the protagonist is, structurally, in All Mv Sons. According to one critic, i Miller never focuses clearly on Joe Keller; although Joe is central thematically, Chris appears to receive equal atten- g tion. According to a second critic, the interest shifts 7 from the protagonist to the antagonist. Some facts are in i order. Out of a total of sixty-eight pages of text, Joe is jpresent on about forty-five pages; Chris is present on about I forty-nine pages. Out of a total of sixty-two scenes, Joe i appears in forty-four and Chris in forty-two. A check of i speaking lines would reveal the same fairly equal distribu- i tion of parts between Joe and Chris. Quantitatively, then, i there is a basis for asking who is the protagonist in Sons. iQualitatively, analysis seems to suggest that Chris, not ;Joe, is the most active character in the play. Until the final moments of the last act, Joe is relatively passive, ichris, however, forces the conflict from beginning to end. :It is Chris who invites Ann to visit the Keller house; Chris 6Arthur Boggs, "Oedipus and All Mv Sons." Personalist. XLII (October 1961), 560. 7Leonard Moss, "Arthur Miller and the Common Man's Language," Modern Drama. VII (May 1964), 54. jwho wants to remove the fiction of Larry's return; Chris | I jwho challenges Kate's obsession; Chris who calls Joe to j I ; {defend his acts; Chris who demands that Joe atone for his ! 1 i crime against humanity. Although Joe carries the burden of the theme, then, Chris is the driving force within the structure. This dichotomy, I believe, damages the play. i ;Not all plays, of course, have an active protagonist (which j seems like a contradiction in terms); Othello springs quick ly to mind. One hesitates to generalize here, for each play jmust be viewed on its own merits. In All Mv Sons, the shift ;in emphasis would seem unhappy because Joe's movement toward i . suicide should be made credible, and, if that movement is to I be made credible, the focus should be almost wholly on Joe. | lit is not that some dramatic "law" demands that Joe seal hisj own fate. It is that by the logic of this play, All Mv Sonsf that Joe Keller must convincingly advance to his final gesture as a dramatic character. This raises, finally, several minor questions of prob ability. One critic has questioned the appearance of George 8 in Act Two. George had not visited his father since the i I ®Kappo,Phelan, "The Stage and Screen: All Mv Sons." The Commonweal. February 14, 1947, p. 446. |latter was sentenced to jail. Over three years had passed i ’ without George sending his father a Christmas card (p. 101). jwhy, then, did George suddenly visit his father? George tells Ann: "I wanted to . . . tell him you were going to be jmarried. It seemed impossible not to tell him" (p. 101). jOne might also consider the engagement of Chris and Ann. jWhen Joe asks "why it has to be Annie," Chris says: "Be- | cause it is" (p. 68). Joe, baffled, points out that it is "five years" since Chris has seen Ann, but Chris says: j ! I can't help it. I know her best. I was brought up next door to her. These years when I think of someone for my wife, I think of Annie. What do you want, a diagram? (p. 68) i Ann admits that she almost "got married two years ago," but j that Chris started writing to her then and she had "felt i something"— in fact, she had "felt something" ever since. j She did not write, however, because: "I was waiting for you, Chris. Till then you never wrote. And when you did, what did you say? You sure can be ambiguous, you know" (p. 84). The reader suspects that Chris's "ambiguity" stems from his author's desire to save Ann for a crucial moment in i {the lives of his other characters. There is, in short, too much contrivance here. Why, after ignoring his father for i i three years, did George suddenly find it "impossible" not to I 55 1 inform the man of Ann's approaching marriage? Why this sudden necessity for respect? One might feel that there is i no adequate reason here— except that Miller simply wanted jGeorge for the second act. Similarly, the romance between Chris and Ann does not encourage close scrutiny. There is something vague, even a little "mystical," about the coming together of the two lovers that suggests love less than manipulation. These are minor matters, however, and need not be overemphasized--they merely underline more important jstructural defects. ! Miller, who had intended to write a play that would be l "as untheatrical as possible," that would be distinguished by its "artlessness," actually produced the apotheosis of I I the theatrical and the artful— in other words, a "well-made j play." As William Archer says: "The trouble with the well** 9 made play is that it is almost always . . . ill-made." Character Miller, in his opening stage directions, describes Joe Keller in this manner: 9pi»Y-M»kina. p. 139. In his recent monograph on Mil- jler, Robert Hogan, calling Sons a "strong, traditional well- made play," praises it as "a model of structural craftsman ship." (Arthur Miller [Minneapolis, Minnesota], pp. 16-20.) i ___________________________________________________________________________ 56 Keller is nearing sixty. A heavy man o£ stolid mind and build, a business man these many years, but with the imprint of the machine-shop worker and boss still upon him. When he reads, when he speaks, when he lis- j tens, it is with the terrible concentration of the un educated man for whom there is wonder in many commonly I known things, a man whose judgments must be dredged out i of experience and a peasant-like common sense. A man j among men. (pp. 58-59 It has been said that there is more "social density" in All Mv Sons than in Miller's previous play.11 One function of dialogue is to reveal character; it should throw light on | jthe character's past, present, and future. If we examine i All Mv Sons, do we find language projecting a dense, com plex social world— what, specifically, do we learn about Joe Keller? In Act Three, Joe says: t I should've put [Chris] out when he was ten like I was put out, and make him earn his keep. Then he'd know how a buck is made in this world. (p. 120) This, plus other remarks in the play, indicates that Joe went to work at an early age, that he worked hard, that he had no education, that society in the past fifty years has grown increasingly specialized and complex, and that Joe is ^Miller is guilty of a slight error. In the stage directions, Joe is "nearing sixty" (p. 58); later, however, |Joe claims to be "sixty-one" (p. 115). | ^Welland, p. 36. somewhat baffled by the changes. Joe is a product of a business society; his ideal is General Motors (p. 109). Joe's every move, even to shipping defective airplane parts, seems inspired by business values: I I'm in business . . . a hundred' and twenty cracked, J you're out of business . . . they close you up . . . | You lay forty years into a business and they knock you ! out in five minutes, what could I do, let them take forty years, let them take my life away? (p. 115) jjoe can be cynical about the "big ones": "a little man j makes a mistake and they hang him by the thumbs; the big ones become ambassadors" (p. 109). He can, however, also grow vehement: Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? Is that clean? It's dollars and cents, nickles and dimes; war and peace . . . what's clean? (p. 125) i This completes Joe's social dimension. Psychologically, Joe is depicted as a humble mans he l repeatedly scores his own ignorance (p. 60). His sense of humor is described by Chris: "George Bernard Shaw as an elephant" (p. 86). Joe knows how to be "practical" in a Iruthless society: "I ignore," says Joe, "what I gotta ig nore" (p. 68). He boasts about his "guts" in braving the I neighbors after his trial (pp. 80-81). He seems open and straightforward, but he is capable of deceit and deception; he says: "I never believed in crucifying people" (p. 81)— when he has, in fact, crucified his best friend, Ann's fa- j ther. And, finally, Joe is a "family man": There's nothin' [Chris] could do that I wouldn't for give. Because he's my son. Because I'm his father and i he's my son. (p. 120) I This is Miller's description of Chris: j | He is thirty-two; like his father, solidly built, a listener. A man capable of immense affection and loy alty. (p. 64) |Does dialogue reveal much about Chris's background and so cial attitudes? Chris says that the "business doesn't in spire me" (p. 69); he explains: j I like it an hour a day. If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give myself to. (p. 69) Before the first act is over, however, Chris tells Ann: "I'm going to make a fortune for you!" (p. 86). According to Chris, America is a "zoo" (p. 124). In combat, however, it was, says Chris, different: They didn't die; they killed themselves for each other ... And I got an idea— watching them go down ... a kind of— responsibility. Man for man . . . And then I came home and it was incredible . . . the whole thing 59 j to them was a kind of a— bus accident. I went to work with Dad, and that ratrace again. (p. 85) i Psychologically, Chris has many traits. Jim says that | ;Chris "likes everybody" (p. 75). Chris shows that he is not i i Christ, however, for he cannot forgive everything— he cannot forgive what he regards as unforgivable, namely, the crime that has sent Ann's father to prison (p. 81). Nevertheless, IChris is long-suffering: "every time I reach out for some thing I want," he says, "I have to pull back because other jpeople will suffer" (p. 68) . Yet Chris is determined to ifind happiness. He admits to being "old-fashioned"— he i "loves his parents" (p. 83). When evidence of Joe's guilt is manifest, however, Chris finally demands that his parent be punished. Chris has "no imagination" (p. 84); he admits i to being "ignorant" (p. 64). He also confesses to being "not fast with women" (p. 68). As has been said, Chris has a sense of guilt; the war, he says: "seemed to make suckers lout of a lot of guys. I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car" (p. 85). The dialogue of other characters casts additional light on Chris. Says Joe: {"everything bothers [Chris]. You make a deal, overcharge jtwo cents, and his hair falls out" (p. 121). Sue, a neigh- ibor, says: "if Chris wants people to put on the hairshirt 60 let him take off his broadcloth" (p. 94). Says Jim, Sue's husband: "I always had the feeling that in the back of his i head, Chris . . . almost knew [about Joe]"— but Jim adds: j "Chris would never know how to live with a thing like that. It takes a certain talent— for lying" (p. 118). Chris him self says: "I'm yellow . . . because I suspected my father and I did nothing. . . ." (p. 123). | In his stage directions, Miller says that Kate "is in her early fifties, a woman of uncontrolled inspirations and an overwhelming capacity for love" (p. 69). In the play itself, Kate criticizes Larry, Chris, and George: "You had big principles, Eagle Scouts the three of you. ..." (p. 107). George, who lost his girl, Lydia, to a 4F, Frank, is i told: "While you were getting mad about Fascism Frank was ! getting into [Lydia's] bed" (p. 107). The ultimate wisdom iis: "look after yourself" (p. 108). Kate cares little if ;Chris's idealism dies— the important thing is that he return i to the family (p. 118). When Kate meets George, Miller says: : "her pity, open and unabashed, reaches into him" (p. 104); i land Kate says: "it breaks my heart to see what happened to j all the children" (p. 105). Kate calls herself "stupid" (p. 90). Perhaps that is why she is scornful of intellect, for she informs Chris and George that they "think too much" 61 (p. 106). Kate tells Anns "Listen to your heart. Only your heart" (p. 78). Kate is also fond of omens: "[Ann] goes to sleep in [Larry's] room," she says, "and his memori al breaks in pieces" (p. 73). Trusting in Frank's star- ! book, she can say (and there is an echo of David Frieber here): certain things have to be, and certain things can never be . . . That's why there's God. Otherwise anything could happen. But there's God, so certain things can never happen. (p. 78) Perhaps the most trenchant remark concerning Kate is made by i Jim, when he says that Kate has "a certain talent— for ly ing" (p. 118). Her final word— "Live" (p. 127)— is in char- i i Jacter, for Kate has revealed her ability to put unpleasant j j facts out of mind and "live" all through the play; in this, j lies Kate Keller's strength— and her weakness. i Physically, none of Miller's characters is individual- jized in a vivid fashion. Perhaps this is not a serious i failing, however, in a form where there are actors to im- i personate the playwright's creations. Certainly the stage {directions characterize Joe sharply enough, and, as pointed {out earlier, Miller reveals in action (to the point of i i "boredom"?) the features of Joe described in the directions. Although certain facts are related about Joe's background 62 and social attitudes through dialogue, much else is also left blank. We learn nothing about Joe's parents, nothing j i ! about his childhood thoughts and feelings (a time, according! to moralists and psychologists, when one's character is more or less molded for life), nothing about where Joe came from, nothing, save "the outskirts of an American town," about where he is at present. For a "realistic play," the dia logue, then, is not wholly satisfactory. Similarly, "place," which was subservient to didactic aims in Miller's (previous plays, continues to be vague in All Mv Sons. i Psychologically, Joe has a number of traits; he is not pre sented under a single aspect. Nevertheless, Joe remains unsuitable for his specific role. More than an accumulation j of traits is required here— the need is for contradictory traits that will directly influence the course of action. |Joe Keller lacks these traits. Dialogue similarly fails to reveal much, if anything, about Chris's childhood, boyhood, or young manhood. We learn only that Ann's family were neighbors to the Kellers while the children were growing. Chris, however, remains a i more complex character than Joe. Chris, for example, is in jconflict between the "love ethic" (p. 69) and the "business i I ethic" (p. 86), but Joe, presumably, feels no such conflict. 63 Chris is also torn between loyalty to Ann and loyalty to his mother; between suspicion of Joe and the need to conceal! his doubts from himself. Max Lerner, however, has objected: We learn to see Joe Keller from the inside, and to under stand his feelings for the "practical." We never see his son Chris from the inside; we do not see the develop ing process by which he comes to grasp the great and simple truth that he does; so that when it comes upon us, we are unprepared to believe it.^2 Of course, we never really see Joe "from the inside" ade quately either, but it remains true that Joe is easier to believe in than his idealistic son. Joe's philosophy seems i to rise up palpably from the concrete and visible action on 'stage; Chris must reach back to the past for an actualiza tion of his philosophy (as Miller must reach back into the i ! past for an unseen character to untie the knot). What we get is a summary of Chris's "developing process" (p. 85) rather than a dramatic e^qaerience of the "process" itself. Consequently, Chris's "ideals" risk sounding too abstract— particularly when Chris, like Joe, yearns for family life and fortune too. The fact that dialogue fails to illuminate Chris's background likewise militates against our belief in j 12Actions and Passions (New York, 1949), pp. 23-24. 64 his values. Perhaps Miller is counting on a stock response here. Why should Chris differ from Joe and Kate? What specific factors account for the difference? The war ex- I perience does not seem entirely satisfactory as an explana tion. Not all the fighting men were so "responsible"; not all the civilians regarded the war as a "bus accident." There is a danger of sentimentality here. Present is the ! tendency, observed in That They Mav Win, to dichotomize I humanity into "good guys" and "bad guys "--in short, a melo dramatic vision. Lacking social depth, then, Chris often seems to step out of character to deliver a speech (pp. 126- 127). Like other aspects of the play, the language is fre- quently too "neat," too obviously didactic. At first sight, Kate Keller seems complex. A closer jview, however, suggests that there is perhaps confusion I interlaced with complexity in her characterization. It is jMiller's attitude, as reflected in his stage directions, i that is disconcerting. Miller says Kate has "uncontrolled linspirations"— but after threatening to kill herself, Kate manages to control her "inspiration." Miller says that Kato has an "overwhelming capacity for love"— but the play shows I that her love has strict limits; like Joe's love, it has a "forty-foot front." Miller says that Kate feels pity for 65 George— but the play shows that Kate, as much as Joe, de stroyed George's family. This is not a problem in the | theater; for an audience, Kate is a self-deceived woman; but ifor a reader, there is something incongruous in Miller's I I jconception of Kate. Not satisfactory for either audience or reader, however, is the fact that Kate's dialogue fails to reveal anything at all about her background or develop ment. Only Chris really grows in the play. Joe is made to grow— and his "jump" is unconvincing. Kate is static. She i i has experienced some unpleasant events, but there is no in dication that she has altered any of her basic attitudes. tn Act One, Chris feels guilty and vaguely suspects Joe; in I Act Two, he learns the truth about Joe, but cannot immedi- i lately demand Joe's expiation— hence, his sense of guilt in creases? but in Act Three, Larry's suicide reveals the icourse that Chris must take, and when the play ends, Chris is presumably free from his sense of guilt and able to enjoy life again. Although the letter device tends to weaken Chris's development too, his movement as a whole seems rela tively steady and credible. There has also been preparation jfor his final action. None of the minor characters requires detailed 66 discussion. All of them are "flat"; all of them are static. A few of them, such as Bert, Lydia, the boy who plays with ! Joe, and Frank, seem superfluous in terms of action. Wheth-j jer all of them are necessary to the development of the theme will be taken up below. Contrast is not very diverse here; Joe, Kate, Sue, and, to a lesser degree, Frank, sure played off against Chris, Ann, George, and Jim. The contrast is a simple one— those who have "ideals" against those who have no "ideals," or, at least, very limited ones. Jim is a jstock figure, the "country doctor" out of Chekhov; Sue is a typical shrew. Frank, unlike the other minor figures, has :an interesting psychology, but if you hold that a play should have no spare parts, a case could be made for Frank i being unnecessary. George is the Avenger. Lydia and Bert ! * ' i have no discernible substance. Ann, of course, is the most |disappointing character among the minor ones simply because jof her position in the plot. A close reading of the text i i 'will yield next to nothing about Ann's background, traits, or social attitude. Perhaps these characters can be dis cussed with more profit in the next section. i j X t i s i o s , At least two critics, Arthur Ganz and Joseph Wood 67 Krutch, have accused Miller of defective reasoning by equating war profiteers with a man like Joe Keller. Accord ing to Ganz, Joe's defense is never answered, and this, in 13 effect, exonerates Joe. Krutch asks, why speak at all 14 about personal guilt if the system makes man? A third critic, Harold Clurman, says that although Kate is not vital to the plot, she is central to the theme.15 Mi Her says: In its earlier versions the mother . . . was in a domi nating position; . . . her astrological beliefs were given great prominence . . . because I sought in every sphere to give body and life to connection. But as the play progressed the conflict between Joe and . . . Chris j pressed astrology to the wall until its mysticism gave way to psychology. There was also the impulse to regard the mystical with suspicion, since it had, in the past, ! given me only turgid works that could never develop a | true climax based upon revealed psychological truths . . . [Kate's] obsession now had to be opened up to re veal its core of self-interest. . . . ("Introduction," p. 20) i The key speech of Kate appears near the end of Act Two (p. I '114, quoted above). Here, the "astrological" and the "psy chological" meet. Whereas Joe blames the "system," Kate i jshifts responsibility to "God." The action of the play, *3"The Silence of Arthur Miller," p. 232. 14"Drama," The Nation. February 15, 1947, p. 193. 15Iiisa Like Truth (New York, 1960) , p. 67 ._______ I 68 however, denies that responsibility can be shifted in this fashion. Kate's "core of self-interest" is also revealed— she believes what she wants to believe. It was noted ear- i lier that for Kate the "heart," not the "head," is the trustworthy part of the anatomy. The play itself, once more, affirms the opposite belief. Chris listens to his {"heart" when he hesitates to deliver Joe to justice, but Larry uses his "head," his suicide being a vote for "re sponsibility" beyond blood ties. Joe and Kate have not been able to identify Larry and Chris with other young men. We are given to understand that Larry never flew a P40; when I Joe states this as a fact, nobody contradicts him (p. 114). i ! When Ann asks: "how do you know Larry wasn't one of them?" (Ann knows the truth, of course, but she is trying to make a i ipoint here, namely, that the Kellers should not morally ! dissociate the crime from Larry's death), Kate replies: "As Hong as you're here, Annie, I want to ask you never to say ithat again" (p. 81). This line looks forward to Kate's key speech already quoted. There is a problem here, however, Ithat will be analyzed in a moment. i Do the minor characters have significant thematic rele- ivance? (Arthur Boggs has criticized Miller for spreading his theme too thin. r Sue says: "Chris makes people want I i jto be better than it's possible to be" (p. 93), which remark links up with Joe's statement: "Chris, a man can't be a Jesus in this world'." (p. 125). The play "refutes" both. i Frank ("that big dope," as Kate puts it, "who never reads ! ^nything but Andy Gump. . . ."p. 108) would seem to lie ! somewhere between the two contrasting camps mentioned in the i previous section. George says: "When I was studying [law] fin the hospital it seemed sensible, but outside there i I doesn't seem to be much of a law" (p. 100). Jim says: "I i i can't find myself; it's even hard sometimes to remember the kind of man I wanted to be" (p. 118). Ann's commitment is i clear from the fact that her "ideals" prevent her from for- i giving her father for his crime (p. 81). Samuel Yorks argues that All Mv Sons "actually affirms family loyalties not those of the state"; says Yorks: Chris fails to distinguish whether his men were ultimately loyal to the announced ideal or to one another and so reproducing the more limited clan loyalty after all. Nor does Miller: his play never resolves its basic conflict.17 16"Oedipus and All Mv Sons." p. 560. 17"Joe Keller and His Sons," Western Humanities Review. XIII (Autumn 1959), 402. The £inal problem is whether Sons avoids being a thesis play.. Miller remarks: "I think now that the straight-* forwardness of the . . . form was in some part due to the relatively sharp definition of the social aspects of the problem it dealt with" ("Introduction," p. 22). John Howard Lawson contends that because Joe has no psychological depth, 18 his death merely illustrates a thesis. Arvin R. Wells, however, argues for thematic complexity because there is jsome truth in Joe's defense and some inadequacy in "ideals" 19 which prompt bitter guilt and grief. | Arthur Ganz seems not to have read Sons very closely, |for the crisis and climax of Act Three shows clearly that |Joe is not exonerated; otherwise, why does Miller laborious ly introduce the letter and why does Joe, as a consequence, i destroy himself? No, one cannot necessarily accuse Miller of intellectual confusion here; it is Joe who rationalizes and Chris who, for a time, hesitates and seems to accept the j rationalization. Nevertheless, one feels that, in spite of the ending, Miller is also blaming the system. Miller does 18 Theory and Technique of Plavwrifcinq. p. xxvii. 19"The Living and the Dead in All Mv Sons.1 1 Modern , VII (May 1964), 46-51. 71 ! |not seem to say, though, that the system determines man r I |(how could he, in view of the ending?); he suggests, rather, ! |that the system has a strong influence on man. Is this, in i jthe light of sociological data, an unreasonable attitude? i |Psychologically, it is entirely credible that a son might hesitate for a time to send his own father to prison. (Whether to knowingly withhold shipments of war supplies |until a price is fixed, while the lives of fighting men i depend on those supplies, is morally poles apart from what Joe perpetrated remains a nice point for an ethical philos opher or moral theologian to ponder.) Miller might be open !to the charge of not sufficiently distinguishing moral from (legal guilt, but in view of what has been said, it would be i (difficult to make the charge hold— considering the situation i of the characters and the ending of the play. In the discussion of character it was suggested that Kate seemed somewhat confusing as a creation, at least as i she appears in the stage directions. It is possible that in !the course of his numerous revisions of the play, Miller lost his clear focus on Kate. The question arises, why i would Kate connect Joe's crime with Larry's death (and we must believe that Kate knows that Larry never flew a P40) if she had not, from the start, made the logical transition 72 from "my son, Larry" to . . . "why, they are all my sons"? Joe made this transition f jump") only when faced with the jfact of Larry's suicide— -but how did Kate arrive at this i | state of consciousness? Whatever one's own epistemology, within the context of the play— that is, in the projected polar opposites of "heart" and "head"— it is the "heart" that is suspect, the "head" that is noble. Kate's "heart," then, appears to arrive at a truth that presumably only the "head" can know. Contrary to Clurman's view, one might argue that Kate is at the core of the plot; her refusal to relinquish her obsession is a source of conflict in the play; her "slip of the tongue" brings about the turning jpoint in the action; and her inflexibility drives Ann into revealing Larry's letter, thus forcing the play to its cli- 1 i max and conclusion. Thematically, however, Kate adds noth ing to Joe's characterization, nothing to the basic thrust jof the play— in fact, as has been suggested, Kate tends to i i confuse rather than project the theme. None of the minor characters seems absolutely essentia] i I i to the theme. Frank, for example, appears unnecessary be- i cause whatever he might contribute to the meaning of the play is already inherent in Kate's role— one stargazer would seem sufficient. It might also be noted that the use of the stars is a crude way to focus the theme; it too overtly suggests "fate in the stars." Equally unfortunate j jis the too obvious play on Chris as "Christ." Only Ann and I George are really integrated with the action. The others i are there, no doubt, because Miller felt that their presence added complexity and social extension to the play. They add, in fact, no complexity. Structurally, they delay the ipoint of attack, and that delay has repercussions on the | credibility of Joe's development. Thematically, it is ! questionable whether they succeed in making the play more i I "significant." Where would one draw the line here? Is the jformula: the more characters, the more extension and sig nificance? It would not seem to be a mere matter of num bers. Economy demands that no character is strictly neces sary who does not contribute something vital to action or theme. A more liberal view would leave room for a certain amount of "excess baggage" here— but Miller, it seems, has been rather too liberal on this score. In Ghosts (a play that many consider Ibsen's masterpiece), there are only [five characters— half the number of All Mv Sons— yet Ibsen 20 manages to project a complex social vision. OA ^Robert Hogan, once again, would not agree with my 74 Although Miller tends to idealize the American soldier, the "announced ideal" in the play . i s . precisely loyalty to i lone another; it might be described as a "clan loyalty," but I the "clan" here extends beyond the narrow limits of one's immediate family. It is a "limited clan loyalty" only in the sense that it does not include the enemy. The play 21 would seem to end on anything but "an ambiguous note." It is the simple "straightforwardness" of the play, in fact, which has been questioned. That the play is more jcomplex than most critics have allowed is certainly true. I .Whether it is complex enough, however, to weather the charge of thesis drama is another matter. Recalling John Gassner's criteria, cited in my Introduction, it is possible to say jthat Joe is "not dwarfed by the social analysis or trans- i i formed into the puppet of social forces"; but the theme does seem to be "whittled down to thesis," running the danger "of I the characters being reduced to puppets"--"puppets" not of I social forces (Miller's characters acting freely), but of theatrical contrivance. The latter point has been analysis here; he finds economy of character in Sons. (Arthur Miller, p. 18) l ! j ^^According to Yorks, the play "concludes upon an am- jbiguous note." ("Joe Keller and His Sons," p. 406) sufficiently elaborated. As for the "idea" itself, it would appear to be too explicitly insisted upon, too sermonic in jdeliverance, and, because sermons tend to oversimplify ex- i perience (even the very lauded)le Sermon on the Mount has i I Jrequired volumes of exegesis), Miller seems guilty of ignor ing the complexity of experience and the intractability of the human animal. i I Summary Although structure in All My Sons is more tightly or ganized than in The Man Who Had All the Luck, there nonethe- i less remain grave defects in the form. Act One is marred by repetition and inconsequential dialogue, and the delayed point of attack results in a later lack of credibility when 'Joe kills himself. In Act Two, the turning point hinges on i ia fortuitous circumstance that is at cross-purposes with the logic of the form. The third act suffers from the hidden | letter device and from a character who is never seen in the play but who neatly unties the knot. The fact that Chris is jthe driving force in the play results in a loss of focus on jjoe, who fails, then, to develop in a convincing fashion. i Minor improbabilities disfigure the structure. Character creation shows a decided improvement over 76 Hiller's previous work; however, the characters still seem to lack sufficient depth. Dialogue fails to reveal enough about the background and social attitudes of the characters. j iThis failing makes crucial movements of the action seem l implausible and many of the speeches abstract. There seems to be a lack of economy in the number of minor characters, all but two of whom contribute nothing to the action, and all of whom are flat and static. i Theme tends toward thesis in All Mv Sons because the message is too nakedly exposed and action inclines to over simplify character and issues. It is arguable whether all I jthe minor characters are necessary for adequate projection |of the theme. I i I CHAPTER III i DEATH OF A SALESMAN Structure | Death of a Salesmans Certain Private Conversations in i Two Acta and a Remiiem (1949), Arthur Miller's third full- ! jlength play, greatly exceeds the first two in complexity |of organization. In fact, its many alternations of time-' I sequence and its frequent shifts in point of view make t ! summarizing the plot difficult. The following brief and bald description focuses solely on the most important facts i i and the main movement of the action, and it is only an in- I Production to the more detailed explication below. When the play opens, Willy Loman, an aging and rela tively unsuccessful traveling salesman, is on the verge of 2 suicide. After more than thirty years, Willy's firm has J-Arthur Miller's Collected Plays. pp. 129-222. ! ^There is a slight discrepancy of fact here. On page il63, Linda says that Willy has worked for the firm "thirty- 77 reduced him to straight commission and Willy is forced to borrow money from his neighbor Char ley in order to deceive Linda, his wife, about his inability to support her. Biff, Willy's beloved son, is, at thirty-five, a drifter and petty thief who has not fulfilled the promise of his early years when he was a high school football star. In Act One, Biff has returned from his wanderings to visit his parents, and jhe is joined by Happy, Willy's youngest son, who is a minor functionary in a department store. Willy is bitterly dis- jappointed in Biff, and Biff is hostile toward Willy. i Willy's frustrated "success dream"— he has insisted that "appearances" and being "well liked" are keys to social i advancement— is complicated by the fact that years ago Biff i discovered Willy in a hotel with a strange woman. Since i that time, Willy has been a "fake" to his son and an excuse for Biff's own failures. In the course of the play, Howard, Willy's boss, fires Willy; and Biff fails to secure a loan i from a former employer whom he had hoped would finance him in a business venture. In a cafe scene, Biff and Happy abandon their father and go off with two girls. At the i jsix years"; but on page 181, Willy sayst "I put thirty-four years into this firm." 79 climax of the play, however, Biff stops his "spiteful" behavior toward Willy and assumes responsibility for his {life. Willy, moved by Biff's expression of love, kills himself in an effort to provide Biff a fresh start in life with his $20,000 insurance policy. In the epilogue, Happy says that Willy had a "good dream ... to come out number- one man." Biff, however, asserts that Willy had the "wrong I dream." Setting is an important element in Death of a Salesman. Miller's first two plays were presented.in a rather bleak, naturalistic, "straightforward" style. Miller himself has isaid that All Mv Sons "was not sensuous enough," adding that |in Salesman he "wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Ionian's way i of mind" ("Introduction," pp. 23-24). Setting provides a flexible medium in which to enact "the process of Willy Loman's way of mind." As will become apparent, setting I contributes to the mood of the play. The main action takes place in and around Willy's house in Brooklyn, New York. A i "solid vault of apartment houses," says Miller, surrounds i • Willy's "small, fragile-seeming home" (p. 130). Symbolism is also apparent in the following stage directions: 80 An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality. The kitchen at center seems actual enough, for there is a kitchen table with three chairs, and a refrigerator. But no other fixtures are seen. (p. 130) But setting is also " functional": The entire setting is wholly or, in some places, partially transparent. The roof-*line of the house is one-dimen sional; under and over it we see the apartment buildings. Before the house lies an apron, curving beyond the fore stage into the orchestra. This forward area serves as ; the back yard as well as the locale of all Willy's imag inings and of his city scenes. Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wa 11- lines, entering the house only through its door . . . But in the scenes of the past these boundaries sure broken, ' and characters enter or leave a room by stepping "through" a wall onto the forestage. (pp. 130-131) j | In Act One, the time is somewhere between midnight and dawn. In Act Two, it is the following morning. The last | lines of Act Two, and the Requiem that follows, move from i the night of the preceding day to another "day"— it could be I the following day or several days later. The action covers, then, in "present," forward-moving time, about twenty-four i i hours. Actually, time in Salesman is much more complex in treatment than the above summary suggests. In the play, I three time-sequences may be distinguished: first, there is "present" time, that is, action moves forward in the present without reference to the "return of the repressed" in 81 Willy's mind— point of view is wholly objective; second, there is "past" time, that is, although the action remains in the present (this is not a flashback), we are wholly inside Willy's mind, viewing his imaginative reconstruction i ! of the past— 'the point of view is wholly subjective; third, there is (for want of a better word) "simultaneity"; that is, the action remains in the present, but we sure not wholly inside Willy's mind, for there is both objective reference to other characters and subjective projection by Willy— point of view is objective-subjective. j | Since alternation of the time-sequence and shift in point of view is the most important structural element in i i Salesman, it is the key to the action. As will be seen in I a moment, movement results from progressive causal logic in i the "present" interwoven with the mental reconstruction by Willy of his "past." It is the juxtaposing, and in some instances fusing, of these two patterns that constitutes dramatic structure in Miller's play. Hence, it would seem profitable to view the structure of Salesman in terms of its time-sequences (there are twenty-four such time-sequen- ces). A brief consideration of each sequence, with the focus on exposition and foreshadowing, should reveal how filler has attempted to complicate his action and has 82 attempted to organize structure around key scenes, each of which is designed to build toward the final climax of the i play. This analysis, necessarily somewhat tedious, is per haps the only way to establish a solid basis for resolving the many critical problems that have been raised by Miller's play. 1 I i j Act One i i i First time-sequence.— "Present" time. Places Willy's house. It is the middle of the night and Willy has returned i unexpectedly from a selling trip. He is exhausted. Willy confesses to Linda that he was afraid of driving off the {road. (Preparation for Willy's suicide.) Willy says that I old man Wagner— Willy's first boss— appreciated him, but Howard, Wagner's son, does not. Linda, however, convinces Willy that he must ask Howard for a job in New York. (Prep aration for the scene in Howard's office.) Willy says a man spends a lifetime paying for a house— and then there is nobody to live in it. (Preparation for Linda's echo of this ! |in the Requiem.) Willy is alternately angry at Biff for Ibeing "lost" and confident that Biff will yet be "big." | (Preparation for the father-son conflict which is the core |of the play. Thus, by the third page of dialogue, the point 83 of attack has been completed, for Willy Loman has reached a turning point in his life, conflict has been foreshadowed, and the major dramatic questions have been projected or i suggested.) Willy then becomes lost in memories of the past. (Preparation for the shift in point of view.) Light fades on Willy and comes up on Biff and Happy, upstairs. Happy asks Biff if he is "still sour" on Willy and Biff replies: "He's all right, I guess." (Preparation for Biff's ambivalence toward Willy.) Biff and Happy discuss past sexual conquests. (Preparation for the cafe scene.) Happy says that Willy talks to himself— and most of the time |it is about Biff. (More specific preparation for the shift in point of view.) Biff, however, refused to take the blame ifor Willy's problems. (Preparation for the hotel scene.) i Nevertheless, Biff decides to ask Bill Oliver, his old boss, Ifor a loan— but he trusts Oliver does not still think that j Biff stole a carton of basketballs from the store. (Prep aration for Biff's confession in the cafe scene.) Happy admits to not being content with his job, but nonetheless declares that it is what he wants in life. (Preparation Ifor Happy's speech in the Requiem.) Willy is then heard i i mumbling below. (Preparation for change in point of view.) Biff is angry because Linda, he thinks, can hear Willy. 84 (Preparation for the hotel scene, for Biff believes that Willy has a guilty conscience.) Light fades on the sons, and rises on Willy (pp. 131-142). Second time-sequence .— "Subjective" time. Place: Willy's house as he re-creates his "past." Biff, about eighteen, shows Willy a football he "borrowed" from school. Willy says the coach will probably praise Biff for his "initiative." (Preparation for the cafe scene and also the climax.) Willy vows that one day he will be "bigger" than Char ley because the latter is "not well liked." (Prepara tion for Willy's later borrowing money from Charley.) Willy promises to take Biff to New England in the summer. (Prep- i jar at ion for the hotel scene.) Bernard, Charley's boy, | ienters and says Biff will fail math if he doesn't study. !(Preparation for the hotel scene.) Willy says that Bernard might get good grades in school, but in the outside world t i the Lomans will succeed because they have "appearance" and ! are "well liked." (Preparation for the scene in Charley's i office where Bernard, as a man, is a successful lawyer and i Willy borrows money from Charley.) Willy brags to Linda about his big sales— but then ruefully admits to a low gross. (Preparation for Willy's ultimate "failure.") The 85 Woman appears, laughing. (Preparation for the hotel scene.) Willy argues with Linda about Biff's waywardness. (Prep aration for Biff's ultimate "failure.") Light fades (pp. 142-151). Third time-sequence.— Place: Willy's house in the "present." Willy tells Happy that Ben— Willy's older broth er, now dead— had the right idea: he went to Alaska and became rich. (Preparation for Ben's appearance.) Charley enters and offers Willy a job, but Willy refuses. (Con trasts with the previous time-sequence.) (pp. 152-154) i Fourth time-sequence.— Time: "simultaneity." While Willy and Charley play cards, Ben appears, and while Willy speaks in the "present" to Charley, he re-creates the "past" i with Ben. Finally, Charley exits (pp. 154-156). i i Fifth time-aeouence.— Time: "past." Ben is critical of Willy's job, but Willy tries to convince Ben that there iis a future in selling. (Preparation for the scene in How- i i ! jard's office.) Chan:ley enters and criticizes Willy for i permitting his sons to steal. Ben seems to approve of the boys' "fearlessness." (Preparation for the decline of Ben's | brand of "individualism" and the day when everything, as 86 Willy puts it, is "cut and dried.") (pp. 156-160) I Sixth time-sequence.~Places still Willy's house, but i I jin the "present." Linda, in Willy's absence, asks Biff why |he and Willy hate each other. Biff calls Willy a "fake." (Preparation for the hotel scene.) Linda reveals that Willy has tried to kill himself. (Preparation for Willy's sui- cide.) Linda declares that Biff is responsible for Willy's i life. (This sharpens the conflict between father and son, and shows that there is something vital at stake.) Willy enters. Biff promises again to see Oliver. Linda, however, wonders whether Oliver will recall Biff. (Preparation for ! i the cafe scene.) Upstairs, Willy remembers Biff's days of 'glory as a football star. Downstairs, Biff, alone, steps S jinto the darkened kitchen and lights a cigaret. The tiny j ; spark of cigaret light is replaced by "a golden pool of ;light." (This new light suggests both the moonlight of the ! |"present" and the sunlight of Ebbets Field in the "past.") i Upstairs, Willy recalls Biff as hero; downstairs, Biff re- f veals the non-hero. As Willy declares that such "greatness" ;as Biff once knew "can never really fade away," the light on Willy fades— and, in effect, fades on Willy's "dream." I Downstairs, a new light ironically begins to glow— the flame I 87 of the gas heater where, according to Linda, Willy had pre viously attempted suicide. (It is difficult to place this moment. Although the mood suggests "simultaneity," it seems, in spite of the lighting and non-objective glow of the heater "through the kitchen wall," that the sequence as a whole is closer to the "present.") In the final thirteen lines of dialogue and stage directions, Miller foreshadows jfour events: first, Linda asks Willy what Biff "has against" him— but she receives no reply (preparation for the hotel scene); second, Willy again promises to ask Howard for ;a job in New York (preparation for the scene in Howard's i 'office); third, Biff is "horrified" by the sight of the i I jrubber tubing on the heater (preparation for Willy's suicide l and Biff's reaction); fourth, Willy gazes with wonder at the \ "moon moving between the buildings" (preparation for the i seemingly futile "success dream" that finally destroys iWilly) (pp. 160-172) « i Act TWO | Seventh tlmft-seouanee. — This is the first of six jumps |forward in "present" time. It is the following morning in Willy's house. Willy and Linda are happy. (Preparation by contrast for the end.) Biff has gone to see Oliver. 88 (Preparation for the cafe scene.) Willy is going to buy seeds to plant in the yard. (Preparation for a scene later in the yard.) Willy is going to ask Howard today for a job in New York. (Preparation.) Linda says that the boys want to treat Willy to a meal tonight. (Specific preparation for the cafe scene.) One more payment on the house, says Willy, and the place is ours. (Preparation for Linda's final i speech of the play.) Willy observes Linda mending a silk stocking and it makes him "nervous." (Preparation for the hotel scene where Willy gives the Woman silk stockings.) I Light fades on the house (pp. 173-176). Eighth time-seauence.— This is the second jump forward i iin "present" time. Light rises on Howard in his office. Howard shows more interest in his wire-recording device than in Willy's plight. Willy reminds Howard of old man Wagner's "promises," but Howard is ignorant of the past. j There is an argument--and Howard exits (pp. 177-181). Hinth tima-aflfflience•— willy, alone in the office, talks to "Frank Wagner" about his "promises" in the "past." Acci- i dentally, Willy trips the machine and the fulfillment of the "promises" appears in the mechanical, sing-song voice of Howard*8 son impersonally reciting the capitals of the |forty-eight states. In terror, Willy screams for Howard to ! jturn off the machine (p. 181). Tenth tima-aeauenca.— Howard returns and, in effect, i ' l fires Willy from the firm. Howard exits (pp. 182-183). Eleventh time-sequence.— Willv. alone again in the joffice, returns to the "past." Ben enters and advises Willy i jto quit selling. Linda, however, appears and encourages ] frilly. Enter the boys. Willy argues that he is teaching i jthem how to "succeed." Ben exits, skeptical. Suddenly the ;Lomans prepare for Biff's big game in Ebbets Field. Charley and Bernard appear, and Charley casts doubt on the impor tance of the game— which causes Willy to affirm more insis- ! tently upon Biff's future greatness. (This sequence looks i back ironically on the preceding sequence, and also points forward toward the following sequence.) (pp. 183-186) Twa Ifth time-sequence. --This is the third jump forward i in "present" time* Light rises on Charley's office. Ber nard, a lawyer now, asks Willy why Biff never succeeded at |anything. When Bernard recalls that summer when Biff re turned from visiting Willy in Boston— claiming that it was i i then that Biff had "given up his life"— Willy grows angry j I 90 and evasive. (Prepea:ation for the hotel scene.) Bernard exits. Willy, borrowing money from Charley, says: "You end up worth more dead than alive." (Preparation.) Blackout (pp. 186-193). Thirteenth time-sequence. — Place a the cafe— in the "present." This is the fourth jump forward in time. Biff informs Happy that Oliver failed to remember him. He then i jconfesses to having stolen the basketballs years ago, and he jalso admits to having stolen Oliver's pen that afternoon. jBiff tells Happy that he no longer feels "spiteful" toward Willy. (Preparation for the hqtel scene.) Happy urges a girl at a nearby table to call a "friend" for Biff. (Prep- j aration for the sons' abandonment of Willy in the cafe.) I Willy enters. When Biff tries to tell the "truth," Willy complicates matters by telling the boys that Howard has fired him.(pp. 193-200) I I Fourteenth time-sequence. — 1 1 Simulfcaneity." While Willy talks in the "present" with the boys, events from the "past" are projected across the stage. While Biff struggles to I j tell the "truth," Bernard, as a boy, comes to Willy's house jamd tells Linda that Biff has failed in math. (Simultaneous I juxtaposition of cause, and effect.) Bernard informs Linda that Biff went to see Willy in Boston. (Preparation for the hotel scene, which will focus the above cause-effect i ijuxtaposition in a new light.) "Light on house area snaps i out" (pp. 200-201). i | Fifteenth time-sequence.— Action resumes wholly in the "present." Willy is shocked by Biff's confession that he stole Oliver's pen (p. 201). Sixteenth time-seauence.— "Simultaneity." Over dia logue in the "present," comes the sound of a telephone oper ator's voice from the "past." (The cafe scene is being played off against the coming scene in the hotel.) While Biff in the "present" says: "Talk to me, Dad," the opera- i tor's voice from out of the "past" ironically says: "Mr. Loman does not answer." The laughter of the Woman is also heard. (Preparation for the hotel scene.) Willy strikes Biff. The girls enter. (Preparation.) Willy exits to the washroom (pp. 201-204). Seventeenth time-sequence .— Action resumes in the |"present." Biff accuses Happy of not being concerned about Willy: "He's going to kill himself, don't you know that?" i |(Preparation.) Biff exits: and Happy follows with the 92 girls (pp. 204-205). Eighteenth time-aecmence.— Place: the washroom in the cafe. Time: the "past." Willy reconstructs the scene in the Boston hotel. Biff, eighteen, appears in Willy's room and informs his father that he has failed math. Suddenly the Woman enters from Willy's bedroom, looking for her silk stockings. Biff's idealized image of his father is suddenly destroyed. Calling Willy a "fake," Biff vows never to go to college— which, in effect, is a vow never to succeed in life (pp. 205-208). i Nineteenth time-sequence.— In the "present," Willy is jhelped from the cafe by a waiter. Willy exits, looking for a hardware store where he can purchase seeds. (Prepara tion.) (p. 209) i Twentieth time-sequence. — This is the fifth jump for ward in the "present." Time: later the same evening. iPlace: Willy's house. Linda attacks Biff and Happy for i I having abandoned Willy in the cafe. "Hammering is heard jfrom outside the house. . . ." Linda and Biff move toward Willy, who is in the yard. (Preparation for the final en- I Jcounter between Willy and Biff.) (pp. 210-212) 93 Twenty-first time-sequence.--Placet the yard. Times the "past." While Willy is planting seeds, Ben appears, and Willy reveals his suicide plans. (Preparation.) With the insurance money in his hands, Willy argues, Biff will see again that his father was really "number one." Ben warns Willy, however, that Biff will call him a "fool" and a "coward." (Preparation for the Requiem.) (pp. 212-<213) i Twentv-second time-sequence .— In the "present," Willy and Biff argue— the action moving from the yard to the jhouse. Biff says that he is leaving forever. Willy calls f i it "spite." Biff shows Willy the rubber tubing, and de- | clares that if Willy destroys himself there will be no pity I forthcoming from his beloved son. (Preparation.) Biff claims that the Lomans have been self-deceived for years— Willy pretending to be a great salesman when he was nothing but a "hajrd-working drummer who landed in the ashcan," while j Biff himself was strictly "one dollar an hour." But Willy I insists on the greatness of the Lomans. Enraged, Biff at tacks his father, but is suddenly overcome with tenderness i |and, sobbing, says: "Will you take that phony dream and I burn it before something happens?" To Willy, this is proof i jof Biff's love. (The Crisis of the play.) (pp. 213-218) 94 Twentv-third time-sequence.— " Simultaneity." While Willy talks in the "present" to Linda and Happy, Ben appears "just outside the kitchen," Says Willys "I always knew ... we were gonna make it, Biff and It" (Preparation.) Willy recalls Biff's days of glory as a football star. (Points back toward the curtain of Act One.) It is clear now that Willy will kill himself. (Points back to the be ginning of the play.) Over Linda's frantic appeals, Willy exits. The roar of Willy's car is heard, carrying the salesman to his death. (The Climax of the play.) (pp. 218- 220) ! Twentv-fourth time-secnience.— This is the sixth and Hast jump forward in the "present." It is the following day, or perhaps several days later. Linda, Biff, Happy, s (charley, and Bernard move slowly "through the wall-line of |the kitchen" to the apron of the stage, gazing down at i Willy's "grave." (Preparation for the Requiem.) (p. 220) I Rflgttiem Biff says that Willy "had the wrong dreams." (Points back.) Happy argues that Willy's "dream" was right. (Points back.) Linda says: "I made the last payment on the house today . . . and there111 be nobody home." 95 (Points back.) (The Conclusion of the play.) (pp. 221-222) John Gassner has praised the causal structure of Salesman, outlined above, but he has added that the logical ordering of events is more impressive than "the highly 3 touted external means." Before discussing further the time-sequences described above, then, let us briefly examine jthe "external means," that is, Miller's use of light and j sound in the play, in an effort to determine whether the "internal" has been satisfactorily integrated with the "external." j Lighting performs three major functions in the play. First, light serves as a transitional device; it moves the action from place to place in the "present," but it also i signals shifts in point of view— quite often, for example, the movement from objective to subjective is effected by the "green light of leaves" falling (pp. 142, 200, 220). i The reverse movement is accomplished by either dimming the ilights (p. 151) or by abrupt blackout (p. 201). The method is not arbitrary, for the mood of a specific scene deter mines the technique employed. Second, light functions as 3The Theater in Our Times (New York, 1954), p. 373. 96 j ! ironic comment on the action. (The ending of Act One is an example.) Finally, light functions, as has already been suggested, as mood-inspiring. (These categories overlap, of course.) The hostile city, for instance, appears as "an angry glow of orange" (p. 130); the cafe appears in a "red glow" (p. 193); and Willy's attempt to plant seeds in his yard is covered by the tender "blue of night" (p. 212). Similarly, sound has three chief functions. First, sound is used to characterize. The best illustration here is Willy's theme— the sound of the flute. The play opens and closes with Willy's theme; hence the flute acts as a ! kind of auditory binder. The flute tells of "grass and trees and the horizon" (p. 130), ironically juxtaposing in Willy's mind the promise of the past with the actuality of I jthe present. Since Willy's father made flutes, the sound ^points back toward Willy's childhood— thus the music helps i ! to give Willy an added dimension. The flute also character izes Willy in another way, for it comes to suggest his sui- i cidal impulses. Early in the play, Willy discovers his mistake in thinking he had opened the windshield on his new car: "He breaks off in amazement and fright as the flute i is heard distinctly" (p. 136). When the action moves from the cafe to the house for the final scene "the sound of the | 97 flute" comes up over the darkened stage (p. 209). And, lastly, when, In the Requiem, Linda "searches" for an answer |to Willy's death, once again the sound of the flute is heard (p. 222). The other characters have their music, too: the music of the boys is "gay" (p. 184); Ben's theme is "idyllic" (p. 218)y and Willy's father's theme is "a high, rollicking tune" (p. 157). The second chief function of sound is as ironic comment on the action. The "gay and fright" music of the boys, which opens Act Two, contrasts with the monotonous drone of Howard's machine in the follow- i ing scene. Ben's music, which opens the scene after the one | in Howard’s office, contrasts with the traffic sounds that I rise up from the street into Char ley's office in the follow ing scene. This alternation and juxtaposition of sound has | obvious thematic relevance. The third function of sound is to establish mood: the "mocking frenzy" that closes the jsubjective sequence in Howard's office, for example (p. i 186 )y the "raucous music" that opens the cafe scene (p. i 193); the "Raw, sensuous music" that underscores the scene i ^ in the hotel (p. 205)— the last two examples reveal how | Miller has ironically linked the promiscuity of the boys to Willy's failure as a husband and father. The foregoing discussion of Death of a Salesman shows 98 clearly, that its structure is highly integrated. Exposition and foreshadowing are expertly rendered. Exposition is continual and always relevant to action and theme; the time- sequences reveal the amazing number of preparations for com ing events. The final scene of Act One is a masterpiece of constructive art. There is no inconsequential byplay in Salesman? no loss of focus on the protagonist; no hidden letter tricks; and no "jumps." Action rises smoothly, steadily, and convincingly. John Gassner has described this feature of structure accurately: No recollection is allowed to leave the play in a state of stasis. Not only does the over-all action move a step forward after such episodes, but these are both preceded and followed by bursts of conflict between Willy or the mother and the boys. Miller has, in addi tion, overcome stasis by a steady climb of discovery and revelation.4 If space permitted, a good deal might be added to what has already been suggested about the uses of irony in the play— a sure sign of Miller's increasing sophistication and re straint .5 I | In general, point of view alternates consistently s ^he Theater in Our Times, p. 373. i sFor a brief discussion, see: Robert Boies Sharpe, Ironv in tha Drama (Chapel Hill, 1959), pp. 195-203. 99 between the objective and the subjective. A few inconsis tencies, however, are evident. The Requiem seems to be the i one serious violation of the conventions previously estab lished in the play. Once Willy is dead there would appear to be no authority for the alternation of sequences, for Willy, as the Jamesian "commanding center," is the sole ; warrant for, and subject of, the transitions from objective I to subjective point of view. Yet at the end of Act Two, after Willy's death, the "leaves of day" appear and the characters "move . . . through the wall-line of the kitchen" j(p. 220). As Miller himself says, however, this device is l reserved for the "past" (p. 131). The dream-like air that jsurrounds the opening scene before Willy appears is, on the jother hand, perhaps defensible. Willy is alive and the i reader can presume (but only reflexively) that this is i Willy's view of the house as he enters the opening scene I (much like the subjective camera technique in cinema). Lacfc of fixtures does not clearly signal anything, since selec tive realism and expressionism may touch here. Dennis Wel- s iland says s i i I Perhaps the structure of the play does not make clear I early enough the subjective angle from which Willy is being viewed; it begins so much like a realistic play that we have come to accept it as such before the first 100 6 memory-sequence occurs. . . . It is doubtful whether anything could be devised that would render perfectly clear, at the outset, the mode of imitation in Salesman, simply because the mode alternates. This is a minor problem. There is no reason to confuse Miller's 7 method, as Eric Bentley and less able critics have done, With the flashback technique; it is difficult to see how the i card-playing scene in Act One, for example, could be con fused with a flashback when "present" and "past" are obvi- i jously being projected simultaneously. Ben, however, pre- i sents a different problem. He is the one character in the play who is never revealed in an objective manner; that is, J ■ ■ Ben is never viewed by the audience apart from Willy's imag inative reconstruction of him. This fact has led one critic jto call Ben "the play's only predominantly formalized char- { g acterization" — which is true; but it should be added that i this fact does not acquit Miller of a certain lack of con- i f sistency in imitation. Intrinsically, Ben's appearances in I | 6Arthur Miller, p. 71. 7in Search of Theater (New York, 1954), p. 83. i ®Sister M. Bettina, "Willy Loman's Brother Ben: Tragic Insight in Death of a Salesman." Modern Drama. IV (February 11962). 410.________________________________________________ I 101 I the "subjective" and "subjective-objective" sequences are no different in kind from the appearances of the other characters. All of the characters in these sequences, as I have insisted, cure imaginative reconstructions by Willy, jand as such should be "formalized" in some wav or otherr as Ben is "formalized" when re-created by Willy. In the "sub jective" portions of the play, however, there is little or i no increase in "formalization" of either character or lan- i guage. It seems inconsistent to applaud the logic of the structure and at the same time minimize the devices that permit the concrete enactment of the logic. Death of a 9 Salesman— far from being a "jumble of styles" — is, as my analysis has shown, highly unified. Light and sound are } major contributions to the "sensuous" quality missing from I Miller's earlier works but manifest in Salesman. Only one or two criticisms are in order. Since the flute sound has i i jits origin inside Willy's head, the sound falls under the i same censure as point of view in the Requiem. Should Miller i ! have sacrificed dramatic effect for consistency? The play | | ^Eleanor Clark, The Plavi A Critical Anthology, ed. Eric Bentley (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1951), p. 746. 102 might very well be stronger (and a discussion of Theme will underline this observation) had Miller eliminated the Re quiem entirely. One might also quibble over the music that introduces the cafe scene, since (once more) Willy is not present to give authority to the sound. There is one pos sible exception, however. The fade-in, fade-out technique seems to be on a different level from, say, the "green leaves" of Willy's past. One might argue that in the age of film, audiences have come to accept cinematic dissolves with accompanying music. Music in Salesman. however, is highly individualized, extremely selective, and well- jintegrated with action and theme, and, hence, there would seem to be some doubt whether the argument from film is jvalid. One cannot be too dogmatic on these matters— other wise one might also object to the skeleton set itself, which |in the objective scenes is taken to be perfectly "natural" I i by one and all in the play. Taken all together— and considering the extreme diffi culty of the enterprise— structure in Death of a Salesman is i remarkably consistent and unified. i j Character Physically, Willy Loman is not described in detail: 103 "He is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly . . . [and] his exhaustion is apparent" (p. 131); but there is contrast here, for Willy, who stresses "appearances," is simply not physically "impressive." Sociologically, Willy belongs to the lower-middle class. Dialogue reveals that he is a traveling salesman from Brooklyn, who has averaged seventy to one hundred dol lars a week for a period of over thirty years, but to earn such money, Willy must "be at it ten, twelve hours a day" (p. 149). Willy's job has no built-in security against old i i 'age. Through dialogue, Miller creates a sense of the past. Willy became a salesman because in the early days selling i seemed to possess "comradeship" and real "personality" (pp. | 180-181), but selling changed in thirty years, and Willy i cannot adjust to the changes. Not that Willy was ever a great salesman, even in the early days (p. 181). Actually, 1 Willy would probably have been happier as a carpenter, al- ! I though in the play he takes a superior stance toward "mere" carpentering (p. 166). Willy seems to have had little edu cation; his father was always on the move, "he'd toss the whole family into the wagon, and then he'd drive the team right across the country" (p. 157). There is no religion in filly's life, no philosophical system to sustain him, and no ! 104 political convictions to absorb or direct his energy. Willy believes everything he reads in the newspaper— even the advertisements (p. 148). Willy Loman is " low-man": the i alienated, hypersensitive, urbanized cipher of modern soci ety. Psychologically, Willy has many traits. He appreciates nature (p. 132), and he is often nostalgic (p. 135). He is both dependent on Linda and domineering towards her (pp. 134-135). (He reveals the same pattern with Charley.) (Willy is persistent— he "can't walk away" (p. 190). He is i clearly gullible. His father, who is held up as a "real man," actually abandoned his family to search for gold in ^laska and this abandonment has left Willy with deep feel- i jings of insecurity (p. 159). Consequently, Willy feels the i need to overcompensate by being "number-one." His dominant Itrait, then, is a restless ambition for "success." Willy |tends to exaggerate; his moods swing abruptly (pp. 147-148). I Although Willy has been sexually unfaithful to Linda, he is jno callous profligate. He feels deep remorse. Clearly, i jthen, Willy has a tender conscience. This sensitivity is i ! I also manifest in Willy's frustration over not having at tained his idealized image of himself— and over Biff's not Ihaving attained Willy's idealized image of Biff. The inner 105 contradiction that drives Willy to self-destruction is the need to prove his worth against the fear that he has failed as both a father and a salesmans "I am not a dime a dozen I I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Lomani" (p. 217). Biff is described in this manner: Biff is two years older than his brother Happy [that is, thirty-four], well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable than Happy's. (p. 136) After his days of high school football glory, things changed for Biffs I spent six or-seven years after high school trying to ! work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it's a measly manner of exis tence . . . when all you really desire is to be outdoors . . . And still— that's how you build a future, (p. 136) j Dialogue also illuminates Biff's hopes for the future: I "with a ranch I could do the work I like and still be some- thing" (p. 141); it also reveals how Biff comes to reject jthat "something": i l ! What am I doing in [Oliver's] office, making a contemp- ! tuous, begging fool of myself, when all Z want is out [ [West], waiting for me the minute I say I know who I ami j (P. 217) Biff is rich in traits: he is moody (p. 133); he is a petty, compulsive thief (p. 141)— perhaps because he feels 106 unloved for what he is in himself; he is spiteful (p. 215); he is proud (p. 216); he is self-deceived (p. 197); he suffers from self-contempt (p. 211). Unlike Willy, however, Biff has the capacity to face the truth about himself (p. 216). Biff's dominant trait, in fact, is his restless search for self-identity. His inner contradiction is pre cisely his ambivalent attitude toward his father. Thus, he tells the girl in the cafe that Willy is: A fine, troubled prince. A hardworking, unappreciated prince. A pal ... A good companion. Always for his boys. (p. 204) But he tells Willy: I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot | air I could never stand taking orders from anybodyI That's whose fault it is! (p. 216) The contradiction results in Biff's paralyzing confusion: "I don't know--what I'm supposed to want" (p. 138). None of the other characters in Salesman has the com plexity of Willy and Biff. All of them are very nearly i dominated by a single trait: Happy is selfish, Linda is unselfish, Ben is confident, Howard is callous, Bernard is steady, and Char ley is "mature." Similarly, the minor char acters are static. Are Willy and Biff static? Willy cer tainly arrives at a mild condemnation of selling when he I 107 i tells Ben: "This [his suicide plan and the resultant in surance money] would not be another damned-fool appointment i I . . ." (p. 213). He also comes to see that Biff truly loves him (p. 218). Basically, however, Willy remains the same throughout the play— and this, of course, would seem to be Miller's point. Character growth— Willisun Archer preferred "disclosure"10— is only a means to an end. We can believe in static Willy in a way we cannot believe in "jumping" Joe Keller or David Frieber. Biff, on the other hand, definite ly grows, for he achieves a number of insights that culmi nate in a major development in self-awareness. Biff sees, i for example, that he was self-deceived about Oliver (p. j 197) ? he sees how all the Lomans have been self-deceived j(p. 216); and he stops his "spiteful" behavior toward Willy \ ! |and relinquishes the "phony dream" (p. 217), thus accepting i ! 'the "reality" of himself (p. 222). It has been said that Biff, not Willy, is the protag- i . | onist in Salesman. If we consider the action of the 1°Plav—Making. p. 246. I ! j J -J -Daniel E. Schneider, The Psychoanalyst and the Artist ;(New York, 1962), pp. 191-197; John V. Hagopian, "Arthur Miller: The Salesman's Two Cases," Modern Drama. VI (Sep tember 1963), 117-125. 108 play, however, and not preconceived and arbitrary criteria, ' it is easy to see why Willy, not Biff, is the protagonist. " It is Willy who forces the conflict; Willy who cannot sur render his "dream"; Willy who will not allow Biff to'rest in his "failure"; Willy who asks Howard for a job in New York; Willy who is unfaithful to Linda; Willy who borrows money from Charley; Willy who pursues Ben for the "answer"; and Willy who destroys himself in order to be "number-one." Finally, the unity of opposites in the play is binding. Compromise is impossible between Willy and Biff, both men |being what they are and desiring different things. (Compro mise is also impossible between Willy and the "system"; what Willy wants, even only a "little salary," and what jHoward will give him— "I can't take blood from a stone"— are I I opposed.) What makes the unity binding is the simple fact jthat Willy "can't walk away" from Biff. (Willy, it is true, couId take a job from Charley, but he is too proud to admit i I defeat— and it is his pride that drives him to suicide.) The above discussion should make plain that Willy and Biff are three-dimensional characters. Structurally, as we have seen, dialogue performs its office through expert ex- i position and foreshadowing. Here, in terms of character, (dialogue is made to reveal as much of the past, present, 109 and future of Willy and Biff as is necessary for a proper I understanding of the action. In short, dialogue in Salesman^ i i is extremely functional. One reason why Willy is more alivej than Joe Keller is the fact that dialogue is more specific about Willy— we learn more about the salesman, such as his important childhood environment (which helps us to under stand his adult behavior) or that he lives in Brooklyn, New York (which helps us to place him within a concrete context and also to make allowances for his speech patterns). The more we know about Willy, the more interest we have in his 12 fate. The fact that Miller starts the point of attack i I with Willy already an attempted suicide, with the focus ^steadily on Willy as the protagonist, and with Willy's inner i contradictions continually on view, permits us to believe in Willy and his death in a way that was impossible in the case | ^Two negative reactions to Miller's dialogue appear in fthe following: "The dialogue serves its purpose as well as |the dialogue of a Dreiser novel, but it is also almost as undistinguished, as unpoetic, as unmemorable, and as unquot able ." (Joseph Wood Krutch, "Drama," Nation. March 5, 1949, P. 284); " Poetry is made with words; and in the poetic ap proach, nothing but words will in the last analysis bring ;success . . . and the words just aren't there." (T. C. Worsley, "Poetry without Words," New Statesman and Nation. August 6, 1949, pp. 146-147J Krutch appears not to see the "poetry" that Aa in Salesman: while Worsley, in one grand gesture, seems to dismiss almost the whole of modern drama. no o£ Joe Keller. There is no denying, however, that something is lacking in the minor characters. One might argue that Willy and Biff are at the center of things, that they are sufficiently delineated, and that there is no necessity for the other characters to be fully drawn. There is some truth in such an argument, for every play requires flat characters. Char ley, Bernard, Howard, and Ben are perhaps "there" enough for the parts they are to enact. Eric Bentley has asked whether Ben is "more than a sentimental motif?" Since Ben is seen jin the play by Willy alone, and since Willy is sentimental about Ben, the answer to Bentley seems obvious. But Bent- | | ley's charge that Willy's marriage is not "there for us to ; 13 inspect and understand down to its depths" is less easy to counter. Although Miller's concern is with Willy and Biff, not Willy and Linda, the fact remains that Linda is more i flat than would seem either desirable or necessary. To a lesser extent, the same criticism might be scored against i Happy. A play, however, is not judged by its characters i alone, for every element in a play is part of a total de ls ign, and characters are evaluated in respect to how well j 13In Search of Theater, p. 83. Ill they contribute to that design. Characterization— including the controversial question of Willy's qualifications for a tragic role— can be viewed in more depth, then, against a j background of theme in Miller's play. Theme Critics of Death of a Salesman, when they have not been vexed by the problem of genre— a problem that will be taken up at the end of this chapter— have most often been con cerned with two aspects of the theme: (1) unity of concep tion, and (2) the values inherent in Miller's "counter weight" to Willy Loman's "wrong dreams." Eric Bentley asks, for example, whether the "system" is to blame for Willy's fate, or whether the fault lies in 14 Willy's character. In a later writing, Bentley adds: "If i Salesman is political, the key scene is the one with the tape recorder; if it is sexual, the key scene is the one in |the Boston hotel." ^ John Gassner's first "impression" was | that Miller fused personal and social motivation. In a I second "impression," however, Gassner detected a "split" in I I | 14ln Search of Theater, p. 82. 15"Theatre," New Republic. December 19, 1955, p. 22. 112. 16 motivation, with the personal in the foreground. Although Harold Clurman grasps the importance of the hotel scene in i regard to Biff's developing awareness, he feels that the focus is wrong because it gives the impression that Willy's infidelity is "crucial rather than contributory to the 17 play's main line." Another critic, following Clurman, adds that Biff would have failed in business anyway, and, j i had he succeeded in business, he would have failed, like 18 Howard, in a human way. John Mander, discussing what he calls the "Marxian" and "Freudian" motivation in the play, I I j s a y s : l we have . . . to choose which kind of motivation must have the priority; we cannot have both at once. This j is . . . a strange conclusion. For the distinction be- ! tween the "social" and the "psychological" exists only ! in theory, not in actuality. But . . . the dichotomy | exists in theory. . . . i Mander concludes that the mixture of "Marxian" and "Freud- l jian" motivation is "harmful": i i The reason for this lies . . . in their mutual exclusive ness . . . for they are total ideologies ... a house 16The Theatre in Our Times, pp. 364-373. 17Lies Like Truth, p. 71. Joseph A. Hynes, "Attention Must Be Paid . . ." Col leae English, XXIII (April 1962), 578._____________________ 113 19 divided against itself cannot•stand. The Requiem has been singled out as particularly faulty by a number of critics because it fails, so it is argued, in the matter of clarifying the theme. To be spe cific, it has been said that the Requiem does not reveal what "wrong dreams" possessed Willy; that Charley fails to speak for Miller in answer to Biff; and that Linda's final speech is unsatisfactory.^ Finally, critics have questioned what they have taken jto be the "positive" values implicit in Salesman. Richard jj. Foster speaks for many when he brands Miller's "counter- ^weight" as a "romantic" and "sentimental" view of man— that 1 jis, according to Foster, "nature, freedom and the body; free i ■self-expression and self-realization; individualism and the ; 21 {simple life" are "romantic" and "sentimental." Others {find the specific idea of Willy's working with his hands an i i 19The Writer and Commitment (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 151-152. 1 ^^Hynes, for example, scores most of these points in his essay. Con fusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Miller's Salesmanf" Two American Tragedies r ed. John D. Hurrell (New York, 1961), p. 85. 114 22 inadequate solution to the problems posed in the play. How many Americans, asks Arthur Ganz, believe with Willy Loman "that success . . . can be achieved not by work and ability but by being 'well liked'" Criticism of thematic unity in Salesman betrays a curious "either-or" kind of thinking. Usually, Miller is pummelled for too overtly trying to "prove the theme," but in Salesman the strategy has been to attack him for being too "realistic." As Bamber Gascoigne has said: j Bentley is presenting as a defect one of the play's main merits'— that it is about both politics and sex, that both scenes (and several others) are key scenes, that the in- | dividual and the social are inextricably f u s e d . Notice that Biff more than once calls Willy a "fake." Al though this word has a double reference in the play, themat- ically it is all of a piece. Willy is a "fake" for being junfaithful to Linda; he is also a "fake" as a salesman, for i he is nothing but an unsuccessful "drummer." Moreover, ^Willy's values are "fake," since they stem from his "phony I I I i j j 22gighle Kennedy, "Who Killed the Salesman?" Catholic |World, CIXXX (May 1950), 115-116. 23"The Silence of Arthur Miller," p. 227. g4Twantiath-Cantiirv Drama (London, 1962), p. 177. 115 dream." Nor is Willy's infidelity merely "personal"'—-it results from his loneliness (loneliness which has a "social" dimension, since it is a necessary concomitant of his work role) and his anxiety to "get through to the buyers before 25 the other salesmen." The hotel scene is central because it crystallizes for Biff, Willy's essential falseness; that is, it leads to Biff's questioning of all Willy's values, and his eventual rejection of them. True, Biff would prob ably have "failed" (however defined) in business anyway; but the hotel scene is also linked to the play's climax, for i Biff's insight into Willy and. his "spiteful" attitude toward him is a preparation for his insight into himself and his subsequent acceptance of himself. Gerald Weales puts it jconcisely when he says: "The antagonism of Willy and Biff I ! gg ^grows out of Willy's societally-induced dream of success." To ask a modern dramatist to write a play that emphasizes either social necessity ££. individual responsibility would j seem to involve an oversimplified approach to experience. jThe abstract discussion of freedom versus determinism, j | 25paul N. Siegal, "Willy Lomah and King Lear," College English. XVII (March 1956), 342. i | Plays and Analyses," The Commonweal. July 12, 1957, p . 382. 116 usually conducted in a philosophical vacuum, seems ultimate ly a dead-end; in actuality, we recognize the rival claims of both factors, and we manage to live with both. As in All Mv Sons. Miller appears to affirm freedom at the same time that he underlines the influence of social forces. A Charley can remain fundamentally decent in spite of the negative elements in society. A Ben (at least Willy's ver sion of Ben) can succeed ruthlessly, but remain self-assurec and apparently free from guilt. The same might be said of Howard. Willy, on the other hand, loses his way in such a {world— and who can determine the exact degree of his culpa- ! bility? (In Nazi Germany, although some men lost their in- I i tegrity, some men did not; but it does not follow that there | {were no evil forces in German society.) How separate the {"social" from the "personal" in Salesman? Willy, for exam- I 'pie, has deep-rooted feelings of insecurity; "Dad left when i I was such a baby and ... I still feel— kind of temporary {about myself" (p. 159). This sounds "personal." But would i •Willy have felt so "temporary" in a society that offered •more community, more "comradeship"? Surely it is trite to i {observe that a society such as ours, with shifting social values, hardly furnishes an ideal structure for self- discovery. Death of a Salesman reflects the density and 117 complexity of life itself. Why then must we choose either "personal" or "social," either "political" or "sexual" ex planations? Why "Freudianism" or "Marxism"? "Freudianism" and "Marxism" are, like Salesmanr abstractions from life; but if "Freudianism" and "Marxism" are "total ideologies" and "mutually exclusive," that does not mean that Salesman cannot use both "ideologies," for a play does not project "total ideologies" (except thesis plays), but assimilates "totalities" to its own unique pattern and design. In the Requiem, Miller seems quite explicit about what "wrong dreams" possessed Willy; Happy says: "[Willy] had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have— to come out j number-one man" (p. 222). Why must Charley necessarily speak for Miller? (Are we always sure who speaks for I Shakespeare?) It is not true that the scene as a whole I I speaks of the salesman; only Charley speaks of the salesman — the other characters speak of Willy. And the answer to, Who was Willy? is suggested in Biff's remark that "There's more of [willy] in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made" (p. 221); it is implied in Happy's statement (above), for Willy was less than the "number-one man"; and Willy, like Biff (Miller seems to imply), should have ac cepted his limitations. Biff's objection to Willy appears 118 to be that Willy defines himself too narrowly in terms of his social role. Is Charley's definition of Willy in re spect to the salesman confusing? Is Charley out of charac ter here? Miller says: "In all [Charley] says, despite what he says, there is pity. . . ." (p. 152). In the action of the play, Charley speaks hard: "When a deposit bottle is broken you don't get your nickel back" (p. 154); "My salva tion is that I never took any interest in anything" (p. 191); "The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell" (p. 192). Yet Charley comes in the middle of the night to cheer Willy; he "lends" Willy fifty do Ilsurs a week; and he endures Willy's insults for yesurs. This shows that i I Charley is not so hard as he pretends, that we need not take |at face value all that he says. Aside from this, there ! seems to be no necesssury inconsistency in Charley's Requiem i speech. Previously, Charley has said that— in the broad i sense— we are all salesmen; what he has debunked throughout the play is Willy's belief in "personality" ("Who liked «J. P. Morgan?" asks Charley, p. 192). In his farewell to Willy, however, perhaps out of his characteristic pity, he Seems to be softening his previous debunking, he seems to be saying that so long as there are salesmen— in the narrow sense now— then that kind of "salesman is got to dream . . . ________ 119 It comes with the territory" (p. 222). Charley would seem, then, to be merely "realistic." Moreover, perhaps a part of Char ley's function in the Requiem is to speak only good | of the dead, in an effort to hearten Willy's widow. If this reading is valid, Charley remains in character. It is difficult, however, to justify Linda's final speech: "Why did you do it? I search and search and I search, and I can't understand it, Willy" (p. 222). True, even an expected event might cause surprise-rational under standing cannot prevent emotional shock, especially in the i i jcase of a loved one's suicide. Linda, moreover, being sym- i Ipathetic but not very perceptive, could never enter wholly i into Willy's dreams— she was different in that she could "walk away" ("life is a casting off," she says, p. 133). I Nevertheless, one feels that there is a spurious element i here— an abandonment of logic for the sake of a "curtain." i Linda knew of Willy's previous suicide attempts; she knew I I of his depression over Biff and the job; and she knew a 'great deal about Willy's dreams. There would seem to be 1 very little, really, to search for on Linda's part. The one thing that Linda knew nothing about was Willy's infidelity; but Willy's infidelity was not causally related to his sui cide. Laurence Kitchin says that the Requiem is a "let 120 I down," that, in general, a conclusion following immediately 27 on climax is better. It is difficult not to agree with Kitchin. In spite of the fact that much of the specific i content of the Requiem is defensible, it still seems un satisfactory. Technically, as has been said, it violates the convention of point of view, and, although it helps to focus the theme, it says nothing really new, nothing that has not been better expressed in the previous action. More over, in its final utterance, it is even somewhat specious and confusing. i i Miller is accused of being "romantic" and "sentimental" for espousing "freedom and the body," "self-realization," and "the simple life." With such terms in mind, a reading [of Plato's Republic might suggest that the Greeks, far from I being "classical," were in reality extremely "romantic." ! The "classical-romantic" dichotomy thus becomes semantically i meaningless. Equally unsatisfactory are vague terms like i i "nature" and "individualism." The critical question is whether Miller has rendered a complex vision of experience, i not whether the critic necessarily agrees with the alleged i i i I interpretation of the vision. The play implies that Willy j j 27Mid-Centurv Drama (London, 1960), p. 62. 121 might have been happier in a pre-"capitalistic" (or perhaps pre-industrial) society; it more plainly suggests that Willy would have been happier working with his "hands"; and it makes manifest that Biff, feels that— for him— the West is the answer. Psychologically, it is a truism to say that a man will be happy doing what he can do best. What appears to disturb some critics is that this "answer" is not "pro found" enough. Would Oedipus have brought on his fate if he had not been rash? Would Lear have ended badly had he not been short-tempered? How "profound" are the specific "counterweights" here? Moreover, is Miller offering a "universal" solution to a modern problem? Obviously not; not all men are good with their "hands" (Charley, for exam- ple, p. 154); and it is precisely the point that Biff's "solution" is unique— doesn't he say: "I know who I am"? j(p. 222). Biff speaks for Biff. Furthermore, Salesman i raises questions that can never be answered in a scientific |way. Was it really "better" in pre-" capitalistic" America? Historically, of course, the economic and social transforma- i 'tion of American society had already begun when, in terms of the play, Willy's father sold flutes across the country. In terms of the plav. however, there is no "proof" that Miller is "saying" that pre-"capitalistic" society was 122 i ! I"better"--for the contrast between "past" and "present" is limited by point of view, and the "past" is wholly Willy's iprojection. As for the positive values that seem to emerge from the play— "romantic" and "sentimental" values— one might fairly ask whether they sere quite so shoddy as some critics would have us believe. These same critics would have to hold (and perhaps some do) that the democratic ex periment is shoddy, that it is "romantic" and "sentimental," j 9 I 'since these same values are part of the democratic rhetoric. j Not all of us, however, have lost faith in that rhetoric. Salesman also poses questions which, it is hoped, are an swerable, but which as yet have hot been answered— such as, How are we to reconcile human values with an expanding econ- j omy of abundance which puts a premium on mechanization and impersonality? Critics who assault Salesman rarely reveal where they stand; they seem to suggest that the answer has been found— perhaps they themselves have the answer— but that Miller, through sheer stupidity or perversity, has not provided the answer. Some critics miss the theological and 28 metaphysical dimension in Salesman? but in a pluralistic 1 j 2®Tom F. Driver, "Strength and Weakness in Arthur Mil ler ," pp. 45-52. i 123 society such as ours it is surely arrogant to demand a single standard. Death of a Salesman possesses both "particular" and "universal" features. How many Americans believe in being "well liked"? (It should be pointed out to Mr. Ganz that Willy Loman works hard, too— ten or twelve hours a day, in fact.) According to C. Wright Mills, our society places an increasing importance on "personality." A survey taken by one American university discovered that college graduates with "personality" would be more readily hired than other ! graduates, even if those others had higher grades, the only f exceptions being in the scientific and technical fields; ! but in all other areas such qualities as skill, aptitude, creativeness, are merely subordinate to "appearance" and j"personality. "2^ As Mills puts it: "The troubles that i Confront the white-collar people are the troubles of all i 3 o men and women living in the twentieth century." One might i add, however, that Willy's troubles are not limited to the | twentieth century. To take but one approach, the use of the ! f | | 29Mhitfl Collars The American Middle Class (New York, |1951), pp. 180-186. 30White Collar, p. xv. 124 flute in Salesman suggests a passage in Thoreau's Walden which I do not believe any critic has noticed. Discussing "John Farmer," who "heard some one playing on a flute and that sound harmonized with his mood," Thoreau says: But the notes of the flute came home to his ears out of a different sphere from that he worked in, and suggested work for certain faculties which slumbered in him. They gently did away with the street, and the village, and the state in which he lived. A voice said to him,— Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. — But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither? All that he could think of was to practice some new austeri ty, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect.31- ! Whether Miller had this passage in mind is irrelevant; the similar use of the flute in bpth works suggests a "univer sal" situation— since Thoreau was writing about "John Farm er" and not, like Miller, about a modern huckster, "Willy Loman." This problem of universality raises a question about Miller's play that has usurped all other problems in the minds of some critics. j I refer, of course, to what Gerald Weales calls "the i pointless academic quibble about whether or not" Miller's 31(New York, 1959), pp. 150-151. 12 5~) i 32 plays "are true tragedies." Is Willy Loman a "true" tragic hero? Does Willy have stature? Does he achieve in sight? How representative is he? These, for some minds, have been the burning critical questions. Nor has Miller himself been unconcerned with the dis- 33 pute. In "Tragedy and the Common Man," Miller expounds his theory of tragedy. "In the tragic view," says Miller, "the need of man to wholly realize himself is the only fixed star. . . ." The tragic hero, for Miller, "is intent on claiming his whole due as a personality." Says Miller: the fateful wound from which the inevitable events spiral j is the wound of indignity, and its dominant force is in- i dignation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly. ; The tragic flaw is the hero's "inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity," and "his destruction in the at- jtempt posits a wrong or an evil in his environment." But j the possibility of victory must be there, or, according to Miller, there is pathos and not tragedy. Miller argues that his view of tragedy is ample enough to embrace the common Arthur Miller: Man and His Image," p. 165. 33Theatre Arts. XXXV (March 1951), 48-50. 126 man. 34 Miller, as one critic has shown, develops his con ception of tragedy further in the "Introduction" to the ' Collected Plavs. where a new emphasis is placed on the trag ic hero's commitment to a set of values which he cannot re linquish. This new emphasis, moreover, is at the expense of Miller's previous insistence on the evil in the hero's en vironment . Critics, at least those bound by traditional standards of tragedy, have not accepted either Miller's theory or his play as "true." (Miller himself, it should be noted, has ! '35 jexpressed dissatisfaction with Willy's lack of insight.) !For George Jean Nathan, Willy has no mind, hence no "uni- iversal size." Says Herbert J. Muller: "There is no | ^question of grandeur in such a tragedy. . . . "37 William G. i j McCollom bars Salesman from the tragic heights because it is l I j i | I 34Emile G. McAnany, S. J., "The Tragic Commitment: Some Notes on Arthur Miller," Modern Drama. V (May 1962), 11-20. ^"Arthur Miller Discusses The Crucible r" as told to John and Alice Griffin, Theatre Arts. XXXVII (October 1953), 34. 36The Maaic Mirror (New York, 1960), p. 249. 37The Spirit of Tracredv (New York, 956), p. 316. 127 38 played against a superficial American background. Perhaps Richard J. Foster sums up the traditionalist argument when he says that tragedy must have stature and some meaningful 39 order, and Salesman has neither. Other critics have been more flexible. Their degree of flexibility, however, traverses a wide spectrum. Alan S. Downer, for example, says: For Americans, and for societies similarly organized, Death of a Salesman is tragedy. For other societies it is a lesser thing, a case history perhaps. It is questionable whether even the ablest of the selective realists has achieved universality in reflecting a world so full of chaos and contradiction.4® t ! i Richard Watts appears to limit Salesman's tragic stature in another way: The curious thing about this play is that it really was j a tragedy for extroverts. The more extroverted people i were that went to it, the more they seemed to be moved ! by it.4^ j A. Howard Fuller, president of Fuller Brush Company, failing | 38Traaedv (New York, 1957), p. 17. 3®"Confusion and Tragedy," p. 83. I ! 4°Fiftv Years of American Drama. 1900-1950 (Chicago, 11951), p. 75. 41"Death of a Salesman, a Symposium," Tttlanfl Drama Re view. II (Hay 1958), 64. 128 to discriminate nicely between extroverts and introverts, simply avers that Willy Loman is "any man whose illusions have made him incapable of dealing realistically with the problems of everyday life." In other words, Fuller believes that: Nearly everyone . . . can discover some quality displayed by Willy and his sons that exists in himself and in his friends and relatives.4^ A more sophisticated critic, Elder Olson, arrives at a simi lar conclusion: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman achieves its serious ness through the fact that Willy Loman's situation is representative of, or at any rate analogous to, the situ ation of so many people.4^ John Gassner, in an attempt to define both Oedipus and Sales man as tragedy, resorts to a "high" and "low" dichotomy. Salesman is a tragedy because: "Willy pursues truth and [struggles against it within his personal and social limits | no less arduously and catastrophically than Oedipus": but Miller's play is "low" tragedy because, as others have said, 42"A Salesman is Everybody," Fortune. XXXIX (May 1949), 79-80. 4^Traaedv and the Theory of Drama (Detroit, 1961), p. 249. 129 44 Willy has a dull mind. One is tempted to dismiss this tedious discussion by roundly declaring that Death of a Salesman is a moving and powerful play— "By common consent . . . one of the finest 45 dramas in the whole range of the American Theatre" — and thus it is irrelevant whether or not Miller has written a "true" tragedy. If the traditionalist standard is the only acceptable one for tragedy, then it is plain that Salesman is no tragedy. For no one would claim for Willy a profound intelligence, and if stature is dependent on intelligence, Willy falls short of tragic grandeur. Miller's admission that Willy lacks sufficient insight plays into the hands of hostile critics. It is true that Willy does lack the degree of insight achieved by, say, King Lear. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Miller is correct when, in his "Introduc tion," he argues: Had Willy been aware of his separation from values that endure he would have died contentedly while polishing his car . . . But he was agonized by his awareness of being in a false position . . . That he had not the in- j tellectual fluency to verbalize his situation is not the i 44Theatre at the Crossroads, pp. 63-64. ^Brooks Atkinson, Thfl PlflYi A Critical Anthology, ed. Eric Bentley, p. 731. 130 same thing as saying that he lacked awareness, even ah overly intensified consciousness that the life he had made was without form and inner meaning, (pp. 34-35) Emile 6. McAnany, moreover, has said, as I have in my ; section on character, that in the closing moments of Act Two "Willy discovers that his dream of fatherhood has unexpect edly been achieved ... he finds love"; "Yet he refuses to 46 give up the idea that he can make his son rich." McAnany would argue, then, for a second important, though not ulti mately transforming, insight in Salesman. Willy, I would add, is not given "intellectual fluency" but perhaps Miller |has achieved something better, or at least just as good— namely, he has shown how "insight" is warded off, how it is suppressed or repressed, but how it will not disappear, how it continues to torment the conscious mind and will, marking I jits victim as a neurotic and possibly even a psychotic. |Freud has taught our century to rethink its definitions of I '"consciousness" (for the "unconscious" mind seems like a i jcontradiction in terms); perhaps it behooves drama critics jto redefine their conception of "insight." It is, I believe, sheer obscurantism to dismiss Sales- j I man because it deals with a "superficial" American environ- 46"The Tragic Commitment," p. 19. ______ _________ 131 ment. Salesman treats one phase of our modern world, and treats it in a vivid and compelling way. To demand that Miller project some meaningful order that would satisfy all readers is to ask for an intellectual feat that other art ists, not to say philosophers, have failed to achieve. Downer's reflections look odd in conjunction with Mills' diagnosis of twentieth-century life. Before long, Mills would argue, all societies will be organized as ours is presently fashioned. Nor would it appear true to say that only extroverts have applauded Salesman? Mr. Fuller makes more sense than some professional critics. Some readers i will feel that Gassner, by distinguishing "high" and "low" forms of tragic art, has succeeded in the difficult job of making everybody happy; others will feel that Gassner re- jtains a criterion that evaluates a play on the basis of jsubject matter rather than formal perfection. Salesman may be "low" tragedy, but more moving as a play (as Gassner him’ 47 jself has said, speaking of drama in general, elsewhere) jthan most "high" tragedies. The appreciation of Salesman, then, would not seem to depend on whether or not it is a 47"Tragic Perspectives; A Sequence of Queries," pp. 7-22. 132 "true" tragedy. The authors of one textbook, while reject ing Willy as a tragic hero, feel compelled to add: And yet, we cannot wholly reject him . . . [He] finally forces us to ask, "Have we created a society fundamentally so inimical to man that, in cutting him off from the sun and the earth, it threatens his very survival?"4® Ultimately the quarrel may not be an aesthetic one at all, but may reflect a deep reluctance on the part of "tradi tional" critics to come to grips with the real nature of contemporary experience. Summary | Death of a Salesman marks a leap forward by Arthur j killer in technical mastery and thematic complexity. I i | Structure is dense and coherent. Exposition and fore- i i ishadowing are excellent. The point of attack is completed i by the third page of dialogue. Movement results from logi- I jcal progression in "present" time juxtaposed, and in some i instances fused, with associational patterns from the "past." Action rises smoothly, steadily, and convincingly ;to the climax. In general, point of view alternates con- i sistently from objective to subjective reference: only the i 48Judah Bierman and others, The Dramatic Experience (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1958), p. 493. 133 Requiem more or less seriously violates the conventions previously established. Less serious perhaps, but worth noting, Is the fact that In the memory sequences there Is little or no "distortion" of character, with the exception of Ben's. Light and sound are used Imaginatively; there Is a high level of Integration between "internal" structure and "external" means. Character, on the whole, is similarly more satisfactory here than in Miller's previous work. Willy Loman and Biff Loman are Miller's first truly three-dimensional and con vincing characters. Willy is clearly the protagonist in jthe drama; the unity of opposites is binding. Only the i jminor characters remain relatively unsatisfactory, Linda's jflatness— and perhaps Happy*s— being the most serious defect i i jhere. Dialogue, though not pleasing in a "poetic" way, is extremely functional; it moves the action forward, while exposing the backgrounds and attitudes of the characters. Thematically, Salesman reflects the complexity of life jitself. Personal and social motivations sure coordinated; i and both motivations are focused in the action-—in short, there is unity of theme. Although the Requiem helps to summarize the theme, it adds nothing that has not been ap parent in the previous action and, in Linda's final speech, 134 Miller risks spuriousness and confusion for the sake of an effective conclusion. Miller's "counterweight" to Willy's "wrong dream," as it appears to emerge from the play, can be defended; that is, the alternative is not necessarily "ro mantic" or "sentimental." Unlike some of his critics, Miller has avoided didacticism and oversimplification in his theme. It can be argued that Death of a Salesman succeeds in achieving "universality." Thus, the critical controversy about whether or not Miller has written a "true" tragedy seems irrelevant, and adds little to one's understanding and appreciation of the play. Whatever one might feel about i jWilly's mind, his stature, and his degree of insight, there j jis no doubt that the salesman has "universal size," in the sense that his plight is representative of many in the mod ern world. CHAPTER IV THE CRUCIBU5 &fcrac.tur.e In The Crucible (1953),1 a four-act play, Miller re turns to the “realistic" style of his earlier plays. The scene is Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1692 and the action is based on the witchcraft trials of that time. In “A Note on the Historical Accuracy of This Play," Miller I jsays: “This play is not history in the sense . . . used by ithe academic historian," for "dramatic purposes" prompted certain changes in the record. Nevertheless, Miller be lieves “the reader will discover here the essential nature" of the Salem trials (p. 224). In his “Introduction," Miller recalls his mood at the time of writing the play: I If the reception of All My Song and Death of a Salesman ^Arthur Miller's Collected Plavs. pp. 223-330. 135 136 had made the world a friendly place for me, events of the early fifties quickly turned that warmth into an illusion. It was not only the rise of "McCarthyism" that moved me, but something which seemed much more weird and mysterious. It was the fact that a political, objective, knowledgeable campaign from the far Right was capable of creating not only a terror, but a new subjective reality, a veritable mystique which was grad ually assuming even a holy resonance . . . That so in terior and subjective an emotion could have been so manifestly created from without was a marvel to me. It underlies every word in The Crucible. (pp. 39-40) Yet, says Miller, he would not have written the play had he "not come upon a single fact," namely, that a young girl, Abigail Williams, "the prime mover of the Salem hys teria, so far as the hysterical children were concerned," |Who had worked for John and Elizabeth Proctor, had accused Elizabeth of witchcraft but refused "to include John . . . in her accusations despite the urgings of the prosecutors" i (p. 41). In short, Miller thought he detected a sexual motive in Abigail's "fastidiousness" toward John which "made the play conceived?le for" him (p. 42). In another passage, Miller relates how his interpreta tion of the trials affected the structure of The Crucibles As in any such mass phenomenon, the number of characters of vital, if not decisive, importance is so great as to make the dramatic problem excessively difficult. For a time it seemed best to approach the town impressionisti cally, and, by a mosaic of seemingly disconnected scenes, gradually to form a context of cause and effect. This I believe I might well have done had it not been that the 137 central Impulse for writing at all was not the social but the interior psychological question ... of that guilt residing in Salem which the hysteria merely un leashed, but did not create. Consequently, the struc ture reflects that understanding, and it centers in John, Elizabeth, and Abigail. ("Introduction,*' p. 42) Enough has been said about Miller's "intentions"; it is time, now, to discuss "achievement" in The Crucible. I wish to devote a detailed paragraph to each of Miller's four acts in an effort to trace the line of development, giving particular attention to the point of attack, complication, the turning point, and crisis and conclusion. Act One, which Miller calls an "Overture," occurs in the spring of 1692. The scene is the "small upper bedroom" of the Reverend Samuel Parris. When the curtain rises, Parris is discovered kneeling beside the bed of his daugh- i ter, Betty, aged ten, who is suffering from a strange ill ness. Tituba, Parris's Negro slave, is introduced, and her abrupt dismissal by Parris suggests that there is a tension in the household, perhaps even a suspicion that Tituba is related in some way to Betty's illness. On what is actually the first page of dialogue, Abigail enters and relates that, according to the doctor, Betty might be suffering from some thing "unnatural." Parris, realizing that an "unnatural" influence would reflect on his household, had anticipated 138 the doctor's opinion and sent for an "expert" in demono logy — the Reverend Hale— in order to prove that Betty is not possessed. Parris then confronts Abigail, who is his niece, with a serious charge: he claims to have seen Betty, Abi gail, Tituba, and other girls dancing in the woods— and, worst of all, one of the girls was naked. Abigail insists that it was a joke, and not a devilish conjuring. Parris reminds his niece that he has enemies, people who wish to drive him from his pulpit. At stake, then, is Parris's job, and perhaps Betty's life. A crucial element in the plot structure is introduced in the following exchange be tween Parris and Abigail: Parris . . .: Abigail, is there any other cause than you have told me, for your being discharged from Goody Proctor's service? I have heard it said . . . that she comes so rarely to the church this year for she will not sit so close to something soiled . . . Abigail: She hates me, uncle . . . for I would not be her slave. It's a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a womani Parris: She may be. And yet it has troubled me that you sure now seven months out of their house, and in all this time no other family has ever called for your ser vice. i Abigail, in a temper: My name is good in the village'. I will not have it said my name is soiled'. . . . (p. 232) The exchange is interrupted by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, both of whom sure convinced that witchcraft is operating in Salem. Under repeated questioning, Abigail 139 finally weakens and admits that Tituba was conjuring in the woods. After the adults exit, Mary Warren, the Proctors' eighteen-year-old servant, joins the other girls and accuses Abigail of drinking chicken blood in the woods as a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail threatens to kill the girls if they expose her. (This is in the eighth page of dialogue.) John Proctor enters and, after having angrily jdriven Mary back to work, is alone with Abigail (save for the unconscious Betty) in an expository scene which reveals the couple's past sexual relations. It is clear that Abi gail still desires John, and, in spite of John's protests to the contrary, she affirms that John continues to yearn for iier. Thus confronted, John admits to thinking of her "soft ly from time to time. But," he insists, "I will cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again" (p. 241). Suddenly | the words "going up to Jesus" are heard from below and Betty pits up, wailing. Parris, the Putnams, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey quickly enter the room. Rebecca is presented as a saintly old woman; Giles is eighty-three, and "canny" (p. i 242). An argument develops between John and Parris in which the latter accuses the preacher of too much love for money, | he Ilf ire sermons, and the rights of authority. In fact, Proctor explains that it is these faults of Parris that have 140 kept many, including Proctor himself, from attending church recently. There is also an altercation between John and Mr. Putnam over the latter*s land claims. Hale enters just as John is leaving. Questioned by Hale, Abigail confesses that Tituba forced her to drink chicken blood. Tituba admits to conjuring, but also implicates others in Salem. Abigail joins w£th the slave in this strategy, as do the other frightened girls, and the act ends with the girls "crying out" against various people. Act Two takes place eight days later in the "common room of Proctor1s house." A strain is evident between John and Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth urges John to go to court and reveal that Abigail told him that there was no conjuring in the woods. When John says there were no witnesses to Abigail's statement, Elizabeth traps her husband in a lie, for he had previously denied being alone with the girl. Elizabeth suspects John of still lusting after Abigail, while John accuses his wife of being unforgiving. When Mary returns from Salem, she gives Elizabeth a doll she made that day at court. The girl reports that if a prisoner confesses to witchcraft he is in no danger of being hanged. John, unimpressed by the "leniency" of the court, hotly forbids Mary to return to Salon. Mary defends herself by asserting 141 that she saved Elizabeth's life when the latter was accused of sorcery. Elizabeth is convinced that Abigail wants her dead. Hale enters, then, and probes into the spiritual life of the Proctors. Hale has noticed, in going through the church records, that John does not often appear at services. When John attempts to shift the blame to Parris, Hale re quests that John recite the Commandments. John obliges— but omits the sin of adultery. Hale grows increasingly disturbed about the Proctors. Suddenly Giles appears and informs the Proctors that Rebecca and Mrs. Corey have both been arrested. Court officers arrive on the scene and, in a search of the house, discover the doll. Since the doll has a needle in it, Elizabeth is arrested as a witch, for jthat evening Abigail was stabbed with a needle. There is a i moment of hope when Mary admits to having made the doll her- jself and that Abigail saw her stick the needle in it when i I Ishe was finished. Nevertheless, the officers insist on re- i ^moving Elizabeth to jail. Hale exits affirming his faith in jthe trials, claiming that some secret sin "may have drawn ifrom heaven such thundering wrath upon you all" (p. 283). Proctor, who "has been reached by Hale's words" (p. 283), informs Maury that she must tell the truth in court. When Mary reminds John that Abigail will accqse him of "lechery," 142 he declares that his wife will not die for hints Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away . . . It is a providence, and no great change; we sure only what we always were, but naked now. He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open skv. Aye, naked 1 And the wind, God's icy wind, will blow! (p. 284) Act Three, which unfolds in the "vestry room of the Salem meeting house," occurs at some point during the fol lowing summer. Deputy-Governor Danforth, who has condemned seventy-two people to be hanged, receives a deposition from John signed by Mary Warren and testifying that she saw no evil spirits. In addition, John has secured a list of names of people in Salem who protest the trials. Although Dan- i forth is shaken, he remains unconvinced, for he suspects John of seeking to undermine the court. The Deputy-Governor grows more suspicious when John, even after Danforth agrees i to drop charges against the pregnant Elizabeth for a year, refuses to destroy the deposition. John, however, asserts ! that he is merely fighting for others, such as Giles, who j has also been arrested. Danforth is again shaken in his I resolve when the girls, under questioning, own to having i danced in the woods. When Abigail refuses to admit anything i more, though, John feels constrained to confess "lechery" with her. To test the validity of John's confession, 143 Danforth sends for Elizabeth. The Deputy-Governor reasons that Mrs. Proctor, being a good woman, would not tell a lie, even to save her husband's life. Danforth is mistaken about Elizabeth, however, for she does lie to protect John. Dan forth thus feels vindicated; but Hale, who is no longer certain about the rightness of the trials, defends John. To distract the court, Abigail suddenly starts screaming. Mary, caught up by her friend's fakery, accuses John of being "the Devil's man" (p. 310). John is immediately ar rested; and Hale quits the court. The concluding act takes place in the fall of 1692 in a "cell in Salem jail." It is reported that Abigail has stolen Parris's money and has disappecured. Although rebel lion threatens Salem, Danforth is determined to continue the trials. Hale, horrified by the excesses of the trials, pleads with Elizabeth to get John to confess, declaring that it would be better for John to lie than to hang— a line of persuasion that Elizabeth brands the "Devil's argument" (p. 310). When Elizabeth is alone with John, she informs him that Giles is dead. John, feeling unsuited for the heroic role, is confused about what he should do. Elizabeth wants John alive, but she says that whatever he does, she believes him to be a good man now. Elizabeth even admits to having 144 prompted his affair with Abigail by being a cold wife to him. John, however, refuses to believe in his goodness. "Nothing's spoiled," he says, "by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before" (p. 322). John, who wants his life too, finally decides to confess. When Danforth demands John's signature to his confession, however, something with in John rebels: "How may I live without my name? I have I . given you my soul; leave me my name'." (p. 328). Furiously, John destroys the confession. As he is removed for execu tion, John declares: Now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs . . . Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it! (p. 328) After John's exit, Hale says: "Shall the dust praise him? i Shall the worms declare his truth? To which Elizabeth re- i plies: "He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from'him!" (p. 329). Freda Kirchwey says that The Crucible begins "slowly, i 2 with a prologue somewhat diffuse and confusing . . .", I and Richard Watts seems to agree with her: "Its opening I [exposition seems to me a little cluttered and clouded, and 2"The Crucible," The Nation. February 7, 1953, p. 131. 145 it takes a bit of time before the situation of the fright- 3 ened girls is made clear." John Mason Brown, however, sees the first act as "frenetic, and . . . overcrowded with ac tion. . . ."4 My summary of Act One should suggest an answer to this critical problem. Abigail, it was noted, enters on the first page of dialogue; by the next page, an atmosphere of witchcraft and perverted sexuality is suggested; and by the third page, it is related that Abigail was discharged by Elizabeth and that her name has been "soiled." This would seem to be economical and subtle foreshadowing and exposi tion. True, John, who is the protagonist, does not enter juntil the eighth page of dialogue; but once he does enter, jthe future development of the play begins to outline itself. Moreover, there are various ways of determining the point of attack. "A play might start at a point where at least one I character has reached a turning point in his life"; if so, 3"Introduction" to The Crucible, p. xiv. i i Seeing Things: Witch-Hunting," Saturday Review of Literature. February 14, 1953, p. 42. 5Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing (New York, 1946), p. 183. The following two quotes on the point of attack are also from Egri, same page. 146 the first page of The Crucible qualifies because Parris has clearly "reached a turning point." "A play might start exactly at the point where a conflict will lead up to a crisis"; if this is true, the first page again qualifies, since the argument between Parris and Abigail prepares the reader for future complications. "A good point of attack is where something vital is at stake at the very beginning of the play"; on the first page, Betty's life is in danger, and on the second page, Parris's job is at stake. However, if the point of attack be reserved for the protagonist, for the moment when John is caught up in the conflict, then the jattack occurs on the ninth page, in the scene between Abi- i gail and John when their past and present relations are dis closed and a question is raised concerning their future relations. But the major dramatic question, which I will discuss in its complexity below, is posed in the person of j Parris from the very start of the play: How should a man act in the face of evil? (Parris's "reply" seems to be that jone should protect himself at any cost.) Since there are jabout twenty-five pages of dialogue in Act One, it is safe to say that the point of attack (however defined) occurs before one-third of the act is completed. Even if the at tack arrives relatively late (ninth page), the situation is not comparable to the first act of All Mv Sons, for here Miller has provided sufficient conflict from the opening curtain. The situation, moreover, is not "confusing" or "clouded." By the seventh page of dialogue, "the situation of the frightened girls" begins to come clear. Nine charac ters (eight, if we omit Betty, who does not engage in dia logue) appear prior to John's entrance; however, they are introduced slowly, they sure each, depending on their rela tive importance in the action, given time to establish themselves, and the dramatic line, as I have tried to show, is kept sufficiently clear and relevant. Much more is going on here, for Miller is skillfully creating a dense social context within which John Proctor will work out his fate. It would seem, then, that Act One is more than a mere intro duction to the action; that , the point of attack occurs im mediate ly or, at the most, fairly early; that, from the standpoint of conflict, the act is moderately paced, and, finally, that the exposition is clear and direct. In terms of sustained conflict, Acts Two and Three are the most dramatic. These middle acts focus on thrust and counter-thrust, and the tension is generally high. The out come is never certain until John is arrested at the conclu sion to Act Three, and even here there is a question 148 raised—'hence continuing suspense— ‘ because the reader is not certain whether John will confess or die. Gerald Weales has criticized the turning point, which he calls "romantic clap trap," in Act Three: the plot turns on that moment . . . when Elizabeth, who has never lied before, lies out of love for her husband and condemns him by that act. This is a sentimental mechanism almost as outrageous as the hidden-letter trick in . . . All My Sons . . . the attention that such a de vice demands is quite different from that required by John Proctor's struggle of conscience.** Robert Boies Sharpe, however, considers the turning point 7 "a scene of powerful dramatic irony. ..." There is no scientific test to prove that Miller's scene is not "roman tic" or "sentimental"; but one might point out that the comparison to All Mv Sons is not in order. In the earlier play, the letter was a complete surprise, and, moreover, a I {character whom the audience had never seen untied the knot i i i |for Miller. In Thfl C r u c ib le , as will be shown in detail I below, Elizabeth prepares the reader for her behavior at the turning point, and, what is perhaps more important, "the attention that such a device demands" is not "different from 6Tulane Drama Review. VI (Fall 1962), 174. 7Ironv in the Drama, p. 200. 149 that required by John Proctor's struggle of conscience" (Weales), for it is part of the thematic thrust of the play, one "answer" to the question: How should a man— or woman— act in the face of evil? In Act Four, the thematic question is very largely focused upon a single issue: Will John Proctor confess to save his neck— or will he die? Tension grows out of John's struggle with his conscience. Dialogue, it should be noted, is used effectively to augment tension through the constant references to the dawn, which spells execution, for there sure five such references within thirteen pages. The crisis occurs about two and a half pages before the final curtain: Proctor has just finished signing when Danforth reaches for the paper. But Proctor snatches it up, and now a wild terror is rising in him, and a boundless anger. (p. 327) At this point, we do not know whether Proctor will return the confession or die, but we sense that the decisive moment has at last arrived. The climax comes about a page and a half later when John "tears the paper and crumbles it" (p. 328). Kenneth Tynan says: the last scene . . . plays like old melodrama; the words ring heroically hollow, because dramaturgy has declined into martyrology. Men are never wholly right or wholly 150 | 8 wrong. Admittedly, John's speeches are somewhat stagy in the last scene. As I have tried to suggest in the description of Act Four, however, the action develops to its crisis and climax through a series of smooth transitions. John's growth is consistent and credible. It is a gross misreading 9 of the play— one encouraged by Miller's own commentaries — to view it in terms of the "wholly right" and the "wholly wrong," for an analysis of theme will make clear that Cru cible is more complex than critics have generally allowed. It might be objected that John, being the protagonist, is absent from the scene too much of the time. In fact, John is absent on about twenty-eight pages out of the rough ly ninety-three pages of dialogue— in short, John is not j " there" during one-third of the play. Abigail, who is the jantagonist, does not appear at all in the second and fourth jacts. Perhaps adherence to his sources imposed certain ! 8Curtains (New York, 1961), p. 254. 9In the "Introduction" to the Collected Plava. Miller says that the characters are black in his play because the "historical facts . . . were immutable" (p. 42), and he adds that if he were to write it again, he would make them even more black (p. 43). He says: "The Crucible is a 'tough' play. My criticism of it now would be that it is not tough pnough" (p. 44). restrictions on Miller's creative imagination. Hbwever, in view of the fact that Crucible has a multi-focused theme, 'John's absence from the scene for certain periods would not [ appear to be a serious matter. The mere report of Abigail's i I disappearance in Act Four, on the other hand, seems like a I i weak device. One would not wish to imply that Miller has missed an obligatory scene here; yet it is no doubt true that the reader misses a confrontation between John and t Abigail in the last act. True, the struggle in Act Three is i highly effective; John's confession of "lechery" is a strong thrust, and Abigail's ability to sway Mary against John is a powerful counter-thrust. Nevertheless, one feels a gap in Act Four. One looks for a scene to balance the one in the ''Overture"— a scene, for example, in which Abigail seemingly triumphs over John ("seemingly," because not "spiritually") iand, since nobody would believe John anyway, informs him herself of her plans to disappear, for the concrete is pref- i erable to the abstract report. Perhaps it was some sense of a lack in the structure of the play that prompted Miller to aldd a new scene between |John and Abigail in a later production of Crucible. The printed version of the new scene appeared in Theatre Arts in 152 October 1953. ^ Although the scene is said to have been added to Act Two, it appears in Theatre Arts in isolation after the first act curtain. According to John and Alice Griffin, "the critics praised the new scene as providing additional motivation for Abigail. . . .1,11 It is a short scene and, in my opinion, it adds nothing vitally signifi cant to the original version; it merely makes explicit what was fairly obvious from Abigail's actions in the original treatment. In addition, the new scene is marred by a too overt straining after irony. When Miller brought out the Collected Plavs four years later, the new scene was not in ! jevidence. Character I t j John Proctor is.described as "a farmer in his middle thirties" (p. 238), "powerful of body" (p. 239). In his first scene, John reveals himself as a man with a strong personality: "Abigail has stood as though on tiptoe, ab sorbing his presence, wide-eyed," while the other girl is i "strangely titillated" (p. 239). That Abigail is willing j lpxxxvil, 53-54. 11"Arthur Miller Discusses The Crucibler" p. 34. 153 to murder in order to possess John invests this farmer with a sense of importance. That John lusted with the girl in the past— against the law of God and Salem— signifies a certain daring in the man. That John has the will power to resist Abigail now, even while part of him still desires her, reveals determination. Repeatedly, John shows his dis like of authoritarianism. In Act Two, John makes a determined effort to please Elizabeth. He kisses her perfunctorily; he lies in saying that her cooking is well-seasoned (perhaps a kind of irony on the lack of spice in Elizabeth?). John seems motivated i jby guilt feelings in this scene. When Elizabeth urges him |to go to court and expose Abigail, he is afraid that his relations with the girl will be brought to light. The question of whether the court will believe him (p. 262 and p. 275) would seem of secondary importance. The cardinal i I point is that John must struggle against his own fear. | Miller attempts to integrate the "personal" and the "social" | in a number of ways. "I cannot speak but I am doubted," jsays John, " . . .as though I come into a court when I come | into this house I" (p. 265). Although John lies to Elizabeth about being alone with Abigail in Parris's house (p. 264), |he persists in defending his honesty (p. 265). 154 John continues to struggle, throughout Act Three, against both his Inner contradictions and his outer antag onists. He reveals his resourcefulness In securing a depo sition. He shows his persistence In extracting a confession from Mary. When the charge against Elizabeth is suspended, John does not falter— he concentrates his attack on the court for the sake of others. And when Abigail seems to be winning the struggle, John makes public confession of his "lechery." In Act Four, John "is another man, bearded, filthy, his {eyes misty as though webs had overgrown them" (p. 320). The physical transformation signals an inner change in John. "I have been thinking," he tells Elizabeth, "I would confess to them" (p. 322). After a few months in jail contemplating his death, John's change of appearance and attitude is credible. John defends himself by saying: "Spite only i keeps me silent" (p. 323); "I want my life" (p. 324). How- i jever, John has not overcome his inner conflict; he hesitates to implicate others (p. 326); he balks at signing the con fession (p. 327). Gradually, John moves to a position of final defiance of the court: "I have three children— how may I teach them to walk like men . . . and I sold my friends?" (p. 327). 155 The foregoing shows clearly that John is rich in traits; that there is continuous development of his charac ter; and that there is adequate preparation for his revela- I tion in the last act. No critic, as far as I know, has questioned John Proc tor's- status as a "tragic hero." The controversy over the "common man" versus the "traditional hero” (usually Aristo telian), occasioned by the fate of Willy Loman, is absent from discussions of Crucible. Miller would seem to have provided Proctor with all the heroic attributes dear to the heart of "traditionalists." Miller himself says: "In The I Crucible . . . the characters were special people who could l I give voice to the things that were inside them . . . These 12 people knew what was happening to them." Whether this increase in articulateness makes Crucible a more powerful dramatic piece than Death of a Salesman is arguable. Dialogue, it should be noted, fails to illuminate John's past. Is this lack of background a serious failing in Crucible? In All Mv Sonsr lack of adequate character exposition impaired credibility; in Salesman, the revelation of Willy's past had a direct bearing on the present line of ^"Arthur Miller Discusses The Crucible." p. 34 156 development. In Crucible, however, the past would not seem to be pertinent. Each play should be approached on its own merits. Crucible focuses on a specific situation, and the reader possesses all the necessary facts for believing in that situation. Nor should one conclude that, since John's final speeches sound too theatrical, the language in the play is not adequate. The various summaries presented in this chapter should indicate that preparation, especially foreshadowing of character development, is expertly handled. Miller, in a very subtle manner, uses key words to knit to gether the texture of action and theme. Note, for example, |the recurrent use of the word "soft." In Act One, John j tells Abigail: "Abby, I may think of you softly from time ,to time. . . ." (p. 241, italics mine); in Act Two, Hale l tells John: "there is a softness in your record, sir, a I softness" (p. 273, italics mine). Dialogue, moreover, sug gests that behind John's denunciation of Parris lies a ! guilty conscience. Hale says that John has missed church i 'services a good deal in the past seventeen months (p. 232); j since Abigail has been removed from Proctor's house for the ! I past seven months (p. 232), the inference is that the real j j reason for John's backsliding has not been expressed. Miller is even more sparing than usual in his physical 157 description of Elizabeth; that is, not one word is uttered about her appearance. Nor, as was the case with John, is anything conveyed about her background. Nevertheless, Elizabeth has many traits and she grows throughout the play. She is sensitive: "It hurt my heart to strip her, poor rabbit" (p. 262); here, of course, Elizabeth is a foil to the murderous Abigail. Elizabeth betrays a weakness in asserting herself against Mary Warren, a weakness which John brands a "fault" (p. 263). She is also proud (p. 273), slow to forgive (p. 265), and suspicious (p. 265). Fre quently, Elizabeth— who is "cold" (p. 323)—-fails in chari- ty (p. 265). But she will lie for a loved one (p. 307), j jand, since she learns humility (p. 323), she is capable of jchange. Elizabeth's dominant motive is her yearning for I John's undivided love. In Act Two, for instance, behind j Elizabeth's self-righteous and intolerant posture, there is love for John. She proves this love in Act Three when she lies to save John's life. Elizabeth continues to grow in i the last act. "Her wrists," says Miller, "are linked by i heavy chain . . . Her clothes cure dirty; her face is pale and gaunt" (p. 319). The trials have worked their effect on | pSlizabeth, too. Danforth, uncomprehending, sees in her "dry eyes" the "proof of [her] unnatural life" (p. 320). Alone 158 with her husband, however, Elizabeth says: I have read my heart this three month John ... I have sins of my own to count. It need a cold wife to prompt lechery. (p. 323) John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me I Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept. (p. 323) Since Elizabeth remains in character, her development in Act Four, as was the case with John, is logical and believ able. Abigail is much less complex and interesting than eith er John or Elizabeth. She is described as "seventeen . . . la strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling" (p. 230). Dialogue fails to dis close anything about Abigail's past. In the course of the play, however, she reveals several traits: she is super-- stitious (p. 238), sexually passionate (p. 240), and men tally alert (p. 259); she is commanding (p. 238) and vain (p. 305); she is a thief (pp. 315-316); and throughout the i play, she makes painfully evident that she is capable of jmurder. Abigail's dominant motive is to destroy Elizabeth |and sleep with John. Abigail remains in character; but she does not grow. The minor characters, with the exception of Hale, are 159 flat and static. John Gassner has questioned Miller’s economy here: "Proctor and his wife are swamped by such a multiplicity of secondary characters that the personal drama 13 ... is often dissipated." Miller himself was aware of such a problem ("Introduction," p. 42). In The Man Who Had M l the Luck and All Mv Sons. Miller seemed to have employed more characters than he needed for the furtherance of either action or theme. In The Crucible, in spite of the fact that there are at least twenty-one characters, the problem does not seem acute, for as was pointed out in the discussion of structure, Miller managed to keep the developing action in jthematic focus. If the numerous characters, such as Mar- shall Herrick or Ezekiel Cheever, contribute very little, if janything, to action or theme, it is also true that they do Nothing to impede or becloud action and theme. Some readers might find many of these secondary characters mere "scen- ! 14 sry" ; whether Miller might have prof itadsly eliminated them entirely is an interesting, but hardly a burning, technical question. 13Theatre at the Crossroads, pp. 276-277. 14But as Dennis Welland reminds us: "The characters are neatly differentiated and well utilized individually and corporately to develop the sense of a community" (p. 89). 160 Although the characters will be discussed again in the following section, it should be noted here that all the leading ones represent various shadings on a thematic spec trum. John wavers between principle and compromise, and chooses, finally, principle; Elizabeth opts for John's "goodness," no matter what he finally chooses; Abigail is completely self-seeking; so is Parris; Rebecca is a witness to principle above compromise or deceit; Danforth is simi larly unyielding about the inviolability of principle; while Hale, who alone among the minor characters grows, would abandon principle for the sake of life. This schematic neatness leads Richard Watts to say that "the characters representing good and evil seem dramatized points of view rather than full-length, fully-rounded human beings." The characters are more complex than Watts suggests, but there is some point in his remark that Crucible "is less dramatic 15 realism than a modern morality play. . . ." Although, as Miller himself has remarked, "The Crucible is not more realistic but more theatrical than Death of a Salesman" ("Arthur Miller Discusses The Crucible." p. 34), it might jalso be true that Watts (and he is not alone here) has 15,1 Introduction" to The Crucible, p. xiv. 161 missed the very real thematic complexity that is in The Crucible. Some critics of The Crucible have accused Miller of being confused, of stacking the cards, of oversimplifying the issues, and of violating unity; he has also been at tacked for altering historical data. Arthur Ganz, for ex ample, says that the "enemy" is not clear, for "we do not know . . . whether they are sincere but narrow believers . . . authoritarians who find witchcraft a convenient in- 16 strument . . . or merely sadists." Kenneth Tynan says that Miller "restrict[s] his sympathies— a fatal abdication from truth."^7 Eric Bentley, dubbing Miller "the playwright of American liberalism," finds in Crucible "a conflict be- jtween the wholly guilty and the wholly innocent." Bentley W e e s that "The guilty men are as black with guilt as Mr. Her says," but adds, "What we must ask is whether the 16"The Silence of Arthur Miller," p. 233. 17fimrtalng, p. 254. 18"Miller's Innocence," New Republic. February 16, 1953, pp. 22-23. That, as Bentley says, the "guilty" are as Theme 18 iinnocent sure as innocent." John Howard Lawson, who agrees 162 with Bentley, adds that the "conflict between psychological 19 and social factors is unresolved in The Crucible." Final- 20 ly, Robert Warshaw (highly praised by Bentley) and David 21 Levine, among others, are disturbed because Miller has falsified history— Levine adding that the "error" is also an "aesthetic" one. Let us dispose of the historical argument, at least for the moment, by agreeing that Miller might have written an enjoyable and complex play had he given more attention to "black" as Miller claims seems like a rather curious state ment; presumably, Bentley intends the "historically guilty" — though one never knows for certain in this article, since Bentley jogs in and out of Salem, contemporary events, Mi 1- ler's essays, and The Crucible, without leaving a clear trail. 19Theorv and Technique of PlavwritinaJ p. xxviii. Lawson, who quotes Bentley with approval, also has some cur ious remarks to make about The Crucible. After stating that The Crucible is Miller's "most impressive play" (p. xxviii), Lawson goes on to declare that "the climax would not be dif ferent if [John] had never known Abigail"; defines the rela tionship between John and Abigail as a "subplot"; states that: "Proctor's sin with Abigail is a sidelight on his character, but it cannot give any powerful stimulus to the action"; and concludes that "the hero has no relationship to the reality around him" (p. xxix). One wonders what Lawson found "most impressive" in the play. 20"The Liberal Conscience in The Crucible." p. 266. 21"Salem Witchcraft in Recent Fiction and Drama," New England Quarterly. XXVIII (December 1955), 539. 163 religious and philosophical factors that were important to Salem in 1692. In fact, however, Miller wrote this play— The Crucible— and regardless, of his "intentions," his his- • » torical "errors," or his faulty contemporary parallel, the task for the critic is whether the play that is. is suffi ciently complex and "aesthetic" on its own terms. One might read the play, as many critics have done, as an attack on enforced conformity; in my opinion, however, such a reading is narrow and superficial, and misses the deeper thrust of the play. Warshaw asks: "But if Mr. Miller isn't saying anything about the Salem trials, and can't be caught saying anything about anything else [read McCarthy ], what did the 22 audience think he was saying?" What follows is an attempt to discover what Miller is "saying" in The Crucible. As has been said, the thematic question projected by the action of the play would seem to be: How should a man j act in the face of evil? It has also been suggested that the individual "replies" to the question are represented by the various significant actors in the drama. Abigail may jbe omitted from serious consideration here; although she is. vital to the plot she contributes little or nothing to the ^"The Liberal Conscience in The Crucible." p. 269. 164 theme. Similarly, the other girls may be placed to one side here, and the same stricture applies to Parris and the Put nams; no noble aim seems to motivate them. (I will return to these characters later, however, in discussing the mo tives for the trials.) All the significant responses to the action are conveyed by six principal characters. Danforth, it is important to remember, is motivated by the fact that he is an orthodox Puritan who fully believes in the existence of evil spirits (p. 291). As the symbol of authority, Danforth assumes exact knowledge of "God's law" (p. 318), and, taking a rigid stance on the letter of that law, he pursues the logic of what he conceives the facts to be to their inevitable end (p. 297). Danforth's mind, the mind of a lawyer, makes sharp, rational distinc tions (p. 293); for him, a principle is sacred, and he would not hesitate, since he sees his way clearly, to sac- I rifice all human life for a single principle (p. 318). Like many God-surrogates, Danforth seems to be a proud man; but behind his stiff posture there now and then lurks the fear, never wholly embraced or articulated, that he might be in serious error (p. 301). After Danforth has sentenced nearly 100 men and women to be hanged, he has a personal stake in the justice of the trials; he is almost coerced into 165 assuming an "either-or" view of good and evil (p. 293), for to admit the unknowable, the ambiguous, the irrational, into experience would be to expose "God" (read Danforth and Salem law) to the confusion and uncertainty of a world suddenly turned upside down by inexplicable events. Hale might be considered as a foil to Danforth. He begins as fully confident of his moral position as the Deputy-Governor, for in his books, Hale has evil neatly "caught, defined, and calculated" (p. 253). Life, however, refutes the books; and Hale, more sensitive than Danforth, more comprehending, permits doubt to enter, like a corrosive chemical, into his soul (pp. 275, 292). As a result, Hale no longer is convinced that he is privy to the decrees of the most high; on the contrary, asserting that God's will is often in darkness, he assumes the radical ambiguity of moral questions (p. 320). Where Danforth declares that he would i | "hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law" (p. 318), Hale avers: "life is God's most precious gift; no i principle . . . may justify the taking of it" (p. 320). Rebecca Nurse resembles the very man who condemns her jto be hanged. Like Danforth, she would not sacrifice a i principle even if it should cost her her life (p. 325). jLike Danforth, she appears to have no sense of guilt; she 166 tells John: "Let you fear nothing I Another judgment waits us all!" (p. 328). Like Danforth, Rebecca sees little of life's complexity (are there no "real life" counterparts to Danforth and Rebecca?); she is merely "astonished" at John's lie to save his life (p. 325). Giles Corey's position on the thematic spectrum sug gests a stance somewhere between the extremes of "nobility" (represented by those who take morals seriously) and "ig nobility" (Parris, say, or the Putnams). Although Giles fights against the evil of the trials, he dies— not for the sake of an abstract principle of right— but in such a way as to insure that his property will go to his sons (p. 322). Elizabeth Proctor is more complex than Danforth, Hale, jGiles, and Rebecca. Elizabeth, like Hale, is willing to jsacrifice an abstraction when it seems to her expedient to !do so; but, unlike Hale, she does not "rationalize" her argument; "subjective," not "objective," arguments dictate her actions. In Act Two, Elizabeth sacrifices logic to her .pride; she tells Hale that she believes in the Gospels (and the Gospels affirm the existence of witches); but she adds that if Hale thinks that she could "do only good work in ! the world, and yet be secretly bound to Satan, then I must jtell you, sir, I do not believe it" (p. 276). In Act Three, {Elizabeth sacrifices a principle to save her husband's life; ! j jher motive here is not pride, as it was above, but love. iln Act Four, she refuses to answer John's question whether i jshe would lie to save her own life; John believes that she i would not lie (p. 324). On the basis of her record, how can John— or the reader— be certain? Elizabeth says she wants John alive (p. 322)— which scarcely allows John much choice in the matter. No longer self-righteous, Elizabeth stresses her own frailty (p. 323); repeatedly she says: "I cannot judge you, John" (pp. 322, 323, and twice on p. 324); i and she adds: "Whatever you will do, it is a good man does it" (p. 323). This is important. Elizabeth seems to be saying that a man may lie and be "good"— or, equally, a man | may refuse to lie and be "good." How can this be "true"? It would seem idle to argue the matter philosophically or semantically; for instance, one might say that "good" is a vague term, or that Elizabeth means that John has not con fessed until now, and regardless of what he does later, that (as Elizabeth tells John): "speak goodness in you" (p. 323). However, it would seem more -rewarding, for the critic if not the philosopher, to ask: What has Elizabeth revealed about herself that permits her to hold such a belief? Early in Act Four, when Hale suggests that Elizabeth persuade John 168 to lie in order to save himself, she sayss "I think that be the Devil's argument" (p. 320); but when faced by John, she says, in effect, that a man might use the "Devil's argument" and still be a "good" man. Elizabeth is not inconsistent here; we have seen that she has previously sacrificed prin ciple for personal ends; we have also seen that she has reached a stage in her growth toward humility when she is, |at least for the moment, more concerned with the "beam in her own eye." John Proctor's response to events is, of course, the most complicated one in the play; moreover, his role as protagonist would appear to lend his position more validity than that of the other characters. Since John's development has been traced above, little need be added here. It is worth stressing, however, that John thought he was "good" in j Act Two (p. 265); but as it developed, John was self- i {deceived— in his heart, he still lusted after Abigail (p. j >241). At the end of the play, John again believes in his {"goodness" (p. 328); but Hale, in effect, says that John is i once again self-deceivedi "It is pride, it is vanity" (p. 329). Who is right? The Crucible would not seem to be the isimple, didactic, polemical play that most critics, 169 Including Miller himself perhaps, would have us believe. Although the characters, with the exception of John, Eliza beth, and possibly Hale, are constructed along relatively simple lines, the "dramatized points of view" are complex and well-orchestrated. John's role in the play, then, would seem to be limited, and the position he takes, qualified by the stance of the other characters. The Crucible cannot be reduced to a single statement, or thesis, without doing violence to the total impression conveyed by the play. In All My Sonsr it was otherwise; but John's death "proves" nothing— Hale is not made to "see the light" (as, say, Chris | Keller was illuminated), Danforth does not kill himself (as Joe Keller was made to do). At the end of the drama, the "meaning" of the play is focused from four different angles: jDanforth considers John's death a just punishment: "Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption'." (p. 328); Hale views j John's death as meaningless: "What profit him to bleed?" (p. 329); John's view has already been quoted (p. 328)— in jthe last analysis John belongs with those who refuse to I sacrifice a principle; while Elizabeth says: "He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him'." (p. 329). ! jSince Elizabeth's line is the final one of the play, the jcritic may not automatically assume that it is the only 170 "right" one; after all, had John lied Elizabeth would have said the same thing. The play is complex because John As. a "good" man; so is Hale; so is Giles; Elizabeth and Rebecca are "good" too— for only "good" people do battle with evil. Even Danforth is not blabk— given his cast of mind and the times, one can, at least, understand his position (those 23 24 who call him a "motiveless monster" or "wholly guilty" would seem to be doing the play an injustice through over simplification) . The sharpest conflict in the play, ideo logically, might very well be between Hale's counsel of I compromise and John's inflexibility; and who is wise enough 25 to dogmatize upon the matter once and for all? Elder ^Kenneth Tynan, p. 254. Note that Miller says: "In my play, Danforth seems about to conceive of the truth, and surely there is a disposition in him at least to listen to arguments that go counter to the line of the prosecution. There is no such swerving in the record" ("Introduction," p. 43). In this case, the text supports Miller's statement. At the end of Act Three, however, when John accuses Danforth of knowing that the trials are a fraud, there is no evidence in the text to prove John right. Similarly, in the last act, when Danforth asserts that he "will not deal in lies" |(p. 328), there is no datum in the play itself which will |refute him. In regard to the ending of the third act, one suspects (which was the case in the Requiem of Salesman) that Miller has sacrificed a fine regard for the facts in his play for the sake of an effective "curtain." ^Bentley, "Miller's Innocence," p. 23. 25"perhaps the spectator may find himself urging the 171 Olson, certainly no "sentimentalist," considers The Cruciblel "one of the closest modern approximations to tragedy," and he adds that it derives its "effect through the importance 26 of the moral issues involved." In a tragedy, is it not 27 irrelevant to ask, Who is right? Granting, it might be objected, that Crucible contains more variety than is usually allowed for it, is it not true that it remains a bit too simple? For some readers, the neatness of the thematic spectrum is perhaps an argument against the play's complexity, and for those who demand ^shading, not among "dramatized points of view," but in each {individual character, Miller's play is unsatisfactory. The same readers may also feel that Proctor's infidelity is not ^iero of The Crucible . . . not to act like a fool, to com promise." (Alan Downer, Recent American Drama [Minneapolis, 1961], p. 38.) 26Traqedv and the Theory of Drama, p. 249. 27Walter Kerr says that Miller "reverted to type and accepted the ideologue's solution: he thinned out his char acters in order to make his meaning unmistakable." (How Not to Write a Plav [New York, 1955], p. 58.) For Kerr, then, jthe "meaning" is "unmistakable"; and he adds that Miller is jalso remiss because John and Danforth "can never come to jknow each other's minds; the author won't let them" (p. 58) Evidently Kerr would deny that there exist any almost in surmountable communication problems on the national or in ternational scene. 172 enough of a complication, that it is too flimsy a foundation on which to erect the structure of Crucible. The crucial question 1st Does Miller succeed in fusing the "personal" and the "social"? A close reading of the play would suggest that he does. A flaw in Proctor's marriage allows the trials to materialize; no act-even the most intimate of sexual relations— *would seem isolated from the "social." Bamber Gascoigne, who sees the two levels "interwoven," says: This was made particularly clear by Sartre's film version of the play, The Witches of Salem (1956), in which he tipped the main emphasis on to the social without in any way destroying the implications of the original. Miller had used Ibsen's method of piecemeal revelation . . . Sartre took these details, arranged them in chronological order, and was left with a narrative which moved perfect ly from the individual to the whole society and, at the very end, back to the individual. It started with Eliza beth Proctor's puritanical dogmatism and lack of love pushing Proctor into his adultery. From this one home the story expanded to involve the whole community of which Elizabeth'is faults were symptomatic, then followed the . . . persecution, which those faults made possible, and finally showed the return to sanity prompted by the stand of John Proctor and the others. Although this account is extremely suggestive, it is not wholly accurate. Elizabeth admits to being "cold"; but it is not due to being "puritanical" or to "lack of love"; she 28Twentieth-Centurv Drama, pp. 179-180. 173 | says (as I have quoted previously): "John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to met ... I never knew how I should say my love" (p. 323). John asks: "Is the accuser always holy now?" (p. 281). This has both a "personal" and a "social" reference; "personal" be cause Elizabeth accuses John of evil and she is not "holy" (although she admits her faults later), while John himself learns that he is not as "holy" as he had thought; "social" because, to take but one instance, Abigail and the girls are not "holy" but they accuse others. This much is fairly ob vious. As was also quoted above, Miller intended to focus on "that guilt residing in Salem which the hysteria merely unleashed" ("Introduction," p. 42). Is it necessary that the guilt be of a single kind? Is it not possible— indeed probable— that various kinds of guilt may come to focus upon a single "social" situation? Of course, Elizabeth admits to keeping a "cold house" (p. 323); and Salem is a "cold" com- j munity; and the activity of the girls in the woods suggests j sexual repression— but this is far from being the entire explanation of events. And, as Miller ^famatlzeg his mater ial, guilt is not the sole motive for the trials. Nor would it seem either necessary or desirable that it should be in order to link the "personal" to the "social." Arthur Ganz 174 wants a single explanation for the "enemy"; but certainly the interest of the play, for a mature reader, is that the "enemy" assumes many shapes and refuses to be reduced to a single motivation. Mrs. Putnam is filled with hate because she lost seven babies at birth; Mr. Putnam wants land; Par ris wants to protect his job; Tituba wants to save her neck; Abigail wants John— and so it goes. If it be objected that few of these characters seem genuinely convinced of witch craft, that would seem to be more of an historical than an aesthetic question. Miller, it must be owned, exposed him self to such criticism by identifying his play with a spe cific period. It is certainly argued;le whether we get, as Her says we do, the "essential nature" of the Salem trials; but no matter— what we do get is an extremely effec tive drama. Yet, even from the merely "historical" stand point, Miller has complicated his action; for example, and this is to the modern taste, Betty appears to be suffering from some kind of self-damaging guilt complex brought about from the previous night's outing in the woods; but there is a nice question how much Abigail and the girls really be lieve in witchcraft. Although Abigail tells Parris (p. 231) and John (p. 240) that it was just a "sport," she did drink chicken blood as a charm to kill Elizabeth (p. 238), which 175 suggests that Miller has mixed various kinds of motives to propel his action. Intrinsically, The Crucible is complex, coherent, and convincing; that is, it succeeds as a olav on its own prem ises and merits. Although one might hesitate to agree that The Crucible is superior to Death of a Salesman— it seems to lack the sensuousness, the imaginative and technical bril liance, even the warm humanity, of the earlier play— still, one might well understand why some critics have found it 29 ; Killer's most impressive achievement to date. Summary Although the structure of The Crucible lacks the tech nical complexity of Death of a Salesman, there is no evi dence of a regression to the suspect machinery of Miller's earlier plays; in short, the structure is solid, logical, and coherent. Regardless of how the point of attack be defined, in The Crucible it occurs before the one-third mark of Act One. Conflict starts from the opening curtain and is sustained on a high level throughout the four acts. In spite of■the many characters, the narrative line is kept i OQ "See, for example, D. D. Raphael. The Paradox of Traaedv (Bloomington, 1960), p. 105. 176 clear. Act One seems moderately paced; the succeeding acts build to a faster tempo. The turning point is well prepared for and thematically relevant. Although John Proctor's speeches are a bit stagy in the last scene, the play rises to its crisis and climax through a series of credible devel opments; there is nothing false, then, about the logic of the action or the character of the hero. Perhaps John, as protagonist, is absent from the action more than he should be; on the other hand, since the play has a multi-focused theme, his absence would not seem to be a serious matter. A lack is felt in Abigail's disappearance after Act Three; the mere report of her theft and trip abroad is a weak de vice. The scene added to a later production of the play is of doubtful value. John and Elizabeth are rich in character traits; more over, both of them grow steadily throughout the play. John Proctor seems to possess the requirements for a "tragic hero." Dialogue prepares us for character development, and i it reveals the thoughts and feelings of the characters; if it fails to explore the backgrounds of the characters, it may be argued that, in this play, the past is not pertinent. The large cast would not seem to pose a serious question of economy; in no sense is action or theme obstructed by the 177 many secondary figures. Although the minor characters are constructed along relatively simple lines, they are well- orchestrated into a complex thematic pattern. Miller's play has a right to be judged on its intrinsic merits, without scrupulous comparison to Salem history or contemporary events. The six leading characters, from the standpoint of theme, carry the major burden in respect to the "meaning" of the play. This complexity of treatment on the dramatic-intellectual level refutes a straight polemical reading of the play. In The Crucible, personal and social motivations would seem to be fused; here again, Miller's play reflects the density and diversity of experience rather i than an oversimplified and overconceptualized one-for-one causal abstraction. CHAPTER V A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS Structure A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)1 is Miller's first one- act play since That They Mav Win (1944). "My ambition," Miller said in 1955, "is to write shorter and shorter plays. It is harder to hit a target with one bullet— perhaps that 2 is why." Whether Miller has "hit a target" in A Memory of Two Mondays is, of course, the critical question. The play is concerned with a group of auto-parts work ers in a New York City warehouse in the Thirties. The two basic structures sure the long packing table which curves upstage at the left, and the factory-type windows which reach from floor to ceiling and sure encrusted with the hard dirt of years. These windows are the background and seem to surround the entire stage. 1 Arthur Miller's Collected Plavs. pp. 331-376. 2"a Note on These Plays," A View from the Bridget Two One-Act Plavs (New York, 1955), p. 16. ____________________________ 178 _____________________ 179 The nature of the work is simple. The men take orders off the hook, go out into the bin-lined alleys, fill the orders, bring the merchandise back to the table, where Kenneth packs and addresses everything. The desk is used by Gus and/or Tom Kelly to figure postage or express rates on, to eat on, to lean on, or to hide things in. It is just home base generally. A warningx The place must seem dirty and unmanageably chaotic, but since it is seen in this play with two separate visions it is also romantic. It is a little world, a home to which, unbelievably perhaps, these people like to come every Monday morning, despite what they say. (pp. 332-333) Miller's reference to "two separate visions" needs under lining. Elsewhere Miller defines the play as "abstract 3 realism in form." By this, Miller presumably intends that his play alternates between a presentational, lyrical, or i expressionistic form and a representational, or realistic, mode of imitation. A word on this alternation is perhaps l in order here before the matter is discussed in more detail later. A Memory of Two Mondays is largely in the represen tational mode; it is realistic in action and dialogue from pages 333 to 356; there is then a transition between the two Mondays of the play in what is mainly a presentational mode (there is non-realistic stage lighting and the charac ters speak in soliloquy and free verse) which covers two pages; the second Monday is also rendered in a realistic 3"A Note on These Plays," p. 15. 180 form from pages 359 to 370; there is one switch to the pre sentational mode, pages 370 to 371; and from then on the play continues to the final curtain— pages 372 to 376— in the predominant realistic style. The first Monday occurs in summer. The transition be tween the Mondays moves in time through autumn to a winter day. How much time has elapsed, however, is not definitely stated. At the start of the play Bert, the protagonist, says that he will leave the place in a year (p. 334), and since the end of the play enacts his leaving, probably a little less than a year passes in the course of the play. It is not easy to summarize the action in this long one-act play. Miller himself suggests the reason when he says: A Memory of Two Mondays has a story but not a plot, be cause the life it reflects appears to me to strip people of alternatives and will beyond a close and tight peri phery in which they may exercise a meager choice. ("In troduction," p. 50) Miller's remarks might be misleading by suggesting that his play lacks conscious artistry; although A Memory of Two Londays has, in the conventional sense, no plot, this is not to say that it has no pattern of development, no increment of tension, and no unifying elements. 181 On 'the first Monday of the play, Bert is introduced as an eighteen-year-old boy who is reading War and Peace on the subway and who, after he has earned enough money to enter college, will leave the warehouse in a year. If A Memory were fiction, Bert might be described as the "central ob server." True, Bert does not influence the action— what "action" there is, since there is no plot— but he does ap pear to be the hub around which the story revolves. There is a contrast here between the dynamic and the static— be tween Bert who is transitory and free and the group who are permanent and trapped. Miller introduces his workers slowly as they enter the warehouse to work. Ray, the manager, is worried because the owner, Mr. Sagle, is coming. Jim, seventy-five, enters, half-drunk. areath informing the woman that his wife is dying. Gus and Jim had been drinking together all weekend, and Gus had not hangs up when she fails to understand him immediately. Ken neth, twenty-six, arrives? he is an Irishman and fond of sixty-eight, chases the spinster Agnes into the toilet, jaeseeching her to visit Atlantic City with him, in the same aothered to phone his wife. He does so now, however, but he poetry, and he seems to be the one character capable of nderstanding Bert. Next to appear is Larry. He is 182 married, but he informs the girl, Patricia, that he bought a new Auburn and that he would like to drive her home after work. Certain patterns gradually establish themselves. Gus breaks the monotony of the work by chasing Agnes and Patri cia around the room. Kenneth, whose sensitivity is appar ent, complains of the dust and the dirt. Frank, the driver, comes and goes. People file in and out of the single toi let. In short, the rhythm of the work is caught and the private lives of the workers are partially defined through their response to the work routine. The excitement for the morning is to be provided by Tom Kelly. Tom, who is almost fifty, arrives "stiff," and the task for his friends will be to keep his condition se cret from Mr. Eagle. While this problem is discussed, Ken neth and Larry complain about the deadening routine of the warehouse, and Kenneth asks why the windows cannot be clean. Gus, who is hardened to it all, tells the Irishman to be I quiet. Suddenly it is announced that.Eagle has arrived, ana ] t o iii is propped rigidly at his desk, a pencil is jammed into his lifeless hand, and the strategy is for all to act uncon cerned. While Eagle passes through the room, Tom abruptly starts from his alcoholic haze and appears to sober. As 183 Eagle departs, the workers, believing that their ruse has succeeded, sure delighted; but a moment later, Ray enters anq announces that Eagle wants to see Tom, and the happiness that had filled the room quickly disappears. Ray is certain that Tom will be fired; Gus threatens to quit. While they are waiting for the result of Tom's interview with Eagle, the phone rings and Gus is informed that his wife is dead. Tom, beaming happily, returns then and says that Eagle has given him one more chance. Ray calls the workers to their tasks— and all scatter. The first Monday is drawing to its close. The stage is empty save for Bert, Kenneth, and Tom. Says Kenneth (and the transition begins here): Bert? How would you feel about washing these windows . . . once and for all? Let a little of God's light in the place? (pp. 356-357) Bert agrees: Let's do a little every day; couple of months it'll all be clean1 t Both men set to work on the windows, and dialogue drifts into verse form: It'll be nice [says Kenneth] to watch the seasons.pass. 'That pretty up there now, a real summer sky And a little white cloud goin' over? I can just see autumn cornin' in ___________________ 184 And the leaves falling on the gray days. You've got to have a sky to look at! (p. 357) The verse is capped by the following stage direction: "Gradually, as they speak, all light hardens to that of winter, finally" (p. 357). In realistic dialogue, Bert and Kenneth discuss Gus's aging and Bert's college plans. Sud denly, however, Bert disengages himself from Kenneth and indulges in a twelve-line soliloquy, the gist of which is that the warehouse is, in human terms, a frightening thing to contemplate. Bert wants Kenneth to go to school, too; but the latter says: "I never could hold my mind on a far away thing . . ." (p. 358). Kenneth now shows signs of spiritual decay. In another soliloquy, he expresses his contempt and bitterness for the city and its inhumanity. Finally, Kenneth concludes with; "And here's another grand Monday!" (p. 359). And Miller adds: They are gradually appearing in natural light now, but it is a cold wintry light which has gradually supplanted the hot light of summer. (p. 359) Thus, the transition is completed to the second Monday of the play. Attention has been drawn already to the small patterns and rhythms of the first Monday. Lighting— the contrast between the "hot light of summer" and the "cold wintry light"— signals a change in tone, or emphasis,______ 185 between the larger patterns, or two halves, of the play, although the underlying mood remains constant. On the second Monday, Bert Is almost finished with War and Peace and he informs Ray that he is leaving for college on the following day. Tom, who is now a non-drinker, pa tronizingly informs Kenneth: "You better get yourself a little will power . . . You're gettin* a fine taste for the hard stuff" (p. 361). Larry speaks perhaps for the others (and possibly for the reader) when he tells Tom: "I'm be ginning to like you better drunk" (p. 362). Patterns from the first Monday are repeated. Once again, Eagle is coming; jGus and Jim emerge from another weekend of drinking; and the pattern of coming and going is renewed. Jim explains that Gus, who removed all his money from the bank on Friday, planned to visit his wife's grave on Saturday but started drinking instead. Gus begs Patricia to come to Atlantic City with him, informing her that he received $5,000 insurance on his wife's death. For Patri cia, Gus is a "dirty rotten thing" (p. 365), and Tom sadly concludes that Gus lacks will power; Bert, however, says: "Gee, I never would've thought Gus liked his wife . . ." (p. 365). Suddenly, through the windows that have been cleaned, 186 a bawdy house appears across the street, and Kenneth ex plodes at the reaction of his co-workers: Is that all yiz know . . . filthy women and dirty jokes and the ignorance drippin' off your faces? . . . It's an awful humiliation for the women here ... a terrible disorganizing sight starin1 a man in the face eight hours a day. . . . (p. 369) Mr. Eagle says: "Shouldn’t have washed the windows, I guess" (p. 369). Although Larry appears to be "serious" about Patricia, the girl, suspicious of the motives of a married man, does not wholly respond to him. Their relationship seems tense, fraught with doubt and cynicism (pp. 367-368). Larry later confesses that he will sell the Auburn, for it was, he says, just "one of those crazy ideas," and he admits— an irony for one who works in an auto-parts warehouse— that he "can't afford a car" (p. 371). Gus broods, too, for it troubles him that his wife died alone in the house. A vast unhappi ness filling him now, Gus drinks openly on the job, not caring that Eagle sees him, and, finally, he walks out of the place. This is Bert's signal for a soliloquy on the "mystery" of the warehouse, and during the soliloquy, a cone of light playing on the boy, men move "as ghostly figures, silent" in the darkness that surrounds him (pp. 370-371). 187 When the soliloquy ends, full light returns, and the repre sentational mode resumes. Presumably it is Tuesday now. Jim, who had accompanied Gus, returns to announce that Gus died in a cab that morning after a night of carousing. It is time for Bert to leave, and the play draws to its close. The farewells are perfunctory: Agnes says: "good luck" (p. 374); Tom advises: "Keep up the will power" (p. 374); Ray says: '"By Bert" (p. 375); and Larry manages: "Take it easy, kid" (p. 376). Kenneth, while admitting that he has been drinking heavily of late, nevertheless vows that he will go "for the Civil Service," for he will, he be lieves, "get back to regular there . . ."; but, unhappily, the poems he used to recite are irretrievably "gone . . . There1s too much to do in this country for that kinda stuff" (p. 375). At the end, the pattern of the work accel erates in tempo: It is as though Bert wished it could stop for a moment, and as each person enters he looks expectantly, but nothing much happens. And so he gradually moves . . . toward an exit. . . . (p. 376) As the curtain falls, Kenneth sings: "The minstrel boy to the war has gone"1 (p. 376). Enough has been said about the pattern of development in A Memory of Two Mondays. Tension results from several 188 small problems, such as the concealment of Tom Kelly's drunkenness from Mr. Eagle in the first Monday sequence and from larger dramatic questions, such as Will Kenneth's fate be the same as that of Gus and the other workers? One can find unifying constituents in the placement of the action on two Mondays; in Bert's reading of War and Peace on the first Monday and his near completion of the novel on the second Monday; in the two appearances of Mr. Eagle; in the begin ning and what seems like the end of Larry's affair with Patricia; in the deterioration of Kenneth and Gus; and so forth. The chief critical question, however, is whether Miller has succeeded in unifying his play in terms of the "two separate visions." Leonard Moss believes that there is "a 4 ^uccessful interaction between lyrical and prosaic modes." Dennis Welland, on the other hand, suggests that the pres entational mode is superfluous; he says: though [the play's] mood is lyrical, its language need I not be— indeed, ought not to be, because the realistic I is as important an element in it as the lyrical.5 It is important to observe that there is no preparation for 4"Arthur Miller and the Common Man's Language," p. 56. 5Arthur Miller, p. 96.________________________________ 189 the presentational transition to the second Monday. One might question not only the effectiveness of the device but also its legitimacy. In Death of a Salesman. Willy himself, his state of mind, provided the warrant for departures from the representational convention. Hauptmann used a dying girl's delirium in Hannele as a reference for projecting her fantasies. One would not wish to be dogmatic, but it would seem fitting that some kind of "logic" should prevail here. Welland, in my opinion, is correct; the soliloquies add nothing to what has been apparent from the realistic dialogue and stage movement. The free verse is not only redundant, it is also undistinguished as "poetry." Bert's comparison of the warehouse to a subway (p. 358), for exam ple, is not a very fresh or inspired image; nor would Ken neth's reference to a "lousy pork sandwich" seem to justify a departure from the basic prose convention of the play (p. 359). The "romantic" vision, and the word is Miller's (p. 333), risks tumbling into sentimentality. Admittedly, Miller's failure to fuse the two modes of imitation in A Memory is a serious defect; but an unsatis factory structure does not call for a total condemnation of the piece. Nor is the lack of "action" in a one-act work necessarily cause for censure. Perhaps a discussion of 190 character will suggest where the real merit of Miller's play resides. Character There are fourteen characters in A Memory of Two Mon days . and something has already been said about most of them. In this section, I wish to focus on the four most important ones: Bert, Kenneth, Gus, and Larry. One critic has said that Bert is not the "most memor- g able character" in the play. This is probably true. In Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Amanda and Laura are more "memorable" than Tom, the narrator of the play. In other terms, Bert is something, as I have said, of a novel- istic "central observer"; but he is more like, say, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises than he is like Strether in The Ambassadors: which is to say that in Miller's play the stress is mainly on the group surrounding Bert rather than the boy's inner world. Dialogue, consequently, fails to record anything of note regarding Bert's background. Never theless, certain traits are projected. Bert is presented as one who has an insatiable hunger 6Welland, p. 93. 191 for knowledge; as has been seen, he reads Tolstoy on the subway and he wants to take every course in the college catalog (p. 334). He is also considerate: "I always take Jim's heavy orders, Gus" (p. 337). His courage is displayed during the first Monday sequence when Eagle is about the place, for it is Bert who directs a flow of talk toward the unconscious Tom in an effort to deceive the boss (p. 353). Bert is also sensitive; it makes him "sad" to see Gus, Larry, and the others working in the warehouse (p. 358). He feels that it would be better somehow if Kenneth went to school— thus, he has faith that the conditions of life can be improved (p. 358). When he is leaving the warehouse, Bert reveals his loyalty and conscientiousness as he tells Ray: "maybe I could help you break in the new boy" (p. 360). He shows gratitude to Larry "for teaching[him] everything," for he admits: "I'd have been fired the first month without you, Larry" (p. 361). His perception is in evidence when he detects that beneath Gus's coarse gestures there is a genuine affection for his wife (p. 365). Humili ty is apparent as Bert says: I don't know anything: How is it me that gets out? I don't know half the poems Kenneth does, Or a quarter of what Larry knows about an engine. _________________________________________tp-—37-0)----------- 192 Bert is Imaginative, for he can grasp the element .of "mys tery" in life. He lacks, however, the knowledge, the vocab ulary, the maturity that would enable him to enunciate a i more adequate explanation than he gives for that "mystery": Gee, it's peculiar to leave a place— forever Still, I always hated coming here; I know I'll remember them as long as I live, As long as I live they'll never die, And still I know that in a month or two They'll forget, my name, and mix me up With another boy who worked here once, And went. Gee, it's a mystery1 (p. 371) "Gee" (as Willy Loman put it) "is a boy's word.""* Bert, then, is depicted as a likeable young man. All the same, he remains a flat character because he is almost too good to be true. The other characters have faults; Bert has none. (Huck Finn is an engaging boy, too— he is also an inveterate lieu:.) Nor does Bert grow; his position at the end of a year is about the same as when the play started. Kenneth is described in the following terms: ^Miller himself has asked for a drama that transcends jthe limited perspective of the adolescent, and he has com mented on "mystery": "The mystery of our condition remains, but we know much more about it than appears on our stage." ("The Shadows of the Gods," Harper's. CGXVII [August 1958], 40.) 193 [He] is twenty-six, a strapping, fair-skinned man, with thinning hair, delicately shy, very strong. He has only recently come to this country. (p. 338) Kenneth brings with him into the warehouse the fresh breath of an older and contrasting culture; incongruously juxta posed with the cramped, dusty warehouse is Kenneth's remem brance of open country, of poetry, and of God. He quotes Norman McLeod, but he refers to poetry as a "useless" Irish occupation (p. 339). He says: Why, it's the poetry hour, Gus . . . the hour all men rise to thank God for the blue of the sky, the round ness of the everlasting globe, and the cheerful clean liness of the subway system . . .Oh, Bert, I never thought I would end me life wrappin' brown paper around strange socles. (p. 339) Kenneth has a sense of humor; but it is one sign of his deterioration that his humor begins to fade perceptibly in the play's second half (p. 361). Kenneth is poor; he wears used shoes that cost a quarter; when Gus rebukes him for complaining, he says: "Oh, when I'm rich, Gus, I'll have very little more to say" (p. 343). He is not solely con cerned with material deprivations; he is equally concerned with the spiritual poverty of his situation: "There's a good deal of monotony connected with the life," he says, " . . . And no philosophical idea at all, y'know, to pass 194 the time" (p. 347). He is a bit of a "dreamer"; he is not portrayed as the wholly victimized. When Bert asks: "Didn't you ever want to be anything, Kenneth?" the reply is: "I've never been able to keep my mind on it, Bert" (p. 358). On the second Monday, Kenneth has forgotten "the bloody poems . . .It's the drinkin* does it . . .I've got to stop the drinkin1I" (p. 359). There is a suggestion that he resents Bert's leaving (p: 360); his own hope is Civil Service— but: I've a feelin* I'd never dare leave it, y'know? And I'm not ready for me last job yet . . . I don't want nothin' to be the last, yet. (p. 360) The brothel across the street is the final offense against his "romantic" conception of life: "I'd sooner roll meself around in the horse manure of the gutter!" (p. 367). At the end, he has decided on Civil Service; he has also adjusted himself to the mice in the place: "they've got to live, too, I suppose" (p. 376); in other words, Kenneth has ad justed himself to "reality"; nevertheless, as the curtain ifalls, the Irishman continues to sing. i Gus is individualized in vivid terms: a barrel-bellied man, totally bald, with a long, fierce, gray mustache that droops on the right side. He wears a bowler, and his pants are a little too short. He has a readv-made clip-on tie. He wears winter underwear-all_ 195 summer long, changes once a week. There is something neat and dusty about him—-a rolling gait, bandy legs, a belly hard as a rock and full of beer. He speaks with a gruff Slavic accent. (p. 336) Gus has been a rate clerk with the company for twenty-two years, and he relates his history in the following manner: Them mice was here before [Bert] was born . . . When Mr. Eagle was in high school I was already here. When there was Winton Six I was here. When was Minerva car I was here. When was Stanley Steamer I was here, and Stearns Knight, and Marmon was good car; I was here all them times. I was here first day Raymond come; he was young boy; work hard be manager. When Agnes still think she was gonna get married I was here. When was Locomobile, and Model K Ford and Model N Ford— all them different Fords, and Franklin was good car, Jordon car, Reo car, Pierce Arrow, Cleveland car— all them was good cars. All them times I was here. (p. 370) Gus1 s drinking and whoring may be viewed as symptomatic of his boredom and frustration. That Gus has not been entirely brutalized, however, is evident from the fact that he takes a protective stance toward Jim and Tom, and that his wife's ■death is an event that signals the beginning of the end for |him. On the second Monday, then, Gus seems suddenly older; ! he has grown quiet and moody (p. 358). The hostile side of i his ambivalent attitude toward the firm increasingly mani fests itself; he too begins to complain of the mice and the dirt (p. 364); and he drinks openly— even defiantly— on the job (p. 368). After withdrawing all his money from the 196 bank, he sayss "What for I put in bank? I'm sixty-eight years old ... I got no children, nothing ..." (p. 364). After twenty-two years, then, Gus finishes with— "nothing." Like Willy Loman, Gus feels that his life has been a fail ure; his farewell orgy is an attempt, grotesque as it might be, to end his life in a meaningful fashion: "I'm gonna do it right," he asserts (p. 373). And "doing it right" means more than the mere sense of potency he derives from squan dering his life's savings, or from whoring and drinking; it means— and this is the important thing— phone calls to dis tant relatives and war-time buddies; for it is an inarticu late stretching after the warmth of human love, or "comrade ship." At the end, then, Gus tries to snatch some signifi cance from the life that is growing dark around him. Iron ically, however, instead of the warmth of human love Gus catches a chill and dies in the rear seat of a taxi cab. "It was," says Jim, "just gettin' to be morning" (p. 372). Larry "is thirty-nine, a troubled but phlegmatic man, good-looking" (p. 341). Larry gains a sense of self-impor tance by purchasing an Auburn and by sleeping with Patricia. Here too, then, motivation is symptomatic, for Larry is tired of being "careful" (p. 345). A stronger and more in telligent man might have found constructive outlets for his 197 discontent; but Larry is not very bright; Gus: You crazy? Buy Auburn? Larry, with depth— a profound conclusion; I like the valves, Gus. (p. 342) Whether or not Larry can sell the car later Is not Important — nor Is It Important, finally, that he Is pressed for money: "The car put me a hundred and thirty bucks In the hole. If one of the kids gets sick I'll be strapped" (p. 345). There Is, It seems, no lasting escape from facts; when Larry decides to sell the Auburn, he admits defeat (p. 367). Similarly, although Larry claims to be "serious1 1 about Patricia, the affair appears unsatisfactory because the lovers sure merely exploiting each other; this is sug gested when Larry warns Patricia that she might end her days in the whorehouse across the street— and the whorehouse is the symbol for the ultimate in human exploitation (p. 368). Bert, Kenneth, Gus, and Larry are well-orchestrated. As the quotations above should illustrate, speech in the play is highly diversified; the prose dialogue is clearly superior to the pretentious free verse excursions. The language of Kenneth and Gus is particularly effective, and both men's speech patterns are contrasted with the New York City accents of the other characters (Tom Kelly being the 198 one exception). As different as Kenneth and Gus appear at first sight, one can yet discern the suggestion that Kenneth might very well go the way of the Slav. Dialogue would ap pear to relate as much as necessary about Kenneth and Gus— about their backgrounds and attitudes— to make their actions consistent and credible. Although Bert (and the secondary characters) remain fixed, Kenneth and Gus disintegrate be fore our eyes, while Larry renounces thei Auburn and appar ently arrives at a new stage in his relations with Patricia. Although the minor figures are flat, they sure individualized and all together they present a convincing picture of the chosen scene. Perhaps in no other Miller play, with the exception of Salesman, has the playwright depicted such ro bust figures. Perhaps the abandonment of "plot" permitted Miller to relax and lavish more care on character; nor are reasons personal to the author to be overlooked ("I love nothing printed here," says Miller, "better than this play" [p« 49]). It has been said, however, that Miller's crea- Q tions in A Memory sure mere "eccentric character sketches"; in the next section, then, the question of representative- ®Wolcott Gibbs, "The Theater," New Yorker. October 8, 1955, p. 89. 199 ness will be faced. Theme Bamber Gascoigne has high praise for A Memory of Two 9 Mondays? Frank O'Connor considers it superior to A View from the Bridge; and Robert Hogan calls it a "moving, tech nically adroit, and beautiful job. . . ."10 Other critics have taken a negative stance toward the play. Raymond Williams, for instance, frankly views the work as a "fail ure."11 Dennis Welland regards A Memory as the "most dated 12 of all Miller's work." Richard Hayes brands the play as "uninterruptedly bad"— a "remnant of social protest" dra- 13 ma. Most critics, in surveying Miller's output, ignore the play entirely. My own evaluation lies somewhere between ' these conflicting extremes. ^Twentieth-Century Drama, p. 180. Says Gascoigne: "Admirably written . . . unhackneyed characters . . . never sentimental. . . ." ^Arthur Miller, pp. 31-32. Hogan is my authority for the opinion of Frank O'Connor. H"The Realism of Arthur Miller," p. 147. Arthur Miller, p. 92. 13"The Stage: Z Want My Catharsis," The Commonweal. November 4, 1955, p. 118. 200 In "A Note on These Plays," Miller says that "in this play the warehouse is our worId— a world in which things sure endlessly sent and endlessly received; only time never comes back" (p. 15). In the play itself, however, as has been said, Bert compares the warehouse to a subway, and the sub way, in turn, becomes a paradigm for "all of us in the orId." How adequate are these symbols? The subway, I have suggested, is not a fortunate image. The chief reason for this is that it is not made concrete in the play— it is simply verbalized in an abstract way. It is also, together with its cognate image the railroad, a 14 tired literary symbol. The warehouse scene, on the other hand, is another matter, for it is rendered in concrete terms— it is, in short, very much "there" and, consequently, ^The railroad as a symbol of modern society is, as Mario Praz has pointed out, at least as old as Dickens's jDombev and Son (1846-48); Carker in that novel was "the first character in a novel to finish under the wheels of a train ... A similar occurrence, with a very different force of meaning, was made use of by Tolstoy in Anna Kare nina ." (The Hero in Eclipse in Victorian Fiction [London, 1956], p. 130.) Praz also says that Trollope "in The Prime Minister (1875-76: therefore contemporary with Anna Kare nina) makes . . . Lopez commit suicide under an express jtrain . . . the railway-scope was then a novelty" (p. 383). Hn Willa Cather's Paul's Case (1920), Paul also finishes mder a train. For a discussion of the subway as an image, lee Blanche Gelfant, "The Subway," The American Citv Novel |(Norman, Oklahoma, 1954). 201 the theme, aided by some memorable characterization, is made vivid and palpable. The warehouse, then, provides not only unity of place but unity of theme. Miller, speaking ironically of course, says: The play speaks not of obsession but of rent and hunger and the need for a little poetry in life and is entirely out of date in those respects . . . (p. 49) The play, as I see it, is not seriously dated in any re spect. For one thing, a Memory does speak of "obsession" — many of. Miller's characters are obsessed with drink and sex. At the present moment, government statistics indicate that the poverty group in the United States embraces some 35,000,000 people. Nor would Miller's symbol appear to be limited to what the playwright refers to as "that sub culture where the sinews of the economy are rooted" (p. 49). Evidently, Miller made his play unfold on two Mondays be cause he wanted to underscore the relationship between work (the week) and play (the weekend). Miller's workers have an ambivalent attitude toward the company. On the weekend, they seek escape from meaninglessness and monotony through drink and sex; but, finding no significance in their "free time" either, they crawl back to work, hoping perhaps to find there some relief from their agonizing sense of 202 emptiness. One reason that the lyric interludes verge on sentimentality is the fact that they fail to probe more deeply than the action itself into the reasons for man's fate in this particular environment. The interludes merely substitute adolescent gush about "mystery" for more pene trating analysis and reflection. (There ia "mystery" in life, but, as I have suggested, Bert would not seem adequate to the task of telling us about it.) Although the warehouse offers the workers a bond of pseudo-community lacking else where, it fails finally to provide them with any real feel ing of belonging. The result is the perpetuation of the weary round of futility and loneliness. Is the picture presented here "dated"? Is it unique to a "sub-culture"? C. Wright Mills, in his study of the mod ern American middle class, says: Each day men sell little pieces of themselves in order to try to buy them back each night and week-end with the coin of "fun." The week-end, having nothing in common with the working week, lifts men and women out of the gray level tone of everyday work life, and forms a standard with which the working life is contrasted. But Mills adds: The amusement of hollow people rests on their own hollow ness and does not fill them up; it does not calm or relax them, as old middle class frolics and jollifications may have done; it does not re-create their spontaneity in 203 15 work, as In -the craftsman model. . . . » - It Is the "craftsman model," perhaps, that Miller sees supplanted by the "ghostly figures" of his play. No doubt a good deal of nonsense has been written about the "crafts man model"; it is nevertheless true that the "industrial model" has contributed to that "vision of unmitigated hor ror" which Eric Bentley sees as the distinctive literary 16 vision of our time. With the introduction of the whore house, Miller achieves, on the thematic level, unity of focus, for the two worlds of work and play are fused in a symbolic manner as the noose of alienation and exploitation is drawn tighter and the strangling forces of dehumanization are almost completed. « The essentially impersonal quality of group-relations in an industrial society is conveyed in a telling way by the death of Gus: j Kenneth: Gus died. { Frank: No kiddin* I Kenneth: Ya, last night. Frank: What do you know. Hm. He goes on picking packages out. Is this all for West Bronx, Tom? Tom: I guess so for now. 15Whltfl Co liar, pp. 237-238. 16The Life of the Drama (New York, 1964), p. 337. 204 Frank, to Kenneth: Died. Kenneth: Yes, Jim was with him. Last night. Frank: Jesus. Pause. He stares, shakes his head. I'll take Brooklyn when I get back, Tommy. He goes out, loaded with packages. (pp. 373-374) Although Gus gave twenty-two years of his life to the com pany, his death must not be permitted to impede the march of the industrial machine— the West Bronx and Brooklyn must be serviced. There is neither time, nor apparently inclina tion, or inner resources, to lament for Gus, to cry out in anger, to unravel the meaning and the moral from the inhuman pattern of his life and death. There is more here, evident ly, than the universal mute sense of dread that all men feel in the presence of death, for there is a social dimension to the problem. One cog in a vast machine has ceased function ing; but no matter— the cog will be replaced, even as Bert will be replaced. It is the gross output of material pro duction and distribution that is important, not specifically human concerns. Kenneth's remark— "And no philosophical idea at all, y'know, to pass the time" (p. 347)— is, because it stuns up the spiritual poverty of Miller's workers, per tinent here. True, Miller's extra-dramatic remarks on the warehouse ("a world in which things are endlessly sent and endlessly received") may seem a bit strained as a symbol of our time; and though "only time never comes back" may be 205 | I true of any age, in the play itself, I repeat, the warehouse seems to be a faithful reflector of the modern condition. Nor can A Memory be dismissed as a mere "reirinant of j social protest," with the inference that it is a rehash of work dating from the Thirties. Compare Miller's play with Odets's Waiting for Leftv or even Awake and Sinai? there is no call to arms in Miller's play; no glib oversimplified solutions; and no stock capitalistic bosses— ‘ Ray is human and even Eagle, though seemingly indifferent to the whore house, gives Tom Kelly another opportunity to redeem himself and seems to be extremely patient with what Ray calls a "circus around here" (p. 365). The play, while it stresses social necessity, by no means excludes conscious will, for as Miller himself points out, "from this endless, timeless, will-less environment, a boy emerges who will not accept its defeat or its mood as final . . ." (p. 49). One might also point to Kenneth, who is not only a victim of a new society jbut is prey to his own weak will as well. As in Salesman. jMiller is attempting, within the limits imposed by his \ brief form, to give the "whole truth." Relevant here is i Robert Hogan's observation that A Memory has "conflicting moods," "irony," and "lyricism," and that "it is remarkable 206 that [Miller] was able to pack so much in so effectively. 17 . . Save for the element of "lyricism," which I have found unassimilated by the total play, Hogan's evaluation, though extreme as quoted at the beginning of this section, is a healthy corrective to the usual stance taken by critics toward this, in my view, much undervalued work. Miller defines his play as a "pathetic comedy" (p. 49). 18 (Hogan prefers "tragi-comedy." ) Although it cannot be affirmed that Miller has "hit a target" in every respect here, for the structure is defective in its failure to knit the "two separate visions" of the play, or that the play is a major work of dramatic art, still, a reasonably successful "pathetic comedy," it seems to me, is a modest claim to make for A Memory of Two Mondays. Summary Although Miller's one-act play, A Memory of Two Mon- in its abandonment of a conventional plot, retains a % jdefinite pattern of development, tension, and certain unify ing elements, the structure as a whole, through its inabili ty to fuse its representational and presentational modes of i ! 17ftrthuuc Miller, p. 32. 18Arthur Miller, p. 31._______________________________ 207 imitation, is defective. To be specific, the transition between the two Mondays, and likewise the several isolated soliloquies, are, in their "lyricism" and technical pre tentiousness, awkward, unnecessary, and of doubtful legiti macy . Characterization, which is strong in A Memory, tends tc offset the censurable structure. Kenneth and Gus sure the most robust characters; both of them are individualized in vivid terms, not least of all through, respectively, their Irish and Slavic speech patterns. Both characters, in addi tion, grow in the course of the play. Bert, though the central character, is not entirely convincing, partly be cause he has no faults and partly because he does not grow. The prose dialogue is well-orchestrated and convincing, but the free verse lines are clumsy and unimaginative. Although Miller's characters are individualized, they remain universal and representative types; which is to say that the theme of A Memory is relevant. The warehouse scene reflects the increasing sense of depersonalization and meaninglessness that is widespread in our time. The juxtaposition of work and play through the symbols of two i i Monday mornings is an effective device for underscoring the theme of the play. The introduction of the whorehouse and 208 the death of Gus express the theme more poignantly than the adolescent musings of Bert. Finally, Miller's play differs in important respects from the social drama of the Thirties; A Memory of Two Mondays is complex, offers no easy solu tions, and seeks to do justice to both social necessity and conscious will. CHAPTER VI A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Structure When A View from the Bridge (1955) had its premiere in New York it was, like A Memory of Two Mondays (which was on the same bill), a one-act play. Miller was dissatisfied with this version, however, and by the time that the play had its London opening (1956) it had grown to the dimensions of Two Acts. In this study, the text will be the final version as it appears in the Collected Plavs.1 but a Note at the end of the chapter will briefly compare the two versions in some important respects. In his own "Note" on the first version of A View from the Bridge. Miller expressed his wish to capture a plot curve, a "breathtaking simplicity" through a "clear, clean line of . . . catastrophe": x(New York, 1957), pp. 377-439. 209 210 the form announces in the first moments of the play that only that will be told which is cogent, and that this story is the only part of Eddie Carbone's life worth our notice and therefore no effort will be made to draw in elements of his life that are beneath these, the most tense and meaningful of his hours. Although Miller says that he "modified" the "original friezelike character" in the second version of A View, that he came to identify himself more closely with the experience he was depicting and gave more prominence to characters other than the hero, he says nothing about abandoning his 2 original desire for a "clear, clean line of" development. I will attempt to show that A View's plot curve is decep tively simple. The title of Miller's play suggests the importance of ipoint of view in the structure of the work. In this play, Miller supplies the warrant for his departures from a repre sentational mode of imitation by placing on stage a chorus- jcharacter, Alfieri, who introduces the action, functions as one of the characters in that action, comments on the action from a point outside the enactment, and serves as a transi tional agent between scenes and acts. Point of view alter nates, then, between a subjective, or presentational 2A View from the Bridget Two One-Act Plavs. pp. 17-18. 211 reference (Alfieri's first-person direct statements to the audience and his interpretation of events) and objective, or representational reference (the "third-person" direct "statement" of that action which is its own commentary, including scenes in which Alfieri functions as an actor and not as a chorus). The setting, which is an important factor in a play that alternates between different modes of imitation, is described as follows: The street and house front of a tenement building. The front is skeletal entirely. The main acting area is the living room-dining room of Eddie's apartment. It is a worker's flat, clean, sparse, homely . . . At back are a bedroom door and an opening to the kit chen; none of these interiors are seen. At the right, forestage, a desk. This is Mr. Alfieri's law office. There is also a telephone booth. This is not used until the last scenes, so it may be covered or left in view. A stairway leads up to the apartment, and then farther up to the next story, which is not seen. Ramps, representing the street, run upstage and off to right and left. (p. 378) In Act Two, some part of the stage is used as "the reception room of a prison" (p. 433). Time in A View is presented in a straightforward man ner. Act One covers a period of several weeks; Alfieri re lates this once as commentator (p. 397) and Bea confirms it 212 in dialogue (p. 399). Eleven days pass during Act Two; the curtain rises on December 23rd (Al£ieri as commentator is the authority here, p. 418); Marco and Rodolpho are arrested on December 27th (for Alfieri's reference to the date, see p. 423), and on that date it is announced in dialogue that Catherine will marry Rodolpho in one week (p. 427); on the girl's wedding day— a week later, then— the play ends (pp. 435-439). The meaning of these events and the identifica tion of these characters will become clear in a moment. Perhaps the best approach to A View would involve an I {explication of the text in terms of point of attack, expo- i sition, foreshadowing, complication, transition, turning i point, crisis, climax, and conclusion. This is the approach that will be taken in this section. After the analysis of the structure proper, there will be a brief discussion of the specific pictorial devices that Miller has employed in an effort to highlight Eddie Carbone as protagonist. Some jcomment on the use of irony in the play will follow. The problem of Alfieri's role in the play can be more profitably I debated in the final section of the chapter. Close analysis jof structure should furnish a basis for evaluating Miller's jachievement here; it should also establish a reference point for criticisms of the play that will be considered in the 213 section on theme. Aefc One The curtain rises on two longshoremen, Louis and Mike, who are pitching coins in front of Eddie's house. The sound of a foghorn reminds us that the bay is near; it also helps to establish the mood of the play. Alfieri appears, comes down to his desk, and introduces himself to the audience. Red Hook, Brooklyn, he says, used to be an uncivilized neighborhood— "there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men" (p. 379); but now the section is "quite civi lized, quite American. Now we settle for half and we like | it better" (p. 379). (This is more than exposition; it is also preparation for the contrast between the Old World code of Sicily and early Red Hook— represented chiefly by Marco— and the New World code enunciated by Alfieri; the importance of these two codes will become apparent in the course of the play.) Alfieri then introduces Eddie Carbone as one whose fate was unique in later day "civilized" Red Hook. (Prep aration.) Eddie appears; and, as Eddie enters the house, Alfieri disappears into darkness. Light rises on the apartment. Catherine, Eddie's niece, appears before her uncle in her new clothes; the 214 latter is critical, however, about her short skirt, about her walk, and about her attentions to a young fellow. Catherine objects that Eddie is always negative toward her male friends. (Exposition; also preparation for Eddie's insane jealousy over Rodolpho.) Eddie sends for his wife, Bea; he wants to tell her that her cousins have arrived illegally from Italy; the cousins are going to stay with the Carbones. (This is the point of attack; it is a turn ing point in Eddie's life, and his decision will lead through conflict to catastrophe. The attack comes on the third page of dialogue, p. 381.) Eddie is informed that Catherine has been offered a job; but once again, Eddie is disapproving— the neighborhood is bad, the company is infer ior in status, and the like. This time, however, Catherine fights back and Eddie is forced to consent. (Complication; Catherine's insistence on her rights will eventually force ^iddie to take an extreme position in his efforts to control I his niece.) Eddie warns the women never to mention the cousins to anyone on the outside; he tells Catherine about a boy who "snitched to the Immigration" 6n his uncle; in | revenge, his own family "pulled him down the stairs . . . And they spit on him in the street ..." (pp. 388-389). (Preparation for Eddie's betrayal of the cousins; by 215 stressing the seriousness of the code and by showing the consequences of breaking that code, Miller heightens sus pense and the sense of expectation. The major dramatic question is also insinuated: Would Eddie, if provoked by jealousy over Catherine, dare to betray his wife's family?) Eddie, alone in his rocker then, looks at his watch; like a cinematic dissolve, the lights go down on Eddie . . . and rise on Alfieri. Alfieri picks up the dissolve suggestion of time and bridges the hours until ten o'clock that night. Light fades on Alfieri . . . and rises on Marco and Rodolpho in front of Eddie's house. Rodolpho, Marco's younger brother, is impressed by the appearance of the Carbone house. (Preparation for Rodol- pho's decision to stay in America, which leads to conflict with Eddie over Catherine.) Marco knocks. Light rises on the apartment; Eddie goes to the door. Light fades on the street . . . Marco and Rodolpho explain how difficult life is in Italy. (Exposition; clearer motivation for Rodolpho's deci sion to stay in America, but also motivation for the vio lence of Marco's reaction to Eddie's betrayal.) Rodolpho is not married. (Preparation for the love affair between 216 Catherine and Rodolpho.) Catherine encourages Rodolpho to sing "Paper Doll." (This Is an example of Irony that will be discussed below.) Nervously, Eddie quiets the singer, who has captivated Catherine, by professing the fear that noise might arouse unwanted curiosity. (Eddie's jealousy and the theme of betrayal touch here between the lines.) The scene ends with Eddie watching the couple laughing to gether . . . and the "room dies" (p. 397). Light rises on Alfieri. The lawyer suggests the dan gerous course that Eddie will pursue; he also bridges the several weeks that have passed. Light, then, fades on Alfieri . . . Light rises on Eddie— then Bea— in front of the house. Eddie is worried about Catherine, who is out with Rodolpho. (Complication.) Eddie denies to Bea that he is jealous of Rodolpho; he says that he simply does not like the boy; i Rodolpho, Eddie claims, is effeminate. (Preparation for the line of attack Eddie will take against Rodolpho.) Bea com plains that Eddie has been cold sexually toward her for months; Eddie is evasive on the subject. (This reveals the underside of Eddie's "madonna, complex"; because there is a definite sexual motive— though repressed— in Eddie's love for his niece, we are ready for the kiss he gives the girl 217 in Act Two; furthermore, the dark strength of that love makes Eddie's betrayal of the cousins, with all that that betrayal implies, more credible.) Louis and Mike appear, and in a guarded fashion they mock the antics of Rodolpho. (The relevance of this scene will be discussed in the final section of the chapter.) Suddenly Rodolpho and Catherine appear. Once again, Eddie is disapproving; but, after the boy has gone, Eddie goes farther--he tells Catherine that Rodolpho is only using her as a means to stay in America. (Preparation for the second line of attack Eddie takes against Rodolpho.) But Catherine defends Rodolpho in strong terms. (Conflict; and preparation for a continuing struggle of wills between Catherine and Eddie.) The two then go upstairs and . . . light rises on the apartment. Alone with Catherine, Bea warns the girl that she must escape Eddie's influence; she adds that Catherine is partly to blame because she forgets that she is a woman now. (This complicates the conflict because Catherine is seen to contribute to the problem; moreover, Catherine's inner con flict, her wish to escape Eddie's influence and her wish to be dependent, assure that a change, one way or the other, must come about.) "Lights out on them and up on Alfieri, seated behind 218 I his desk" (p. 406). Eddie visits Alfieri; he wants to know if something legal can be done about Rodolpho, who, he sus- f pects, is using Catherine. (Complication; Eddie is taking a more determined, more overt, line now against his antag onist.) Alfieri says that there is no legal problem here. Eddie insists that Rodolpho "ain't right"; he says: "you could kiss him he [is] so sweet" (p. 408). (Preparation for Eddie's kissing Rodolpho in Act Two.) Alfieri insists: "You have no recourse in the law., Eddie" (p. 408). (Prep aration for Eddie's action against Rodolpho outside the law.) Alfieri hints that Eddie would not wish to report Rodolpho; and Eddie is horrified at the suggestion. (Prep aration.) When Alfieri urges Eddie to release Catherine, Eddie exits resentfully. Alfieri, facing the audience, points out the inevitability of the tragedy. Light fades on Alfieri. . . . Light rises on the living room "where all are finishing dinner" (p. 410). Once again, the cousins discuss the pov erty in Italy. (Strong motivation for Marco's revenge against Eddie.) Eddie asks Marco whether Italian women re main faithful to their men when the latter are away from home. Most of them do, answers Marco; and Rodolpho adds: "It's more strict in our town" (p. 412). Eddie replies: 219 "It ain't so free here either, Rodolpho, like you think" (p. 412). (Open conflict.) Catherine plays "Paper Doll" i and encourages Rodolpho to dance with her; while they dance, Marco informs Eddie that in Italy, when the men go out on fishing trips, Rodolpho does the cooking. Eddie jokes: "He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses . . ." (p. 414); but beneath his words, Eddie is ready to explode. Abruptly, Eddie rises and suggests taking Marco and Rodolpho to the fights on Saturday night. He offers to teach Rodolpho how to box; the two men spar a bit; then Eddie "feints with his left and lands with his right. It mildly staggers Rodolpho" (p. 416). Eddie says: "I'll teach him again" (Preparation for more conflict.) Marco faces Eddie, then, and challenges him to lift a chair by grasping only the bottom of one leg. ! Eddie fails to raise the chair; but Marco lifts the chair over his head: Marco is face to face with Eddie . . . the chair raised like a weapon over Eddie's head— and he transforms what might appear like a glare of warning into a smile of triumph, and Eddie's grin vanishes as he absorbs his look. (p. 417) Lurtain ! This is the turning point of the play. From this mo ment forward Eddie's path is steadily downward to destruc- 220 tion. Moreover, the turning point is integrally related to the climax of the play in which Marco kills Eddie. Act TWO Light rises on Alfieri, who sets the stage for the next scene; it is two days before Christmas; Catherine and Rodol- pho are alone in the apartment . . . "Light is rising on Catherine . . . Rodolpho is watch ing as she arranges a paper pattern on cloth spread on the table" (p. 418). Rodolpho asks Catherine to marry him; the girl, however, is afraid of Eddie. (The threat of violence creates suspense.) She does not, moreover, want to hurt Eddie. (Complication.) She asks Rodolpho if he would marry her if they had to live in Italy; his reply is in the nega tive because such a marriage would not be sensible. Rodol pho urges Catherine to break free of Eddie's influence; but the girl remains confused. Rodolpho leads her into the bed room ... Light rises on the street. Eddie appears, drunk. (Preparation.) Eddie enters the apartment: "He sees the pattern and cloth, goes over to it and touches it, and turns toward upstage" (p. 421). Catherine issues from the bed room, smoothing her dress. (Preparation.) Rodolpho follows 221 — and Eddie immediately grasps the situation. He orders Rodolpho to pack and leave. When Catherine asserts that she will leave too, Eddie blocks her path: Catherine: Eddie, I'm not gonna be a baby any morel You— He reaches out suddenly, draws her to him, and as she strives to free herself he kisses her on the mouth. (P. 422) (Conflict and complication; for the first time, Eddie clearly reveals the naked lust behind his love for the girl.) As Rodolpho tries to stop Eddie, the latter taunts him about his effeminacy: Rodolpho flies at him in attack. Eddie pins his arms, laughing, and suddenly kisses him. (p. 422) (Strong conflict that realizes previous preparation.) Eddie and Rodolpho glare at each other "like animals that have torn at one another and broken up without a decision ..." (p. 423). (Promise of continuing conflict.) Eddie warns lodolpho: Watch your step . . . By rights they oughta throw you back in the water. But I got pity for you. (p. 423) (Preparation for the crisis of the play when Eddie betrays the cousins.) Light fades on the apartment . . . Alfieri bridges the four days that have passed. Eddie 222 enters; he claims to have proof that Rodolpho "ain't right" because the boy did not try, says Eddie, to break his grip. Alfieri saysi "It sounds like he just wasn't strong enough to break your grip" (p. 424). (Complication; Eddie is grow ing more desperate.) The lawyer urges Eddie, more strongly this time, to release Catherine: The law is nature. The law is only a word for what has a right to happen . . . Let her go . . . A phone booth begins to alow on the opposite side of the stage? a faint lonely blue . . . Eddie starts turning to go and Alfieri rises with new anxiety. You won't have a friend in the world, Eddie*. . . . Eddie moves off . . . TAlfieril follows into the darkness, calling desperately. Eddie is gone. The phone ia glowing in light now. Light is out on Alfieri. Eddie has at the same time appeared beside the phone. (p. 424) (This is the crisis of the play; it focuses the major dra matic question: Will Eddie betray the cousins in order to possess his niece?j Eddie calls the Immigration Bureau. (The crisis has passed; the question has been answered in the affirmative.) As Eddie leaves the phone booth, Louis and Mike appear. (The juxtaposition here suggests Alfieri's warning— which was, in turn, prepared for at the beginning of the play in the story about the boy who betrayed his uncle; this moment looks forward to the end of the drama ' when the entire neighborhood will turn against Eddie.) Eddie goes upstairs. 223 Light rises on the apartment. Bea informs Eddie that Catherine will marry Rodolpho in a week. He is also told that the cousins have moved upstairs with two other aliens. He is shocked at this; for he fears that if the Immigration officers trap the second pair of aliens the family will seek revenge against him. (Suspense.) The officers enter, then, and search the building. Bea is certain that Eddie has be trayed the men. The officers return with the four aliens. Marco spits in Eddie's face. (Realizes previous prepara tion.) Eddie threatens to kill Marco. (Promise of continu ing conflict and preparation for the climax.) Marco points to Eddie: "He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!" (p. 433). (This again underscores the motivation for Marco.) The crowd deserts Eddie. (Realizes rious preparation.) Lights up on a prison. Alfieri tries to secure Marco's his brother's wedding. Marco says: "In my country he would |be dead now" (p. 433). (This continues the contrast between codes announced at the start of the play, the theme of which runs throughout the two acts.) Alfieri says that nothing can be done about Eddie. Marco says: "All the law is not in a book"; but Alfieri replies: "There is no other law" r •romise not to start a fight if he is permitted to attend | 224 f |(p. 434). (Complication.) Finally, Marco promises not to start trouble. (The threat, however, remains.) I Light rises on the apartment. Eddie refuses to attend i i |the wedding unless Marco apologizes. Enter Rodolpho; he •begs Eddie's pardon for not asking permission to court i j Catherine; he wants to kiss Eddie's hand, but the latter Isays: "I want my name . . . Marco's got my name . . . Take :me to him" (p. 437). (Preparation for the climax.) Bea says: "That's not what you want . . . You want somethin' jelse . . . and you can never have her!" (p. 437). Eddie i land Catherine cure both shocked. Marco appears, outside. • . • * Action moves into the area in front of Eddie's house. | Eddie and Marco fight— and Eddie is fatally stabbed with hie own knife. (This is the climax of the play.) Eddie dies. Alfieri steps forward from the crowd around the fallen Ed die, and, enclosed in a cone of light, the lawyer delivers: ! Eddie's requiem. (This thematically important speech, to gether with its explication, will appear in the final sec tion of this chapter.) (The conclusion of the play.) j Eddie Carbone's dominant position in the play is 225 emphasized by a number of "external" devices. When first introduced, Eddie "is highlighted among" the men against » Alfieri's oral presentation (p. 379). When the first scene in the apartment ends, Eddie is alone for a moment before the scene changes; this visual image does more than merely focus the chief actor; it is a foreshadowing of his coming isolation (p. 390). When the first scene with the cousins ends, "Eddie is downstage [read "highlighted"] . . . and the room dies" (p. 397). At the first act curtain, the focus is on Eddie's vanishing grin--which means that the actor impersonating Eddie would have to be placed in a man ner that would permit Eddie to he "highlighted" (p. 417). In Act Two, when Rodolpho leads Catherine to the bedroom, Eddie appears below, alone (p. 421). The following scene concludes on Eddie's line and his exit (p. 423). When Eddie leaves Alfieri's office, the latter keeps calling Eddie's name (p. 424). The auditory and visual effects in these last two instances powerfully "highlight" Eddie. When Marco and Rodolpho are apprehended, the scene goes dark with Eddie calling after them (p. 433). After the scene in the prison, Light rises on Eddie alone in his apartment (p. 435). The effect of isolation from the group is very strong in this Instance. The play ends— as it began— with Alfieri*s 226 comments focused on the fate of Eddie Carbone. Dialogue is not limited to exposi-tion and foreshadowing in the narrow functional sense here; irony is extremely dense in this play. With respect to Eddie's allowing the cousins to stay with him, Bea says: "You'll get a blessing for this!" (p. 383); Act Two starts two days before Christ- mas— and Eddie's "blessing" becomes evident when he dis covers Catherine and Rodolpho alone in the apartment. When Rodolpho appears on the scene, Eddie says: "[Catherine's] a baby, how is she gonna know what she likes?"; to which Bea replies: "Well, you kept her a baby, you wouldn't let her go out" (p. 427). At a dark moment, Bea says: "a wed ding should be happy'." (p. 428). It was Bea, too, who said, jearlier: "It's very good news, Eddie. I want you to be jhappy . . . Catherine's got a job" (p. 384). The "Paper Doll" song functions in two ways: first, it makes Rodolpho appear silly (more on Rodolpho's "ambiguity" below); second — and this is perhaps more important— the song is a comment on Eddie; for he has made a "doll" out of Catherine, he is "alone," and he wants a "doll that other fellows cannot steal" (p. 396). Note that "Paper Doll" is played again at the turning point of the play (pp. 416-417). This ironic notif is carefully introduced in Act Two through the "paper 227 pattern on cloth" that Catherine is fashioning (p. 418). Eddie's reaction to the pattern was quoted above; and when Eddie "turns toward upstage," he turns, in effect, toward the loss of his "paper doll." Observe also that Miller gives the theme a complicating turn of the screw; Eddie asks Catherine: "Rodolpho makin' you a dress?" (p. 421); Eddie, as I shall argue later, is shifting the guilt he feels for his neuroticism concerning his niece onto Rodolpho's alleged abnormality. There is a good deal of verbal play in A View. At one point, Eddie asks Bea whether she is "mad" at him; jBea replies: "You're the one is mad" (p. 390). After ar guing with Eddie over the job offer, Catherine lights her Lncle's cigar; says Eddie: "Don't burn yourself" (p. 390). Eddie claims that Rodolpho lacks respect for Catherine; but jafter Eddie kisses his niece in the second act, Rodolpho pays: "Have respect for her!" (p. 422). The first meeting ! between Catherine and Rodolpho ends thus: Catherine: You like sugar? Rodolpho: Sugar? Yes! I like sugar very much! Eddie is downstage, watching as she pours a spoonful of sugar into his cup, his face puffed with trouble, and the room dies. (p. 397) At one point, Eddie says: "she is my niece and I'm respon sible for her"; and Bea says: "What you done to him in front of her . . . That's what you call responsible for 228 her?" (p. 426). Eddie insists: "I only wanted the beat for you, Katie" (p. 428, italics mine). In the prison scene, there is an important ironic strokes Alfieri: To promise not to kill is not dishonorable. Marco, looking at Alfieri: No? Alfieri: No. Marco, gesturing with his head— this is a new idea . . . (p. 434) Alfieri obviously intends something different from Marco's interpretation of the statement. Finally, the play draws to its close on an ironic note: Catherine: Eddie I never meant to do nothing bad to you. Eddie: Then why— Oh, B.1 Beatrice: Yes, yes! Eddie: My B.! (p. 439) Eddie dies blank as ever on his motivations; he continues to jfeel that Catherine did something "bad" to him; his last jgasp— "My B.i"— reveals his deep confusion about the object of his desires. In A View from the Bridge, point of view alternates between subjective and objective reference in a consistent manner (something that cannot always be affirmed by Death of a Salesman, though it must be owned that the earlier play is a more complex performance). Exposition and foreshadowing through dialogue are expert; there are no awkward surprises; 229 the development is credible and the transitions sure smooth. Lighting, though highly effective in its cinematic fluidity, fails to characterize or establish mood to any significant degree; nor are sound effects often called for in the text (in this respect the play is also inferior to Salesman). The criticism that Act One is slow in building tension re- 3 ceives scant support from the text. Aside from Alfieri*s direct statements, which are calculated to arouse interest, there is the enactment itself, which projects conflict from the first page of dialogue (Eddie's argument with Cather ine); the discussion about the cousins begins on the second page of dialogue, with the danger of the operation suggested i on the third page; conflict occurs again on page five in the dispute about Catherine's job— and so it goes, in ascending waves, throughout the play. The point of attack, as I have I * i indicated, occurs on the second page of dialogue. It has i i 4 been said that A View is repetitious. My analysis of Eddie's development and the ensuing plot complications, however, refutes the charge. Robert Boies Sharpe would 3Anthony Hartley, "Waterfront," Spectator. October 19, 1956, p. 538. ^Richard A. Duprey, "Arthur Miller," Catholic World. CXCIII (September 1961), 395. 230 dispute my placement of the turning point, which he locates in Act Two in the scene which I have designated as the cri sis (Sharpe also calls this the "decision of the play").^ The turning point, or downward curve of action begins, I repeat, when Marco shows his physical superiority over Ed die, symbolizing the inevitable defeat of Eddie, at the end of Act One. My argument is strengthened by the fact that the conclusion of Act One logically and visually foreshadows the conclusion of the play. The events in Act Two are merely stages in Eddie's descent to destruction. Sharpe, who quotes from the first version of the play, has high praise for the "sub scene" in which Eddie discovers the g lovers, but he offers no rationale for his classification pf parts in A View. The final scene of the play has been priticized by Arthur Ganz, who declares that Eddie's "pas sion for his niece suddenly evaporates, and his love for his wife returns." The irony of the ending apparently 5Ironv in the Drama, p. 200. €Ironv in the Drama, p. 200. ?"The Silence of Arthur Miller," p. 235. The irony also escapes Robert Hogan, who, missing the "theatrical quality" of the original in the rewritihg, saysx "This re- jconciliation with his wife perhaps normalizes Eddie more, put it also lessens his stature." (Arthur Miller, p. 35.) 231 eludes Mr. Ganz. That the ending Is part of an Ironic structure-texture complex is clear from the samples given above. Finally, Miller's control is manifest in his formal patterning of scenes and acts— the turning point and the climax sure not isolated instances— and in his mastery of focus on Eddie Carbone as protagonist. Character Eddie Carbone is "forty—-a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman" (p. 379). Evidently Eddie is a hard worker (p. 390) and a good boxer (p. 415). But Eddie is the victim of a rather well-known neurotic conflict. His sexual desire for his niece functions as an incestuous fixation, inasmuch as Catherine's role is like a daughter's within the family constellation; this repressed desire— nakedly exposed in the kissing scene of Act Two— prompts Eddie's defense mech anism, the "Madonna complex." It is a defense mechanism (so an analyst of the Freudian school would argue) because it is contrived to protect Catherine, and Eddie himself, from the forbidden desires. Various elements in the play underline this "high-low" dichotomy in Eddie (or the split between the "sacred" and the "profane"). The picture is complex; for example, possessiveness and the split can be 232 seen when Eddie disparages the " low" neighborhood in which Catherine must work; when he criticizes the "low" kind of business (plumbing— which is associated with excretory and, through propinquity, sexual functions); when he objects to her visiting Times Square because it is "full of tramps" (p. 401). Miller suggests that Eddie is in the grip of a "repetition compulsion," that is, that Eddie is reliving through Catherine an original Oedipal situation; Eddie is described, in one place, as looking at Catherine "like a lost boy" (p. 402), and in another with "a powerful emotion . . . on him, a childish one . . ." (p. 390). Eddie's im potence with Bea speaks for itself. i Eddie's concern for his name is not a late development in the play; nor is it evidence of split aims in A View. The story about the boy who informed shows that the neigh borhood, of which Eddie is a part, lives by a certain code of self-respect. When Louis and Mike discuss Rodolpho with pddie they show a certain deference to Eddie, a concern for ! his self-respect. When Bea complains of Eddie's sexual in difference to her, he silences her and sayss "I want my respect, Beatrice" (p. 426). The more obvious instances here need no underlining. Since Eddie fails to achieve "insight"— how could he 233 when his psyche is fragmented?— the traditionalist has little difficulty in dismissing Eddie as no "tragic hero."8 Miller, who is partial to traditional criteria himself at times (witness The Crucible) but who sees that there is often a discrepancy between venerable theory and the condi tions of modern life (witness Salesman). has not falsified Eddie in order to fill a conventional mold. Repeatedly, Eddie has the opportunity for insight but fails to achieve perspective on his plight. Not even the passionate kiss on Catherine1s mouth opens his eyes. Richard Findlater, by no means an unsympathetic critic, has asked whether Eddie need be, even in a modern tragedy, "quite as unconscious as this?" By any standard, Findlater says, Eddie "is mentally 9 below par." Miller, let us own, had a problem; he had to create a character who would go all the way, who would not quit in the middle, who would, if you like, "prove the theme" (in the good sense). Intelligent characters often ®Thus Euphemia Van Rensselaer wyatt: "The outcome is unrelenting but it never reaches the climax of classic trag edy because Eddie lacks nobility of motive. He simply yields to brute passion." ("Theater," Catholic World. CUCXXII [November 1955], p. 145.) 9"No Time for Tragedy?" Twentieth Century. CUCI (Jan uary 1957), 60. 234 (but of course not always) compromise; that is, they "settle for half" (Alfieri). Even the average person today knows something about Freud; once this self-consciousness is in troduced in a play, vacillation, rumination, and excessive verbalization threatens; what we are likely to get then is either "drama of ideas" (in the bad sense) or case history, documentation, rather than dramatic action. Miller has avoided these errors. Given Eddie's character and the cred- ibility of his development, the charge that his death is not 1C organic but merely heroically conventional, seems perverse. It has also been objected that Eddie is boring— too stupid, in effect, to command our interest consistently for two acts. ^ Granted that Eddie is not burdened with excessive intelligence, it remains a fair question, as I hope to show later, whether critics have appreciated the psychological complexity that is part of Eddie's character. Bea is less complex than Eddie (or, for that matter, less complex than Catherine or Rodolpho). According to Eddie, his wife has a "heart" (p. 383), and Bea proves it in 10Henry Hewes, "Broadway Postscript: Death of a Long shoreman," Saturday Review of Literature. October 15, 1955, P. 26. ^-Hartley, p. 538. 235 the course of the play. After Eddie has informed, for example, and after all the other characters, including his beloved Catherine, have turned against him, Bea's "final thrust is to turn toward him instead of running from him" (p. 431). Bea agrees not to attend Catherine's wedding because Eddie forbids it (p. 436). When Eddie dies, it is Bea who "covers him with her body" (p. 439). Earlier, when Catherine says that Eddie, because he has informed, belongs in the "garbage," Bea, against the logic of events, argues: "The we all belong in the garbage . . . whatever happened we all done it . . ." (p. 436). Bea has some fight in her, however; she actively opposes Eddie's neurotic fixation. First, she argues him into accepting the fact that Catherine must work; second, she wants to be "a wife again" (p. 399); third, she tries to argue Catherine into maturity; fourth (the list is not exhaustive), even at the end, as Eddie steps out to meet his death, she cries: The truth is not as bad as blood, Eddie'. I'm tellin' | you the truth— tell her good-by forever I (p. 438) Bea, then, is not precisely one-dimensional. According to Eddie, Catherine is "the madonna type"; Rodolpho calls her "beautiful"; but Miller says nothing about her appearance. Catherine is seventeen; like most 236 girls her age, she wants to dress in style, she wants to work and be independent, and she wants to get married. Catherine is a high school graduate and the best student in her stenography class (p. 384); nevertheless, she reads movie magazines (p. 411). Catherine is caught in a conflict between dependence on Eddie and her normal need for self- realization. Bea says: "you gotta be your own self more. You still think you're a little girl . . (p. 405). Al though there is some evidence for a sexual attachment to Eddie (p. 421), the evidence is slight. When *Bea criticizes the girl, Hiller says that Catherine "is trying to ration alize a buried impulse" (p. 404); but, on the whole, this "impulse" would seem to be one of dependence, in view of the fact that Bea describes Catherine's attitude in terms of "baby," "little girl," and "twelve years old"; and Rodol pho refers to her as a "little bird" (p. 421). Catherine's "rationalization" is chiefly that she does not want to hurt Eddie (p. 404). There is a good deal of fight in Catherine, too; that is, her desire for self-realization is stronger than her wish to be dependent. Her fight for the right to work prepares us for her fight to possess Rodolpho. When Eddie injects suspicions about Rodolpho's motives into her this complicates the action (p. 419); but her love for the 237 boy is stronger'than her doubts; when Eddie kisses her she does not react, but when Eddie kisses Rodolpho she "tears at Eddie's face," threatens to "kill" him, and glares "at him in horror" (pp. 422-423). Her emancipation is properly gradual; for example, although she threatens to leave with Rodolpho, she does not immediately do so (p. 425). Eddie's kissing Rodolpho, which was calculated to stop the love affair, ironically becomes the means that incites Catherine more strongly against Eddie (p. 424). But the betrayal is the decisive event in this regard. "To hell with Eddie," says Catherine in the prison scene (p. 434). Yet traces of the old love remain to keep Catherine human and interesting. When she learns that Marco is coming to kill Eddie, for example, she pleads with Eddie to save himself (p. 436). Catherine, however, is not a very perceptive girl; even after Eddie's kiss she seems blind to his motives. When i Bea, at the end, accuses Eddie of incestuous de&ires, Catherine is "horrified" (p. 437). Rodolpho is Italian; but unlike Marco he has long blond hair ("A thousand years ago," he says, "... the Danes in vaded Sicily" [p. 392]). This blond hair, made incongruous in the context of the play, becomes a symbol, it will be seen, of what some critics consider Rodolpho's "ambiguity." 238 In order to do justice to Rodolpho's character, it is neces sary to compare what Rodolpho says about himself with what others say about him. Rodolpho, like Eddie, is complex; therefore our approach to him must be complex. The first time Rodolpho is seen he is impressed by the Carbone house (p. 391). Upstairs, Rodolpho says: "I have a nice face, but no money" (p. 394). Rodolpho's aim is to become rich (p. 394). He claims to have earned once enough money to live for six months (p. 395). He admits to a burning desire to see the bright lights of Times Square (p. 401). When Marco is coming to kill Eddie, Rodolpho confesses: i It is my fault, Eddie. Everything. I wish to apologize. It was wrong that I do not ask your permission to court Catherine, (p. 437) According to Eddie, Rodolpho's "nice face" is suspect. But Catherine regards her lover .as sufficiently masculine. Bea agrees with the girl: "he's a kid; he don't know how to behave himself yet"; "He's a nice fella, hard workin' . . . good-lookin' . . ." (p. 398). Before having seen Rodolpho, Alfieri is skeptical of Eddie's evaluation (p. 424); after seeing Rodolpho, Alfieri says nothing. Miller's description of the kissing incident and the ensuing struggle has already been quoted. Some critics (see below) have suggested that 239 Eddie and Rodolpho sure both suspect in sexual terms; that is, that both men are possibly latent-homosexual. Does anyone in the play view Rodolpho as.Eddie does? This im portant question has not been asked by those critics who overemphasize this aspect of the play. Eddie says that the men on the docks call Rodolpho "Paper Doll" and similar un flattering names (p. 398); Louis and Mike sure introduced to confirm this statement (pp. 400-401). Marco, who is accept ed by the workers because he meets certain stereotyped re quirements of "masculinity," thinks that the men laugh at his brother "because he's got a sense of humor . . . which he's got [says Eddie] but that ain't what they're laughin'" (p. 408). Miller, in a lightly sarcastic manner, has said 12 that the play has a "homosexual motif" — but he has not said whether that "motif" has a real or an imaginary basis in the drama. When Eddie punches Rodolpho at the end of Act One, Miller writes: Rodolpho: No, no, he didn't hurt me. To Eddie with a certain gleam and a smile: I was only surprised. (p. 416) One could, of course, make much of this; what, for instance, 12"A Note on These Plays," A View from the Bridget Two One—Act Plavs. p. 16. 240 is the meaning of "a certain gleam"? Does Miller intend a knowing or hostile "gleam"? Or is something perverse (feminine-masochistic) meant? To answer this and related questions, it is necessary to view the play as a whole; consequently further discussion along this line will have to wait until the section on theme. As for Rodolpho's character in its general outline, Marco claims that his brother exaggerates--for Rgdolpho earned enough money sing ing to live for two months, not six (p. 395). Marco also accuses his brother of being a dreamer (p. 395). Eddie puts ' this thought, however, in much stronger terms: Is that a workin1 man [he asks Catherine]? What does he do with his first money? A snappy new jacket he buys, records, a pointy pair new shoes and his brother1s kids are starvin* over there with tuberculosis? That's a hit-and-run guy, baby; he's got bright lights in his head, Broadway. Them guys don't think of nobody but theirself! (p. 403) Eddie's motives aside, who refutes the charge? Eddie claims that Rodolpho lacks "respect" because he fails to ask per mission to court Catherine; and, at the end, Rodolpho admits as much (quoted above). Moreover, a comparison of the two versions of the play (see below) will reveal that in the final version Miller has reversed responsibility for the seduction and made Rodolpho more nearly the initiator. 241 These people are Roman Catholics (p. 387), with strict views on premarital sexual intercourse; has Miller complicated the action here by making Rodolpho less easily defined? As I have tried to show, and I shall return to this point later, Rodolpho is an elusive character, one with an unknown factor about him which stimulates the imagination and enhances our sense of the "real." It is well to remember that no great character in literature can be completely rationalized. (Alfieri's position in the play is a special one, and it would be best to wait a moment and consider the lawyer's role in relation to the theme of the play.) Marco is dark (p. 392); "he is a square-built peasant of thirty-two, suspicious, tender, and quiet-voiced" (p. 391). Marco is, in some respects, a foil to Rodolpho. Says Sddie: "Marco goes around like a man; nobody kids Marco" (p. 398). Marco is no dreamer— not with a wife and three children depending on him. Marco lives by a primitive code; I tie says (with Antigone); "All the law is not in a book" (p. 434). Before going off to kill Eddie, Marco prays in a church (p. 436). For Marco there is no incongruity here; ffor Eddie has violated a sacred code; more; "He degraded iny brother . . . He robbed my children, he mocks my work" (p. 434). Marco is well-motivated, then; we are prepared in 242 advance for his destruction of Eddie. Nevertheless, Marco remains a rather flat character; he is much simpler than the other characters, including Bea; he is, moreover, a static character, for there is, in the course of the play, no basic: alteration in his character. The sarnie is true of Bea and Rodolpho (and Alfieri); they remain fundamentally unchanged by the events of the play. Not Eddie and Catherine, how ever; for both develop— Eddie's betrayal signals a major change in his person, while Catherine's revolt is similarly a decisive turn in her drive toward self-realization. Theme Critical discussion of theme in A View from the Bridge has tended to focus on three questions: first, what pre cisely ia the theme of the play?; second, what is the status of Eddie in the thematic organization of the whole?; third, what is the status of Alfieri; that is, how vital is this chorus-character to the meaning of the work? John Gassner, for example, sees a split in Miller's play between "incest tragedy" and the theme of "betrayal"— 13 the "spine," says Gassner, is "honor" and "integrity." 13Theater at the Crossroads, p. 307. 243 % Eric Bentley asserts that the aim of the play is to show that informing is evil; but "instead of the conflict that life offers and that dramatic art demands," declares Bent ley, Miller gives us "mere melodramatic preachment"; here, Bentley claims, "life in its concreteness ... is obscured by a fog of false rhetoric"; yet Bentley is not certain that Miller has not muddled the theme with "the sex story"; The ambiguity of "Is he or isn't he?" is inherited from Children's Hour, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; much is made of false accusation, yet we don't feel sure that the accusation is false. Finally, Bentley finds a lack of "synthesis" between the 14 "social" and the "psychological." Richard K. Barksdale feels that the incest theme is important, "but the social 15 context . . . is more important." Richard Hayes, however, baldly asserts that the play has "no principle of order, no ! 16 harmonious point. ..." A number of points touching the theme have been scored against Eddie Carbone. John Howard Lawson argues that Eddie 14"Theater," pp. 21-22. 15"Social Background in the Plays of Miller and Wil liams," CIA Journal. VI (March 1963), 166. 16"The Stage; I Want My Catharsis," p. 117. 244 would have dignity if he were driven by "destiny"; but Eddie's psychological fixation "succeeds only in making him absurd": we acre asked to forgive Eddie for his incestuous love— because he cannot avoid it; and to blame him for becom ing an informer— because this action relates to society and must be judged in its social context.^ According to Raymond Williams, Eddie reveals both "incestu- 18 ous and homosexual desires." Bamber Gascoigne says that 19 Marco's epithet "Animall" describes Eddie precisely; but Dennis Welland asserts that it is part of Alfieri's office 20 to refute this charge. Perhaps this is the best plaice to quote Alfieri's final speech, inasmuch as many criticisms of the play, and partic ularly of Alfieri, hinge on this concluding utterance: Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory— not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known and for that I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients. And 17Theorv and Technique of Plavwritinc. p. xxx. 10"The Realism of Arthur Miller," p. 148. 19Twentieth—Century Drama, p. 181. 20ftrthur Millet, p. 1Q4.___________________________ 245 yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be*. And so I mourn him— I admit it— with a certain . . . alarm. (p. 439) Lawson asserts that Alfieri— and Miller— makes Eddie "guilt- 21 less" here, and, "in a sense, an admirable figure." Arthur Ganz takes a similar stance: for Eddie to have been himself, whatever that may have been, was to have done enough. To exist, maintaining one's own identity, then, is sufficient to be worthy of admiration and to be enshrined in a tragedy.22 T. C. Worsley claims that Alfieri's "generalizations . . . don't bear enough (if any) relation to what we have been . 23 experiencing in the play itself." Gerald Weales believes that Alfieri "detracts from the tragedy instead of heighten- 24 ing it." Leonard Moss says: "In general, Alfieri's eight appearances tend to divide the play into short, self-con- 25 tained episodes, interrupting the . . . tension." Final ly, Richard Findlater says: 21Theorv and Technique of Plavwritinq. p. xxxii. 22"The Silence of Arthur Miller," p. 235. 23"Realistic Melodrama," New Statesman and Nation. October 20, 1956, p. 482. 24"Plays and Analysis," p. 382. 25"Arthur Miller and the Common Man's Language," p. 57. 246 by his reverence . . . for the idea of tragedy, Mr. Miller nearly ruins a most exciting, well-made, well- written play. He wants to make his people prove things, instead of just letting them be; but . . . the charac ters explain themselves— and enough of life, and des tiny, and so forth— without the need of any further gloss,2® The detailed discussion of structure in the first sec tion of this chapter should suggest the impossibility of separating the "incest tragedy" from the theme of "betray al." Why invent problems where none exist? There sure sev eral minor themes richly coordinated in Miller's play; but at the core of the thematic structure— the "spine" as Gass- ner calls it— there is Eddie's love for Catherine, and this love is so intense, so powerful, that it drives Eddie to betray a sacred trust; the betrayal, then, is only a means to an end, namely, Eddie's passionate desire to retain Cath erine. If Eddie had, in a jealous rage, murdered Catherine, or Rodolpho, or both, would there then have been a split between the "incest" theme and the "murder" theme? If, in his despair, Eddie had committed suicide, would there then have been a split between the "incest" theme and the "sui cide" theme? (Is there a split between Othello's jealousy and his destruction of Desdemona?) In one breath, Bentley 26"No Time for Tragedy?" p . 62.________________________ 247 attacks Miller for oversimplifying experience and art; in the next breath, he suggests that "ambiguity" is dirty pool. Is there a split between the "social" and the "psychologi cal"? Richard Barksdale has made, I believe, an important but lopsided contribution to discussion of Miller's play: Marco kills Eddie because Eddie's action has condemned Marco's family to economic slavery and poverty. Admit tedly, some kind of Sicilian code of honor is involved and there is a question of the social and moral reputa tion of both Marco and Eddie, but the final determina tion of the action Marco takes is basically economic . . . [Marco and Rodolpho] sure the victims of a grim economic determinism . . . Again, there is a quality of inevitability in the plot action. Eddie's only weapon against Rodolpho is betrayal, and Marco's only response in terms of Sicilian ethics and the economic imperatives under which he lives is death to the be trayer . 27 Barksdale's critique has the merit of calling attention to an aspect of the play generally overlooked by critics; more over, it serves to highlight the close relationship between "social" and "psychological" motivation in the play. But Barksdale seems to go too far; for one thing, he tends to confuse theme with motivation (Eddie's love for Catherine is central thematically, and any criticism that pushes this feature of the play to the side is off the main track); for 27"social Background in the Plays of Miller and Wil liams," p. 166. 248 another thing, he switches the focus from Eddie, who is clearly the protagonist, to Marco; and, finally, he appears to mistake influence for determinism— Eddie was not forced to betray Rodolpho and Marco (he might have killed his rival — or even "settled for half"); but Eddie chose betrayal, it is well to remember, because that is the turn Miller wanted his character to take (that the turn involves social conse quences does not conflict with the central thrust of the play), and as a playwright Miller's job was to make that turn credible; and in that he succeeded admirably. There is no evidence in the play for a strictly one-sided determin istic interpretation. There is here, as in "real" life, an element of "mystery"; says Alfieri: It wasn't as though there was a mystery to unravel. I could see every step coming ... I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end. (p. 410) If so, then why does Alfieri repeatedly reason with Eddie? From one standpoint, Eddie seems determined; from another, the effect of the play depends on our sense that it all might have been otherwise (even as it does in Othello, which, also deals with a jealous man). Someone has said that the modern writer has to posit a free will in what otherwise appears a deterministic world. Discussion of A view must 249 adhere to the center of the play. Miller himself has callec attention to the various themes in the play, such as incest, 28 homosexuality, and codes; Barksdale has stressed the economic, or "social," motif; but as Henry Hewes has rightly declared, the play "must rise or fall on its dramatic ef fectiveness as a character study of Eddie Carbone. As such it is gripping, unflinchingly real as well as poetic. . . 29 ." The play, then, does have a "principle of order"-- Eddie's drive to possess Catherine at any cost; and the other "ideas" are either subordinate motivations for Eddie or sub-themes which enrich rather than split or blur the main theme. How does Eddie's fixation render him "absurd"? Recent ly, Eric Bentley (sounding like Lawson) has said: Character was never fate all on its own . . . The idea that fate is really inside men will yield at best, not plays such as Ibsen's, but plays such as Eugene O'Neill's in which psychology commits incest with psychology.30 There is more acting upon Eddie than Freudian psychology; he is caught between economic and cultural crossfire as well. A Note on These Plays," p. 16. 29"Broadway Postscript," p. 26. 3<>Tha Life of the Drama, p. 57. 250 But if, for the sake of argument, we accept "fate" as "character . . . all OB itS-OWH," do we thereby greatly im poverish Miller's play? In the Oedipus. are we certain whether fate is inside or outside the protagonist? If I choose the former, I lessen somewhat the interest of the piece— but do I thereby render the protagonist "absurd"? Eddie Carbone is a rich character because we cannot neatly classify him; it is a mistake to say either that Marco is wholly right ££ that Alfieri entirely refutes Marco's opin ion. Point of view here must be complex. Similarly, one must view the "homosexual motif" in its cultural setting or one risks finding "more titillation than tragedy in the 31 play." Miller seems to be contrasting the European and the American cultures. It has often been remarked that in the last war American soldiers tended to find the manners of European males, notably the expressive Latin types, "effemi nate." Eddie and the other longshoremen find this "effemi nate" quality in Rodolpho. But "effeminacy"' (whether the 31Alan S. Downer, Recent American Drama, pp. 37-38. ("Since [Eddie's] passion involves the rejection of his wife for his stepdaughter, a kind of incest, and a shocking scene in which the girl's lover is accused of homosexuality, there is danger that the audience might find more titillation than tragedy in the play.") 251 European or American variety) Is no reliable index to homo- 32 sexuality. It might be argued that Eddie is reacting "culturally" toward Rodolpho; that he is shifting the guilt he feels, unconsciously, for his lust toward Catherine into the shape of homosexual accusations against Rodolpho ("It's not me but the other that is not rightI"); that Eddie is just looking for any excuse to possess Catherine; that his kissing Rodolpho is merely a sign of contempt; that it is a symbolic castration of the boy in Catherine's presence; that it is a prefiguring Judas kiss of betrayal— in short, there are any number of explanations for the specific act. The i ! evil of false accusation is that it creates an aura of guilt around the subject where in fact no guilt exists. It is well to recall that Miller had recently completed The 32Edmund Bergler, M. D., The Basic Neurosiss Oral Re gression and Psvchic Masochism (New York, 1949), pp. 219- 221. The problem under view is focused nicely in the fol lowing remarks of the former heavyweight champion of the worlds "After the third fight against Ingemar [Johansson] ... I went to him, threw my arms around him, and kissed him on the cheek. The press made a good deal of that act of mine the next day at a press conference. I realized it was a strange thing to do. I think I called it 'girlish,' when they asked me about it, but it was my expression of admira tion for a man who had fought me well. That I beat him two straight after he had knocked me out was unimportant. The important thing is that he was a formidable opponent." (Floyd Patterson, Victory Over Myself [New York, 1962], p. 241.) 252 Crucible when he wrote A View. Nevertheless, there is no way to "prove" that Eddie is not suffering (alone or in com pany with the other longshoremen) from latent-homosexuality (the same might be said for Rodolpho). Certainly the ortho dox Freudian would maintain that this latency is often a feature of incestuous fixations; but art, to utter a cliche, is not life— and in terms of Miller's play as a whole the burden of proof would seem to rest with the accuser. As Richard Findlater has said: "Far more shocking, and most appropriately so, is the most unavuncular kiss' which Eddie 33 forces on Catherine in that scene . . . T. C. Worsley agrees: "[Eddie's kissing Rodolpho] is not as central as 34 its sensationalism has reported it." But if, after all is said, the "ambiguity" remains— what of it? For this is life . as Bentley claims we should have it in drama: "life in its concreteness." Are we always certain about people we meet? Is there not always an element of mystery, of "ambiguity" even (sexual and/or otherwise) in our encounters with others? The analysis of structure reveals that Alfieri is 33"No Time for Tragedy?" p. 58. 34"Realistic Melodrama," p. 482. 253 integrated into the action of A View. Aside from his role as a chorus-*figure who comments on the action and bridges time lapses, Alfieri appears in several scenes as an actor. It is as a commentator, however, that he has been assailed. Worsley's claim that there is no relation between the action and Alfieri's remarks can be dismissed as faulty reading; the crucial question, it would seem, is whether (as Find- later suggests) Alfieri's comments are superfluous. In a strict sense, one might indeed argue that there is a certain redundancy here; but, in a broader sense— and the question is being restricted to his chorus role alone— the play would be much less rich in texture without him. Alfieri's com- i ments definitely help to extend the scope of the action. Leonard Moss is certainly correct when he says that Alfieri "establishes a rhetorical contrast with Eddie Carbone" (in the original version, Alfieri, and at times the other char acters, spoke in free verse, but all this was changed in the final version); but Moss's charge that Alfieri's appearances i damage structure and tension seems wrong because action in A View builds in waves, and the waves break before Alfieri's appearances. Before considering the question of the final speech of the play, it might be well to recall some facts concerning 254 the question of codes. Eddie will not accept as final the law that says he cannot stop Catherine from marrying Rodol pho. Nor will he accept, finally, that other code that says one must not betray a trust. When the first law fails, as Eddie sees it, he breaks the second law. Marco cannot understand a law that says Eddie cannot be punished for breaking the second law; therefore, Marco violates the first law by falling back on the second law as justification, and he kills Eddie. Neither man, then, can live within the limits of that law which Alfieri and all "civilized" men commit themselves to in greater or lesser degree. Both men, by transgressing that first code, however, destroy them selves— for Eddie was as willing to murder Marco as Marco was open to the destruction of Eddie. Alfieri's verbal distinctions in his final speech would not seem to be illegitimate. It is certainly valid to dis criminate between the act and the agent; that is, "not pure ly good" (the act was "bad") but "himself purely" (the un inhibited expression of himself). Eddie "allowed himself to be wholly known"— but "wholly known" to others. obvious ly, and not, as it has sometimes been claimed, "wholly 255 35 known" to himsel£ (which would be patently false). Nor does it seem that we are asked to discriminate between Ed die's psychological problem (as Lawson says) and his social transgression; it is all of a piece in this respect: "I know how wrong he was, and-his death useless ..." would not appear to erect any distinctions; nor does Alfieri— or Miller— ask for forgiveness of Eddie. We axe asked, it would seem, to understand. (It is possible that for some readers, to understand all is to forgive all— but that is another matter.) Furthermore, we are not asked to admire Eddie, as Ganz sarcastically asserts; but we sure asked, it seems, to respond to his fate with a certain awe; for, in a sense, Eddie has acted out impulses which, so the psycho analysts inform us, we all share but which most of us manage to repress or renounce or sublimate; in like manner, the Christian moralist will stress that all of us have been 35Thus Bamber Gascoigne: "To say 'the truth is holy' and 'he allowed himself to be wholly known* about a man who betrayed his relations for a reason he refused to face, and then called anyone who accused him of having done so a lieu:, is . . . misleading. 'Himself purely' is nearer the mark, but it is not the predominant impression given by the speech." (Twentieth-Century Dramar p. 182) Obviously, Alfieri intends that "the truth is holy" to him (that is, to Alfieri) and "holy" .in itself: but certainly not "holy" to Eddie, who has consistently resisted the truth. As for "im pressions," the reader must judge for himself on that score. 256 guilty, at one time or another, of betraying God, and beside this, Eddie's transgression might be seen in its true pro portion. There would seem to be, then, a simple but power ful resonance in Miller's play. As Paul West has said about. Miller's work in general: Compassion is Miller's remedy, commonsense his curb. These are not spectacular ideas; the spectacle is on the stage.36 A Note on the Two Versions of A View from the Bridge This Note is not intended as an exhaustive comparison of both texts; only certain significant changes will be noted— changes which I believe aid in interpreting the final version; moreover, for some changes not considered here 37 Miller has himself supplied the commentary. 36"Arthur Miller and the Human Mice," Hibbert Journal. LXI (January 1963), 86. 3^see the "Introduction" to the Collected Playsf pp. 49-52; also the "Introduction" to A View from the Bridge, pp. v-x. Miller's critical reflections on A View are ex tremely interesting; there is space here, however, for only a few remarks. In "A Note on These Plays," Miller argued for a simple line of development uncluttered by "antecedent life forces"; "I am tired of documentation which, while perfectly apt and evidently reasonable, does not add any thing to our comprehension of the tale's essence" (pp. 16- 17). Miller is, of course, attacking the device of charac ter traits here (a similar line is taken by Eric Bentley in 257 In the original version, at the end o£ Act One, when Eddie strikes Rodolpho, Miller says: Rodolpho, as a new song comes on t-ha t-»rilr>r hiq voice betravina a new note of command: Dance, Catherine. Come.38 The T.-Hfe of the Drama, pp. 56-57). Traits that make no con tribution to action and/or theme— and what is "essence" here but action and/or theme?— deserve censure; but in Miller's best work, as I have tried to show, his "documentation" is not inessential. Traits are necessary and background is called for when credibility would suffer without them. Ed die's fate is credible without recourse to many traits or extensive background drawing. There would seem to be no reason to disparage one perfectly valid approach in order to justify another equally legitimate mode of operation. Also worthy of note are Miller's thoughts on the expanded cast in the London production. The text suggests social extension through a few representative neighborhood characters; but in the London production, many more characters were placed on stage, and Miller regards this larger cast as a definite gain in depth and comprehensiveness. One must never under rate the force of a theatrical image; Miller may very well !be correct in his view. Yet even in the final text the presence of the two extra aliens and their relatives seem to |add nothing to the play that is not sufficiently clear from jfigures such as Marco, Rodolpho, Louis, and Mike. There seems to be present here, in a somewhat altered fashion, the fallacy of All Mv Sons, in which the multiplication of ac tors appeared to be designed for increased social relevance. In a sense, Miller perhaps tends to undervalue, or appreci ate, the power of symbolization and representation; Dr. •Johnson18 remark: "Surely he that imagines this, may imag ine more," would seem to be pertinent here. Finally, Mil ler's belief in the simplicity of Eddie is somewhat mislead ing; the analysis in this chapter suggests that Eddie Car bone is more complex than his creator (and some critics) allow. . 38A View from the Bridge: Two One-Act Plavs. p. 129. 258 In the final version there is no reference to "a new note of command." Why not? Is it a small matter? As I shall try to suggest, it is part of an effort to make Rodolpho more complex. The commanding gesture indicates sufficient masculinity on Rodolpho's part; it tends to clarify that "certain gleam" mentioned earlier; the final version is less certain here. In Act Two of the first version, Catherine is the seducer: Catherine: Now. There's nobody here. Rodolpho: Oh, my little girl. Oh God! Catherine, kissing his faces Now! (p. 136) Here is the second version: Catherine, softly: Hold me. Rodolpho, clasping her to him: Oh, my little girl. Catherine: Teach me. She is weeping. I don't know anything, teach me, Rodolpho, hold me. Rodolpho: There's nobody here now. Come inside. Come. (P. 421) Although the change may seem to make Rodolpho more masculine in the second version, the chief concern, I suggest, is to place the responsibility more nearly on the boy. The final jeffect is to win more sympathy for Eddie at the expense of jRodolpho. Eddie appears on the scene after the above; in f he first version he touches a hot iron and tells Catherine: You start a fire that way." This is fine irony. Why was 259 it cut from the second version? The pattern of paper that replaced it, I have argued, is a symbol of "Paper Doll"; here, in the final version, it more nearly keeps Rodolpho1s "ambiguity" before us— thus, quite possibly, gaining sym pathy for Eddie; that is, if Rodolpho "ain't right" then perhaps, somehow, Eddie is less "wrong." Note that in the final version Eddie says: "Rodolpho makin' you a dress?" — again this sarcasm keeps the problem of Rodolpho in the air to vex us. This bid for increased sympathy for Eddie in the final version (not "admiration," nor necessarily "forgive ness" ) can be seen in the fact that originally Eddie kisses Catherine "on the lips" and speaks "like a lover" twice? the second time occurs near the climax of the play (pp. 157- 158). The removal of this physical and, finally, repulsive aspect of Eddie's love to one manifestation succeeds perhaps in making that love a bit less unacceptable to us. The bit of irony that closes the final version just before Alfieri's speech is absent from the original, in which Eddie dies asking "Why?"— and that is all (p. 159). Alfieri's speech jhas been altered too; Lawson claims that the first version 39 (which I append in a footnote) makes Eddie guilty, whereas i 39 Alfieri says: Most of the time now we settle for 260 40 the second exonerates him. Admittedly, the second version makes Eddie more sympathetic; but neither version would seen to make Eddie "guiltless." Summary Structurally, A View from the Bridge is a complex play. Point of view alternates smoothly between subjective and objective reference. Dialogue is highly functional; exposi tion and foreshadowing are expertly handled; credibility never suffers; development is smooth. But dialogue is not jonly narrowly "useful"; the texture of the play is enriched j by a complex form of irony of statement. Lighting is used half, And I like it better. And yet, when the tide is right And the green smell of the sea Floats in through my window, The waves of this bay Are the waves against Siracusa, And I see a face that suddenly seems carved; The eyes look like tunnels Leading back toward some ancestral beach Where all of us once lived. And I wonder at those times How much of all of us Really lives there yet, And when we truly have moved on, On and away from that dark place, That world that has fallen to stones? (pp. 159-160) 4QTheorv and Technique of Plavwrltincr. pp. xxxi-xxxii. 261 imaginatively as a transitional device, approaching the fluidity of the film; but lighting does not set a mood or characterize as it did in Death of a Salesman* nor are sound effects made to yield special effects. Some of the coher ence of the play can be attributed to Hiller's method of placing Eddie pictorially in such a way as to highlight his / special role and characteristics; and this physical ordering is intimately wedded to the theme of the work. Eddie, in spite of the fact that little is known of his past or many of his attitudes, is a complex creation. Com plexity results from a close study of his involved feelings in relation to a single but complicated situation; the stress is on the structure of a single moment of crisis, not on antecedent or causal factors. Structure in this sense refers to the drives and defenses that possess Eddie as well ;as the various codes, and the economic-cultural-social fac tors that play about the protagonist. Complexity of focus and design make Eddie round as a character and interesting. His development is organic and credible. Catherine and Rodolpho are also complex characters. Catherine' s inner contradictions propel her forward; her growth is never forced, never false— there is, in short, preparation for her every move. Rodolpho, unlike Eddie or Catherine, does not 262 grow; nevertheless, he is a rich character. Like Eddie, Rodolpho resists easy classification; he has, like Eddie, some of the mystery, even the "ambiguity," that we associate with "real" life. Marco and Bea sure relatively simple in construction; but they are well-motivated and they fulfill their purpose in the play without undue strain. Theme is also complex and unified in this play; there is no split between "incest tragedy" and the theme of "be trayal." At the core of the play is Eddie's love for his niece; the betrayal is simply a means to an end. Although jEddie appears to be driven, it can be argued that there is Jan element of choice in his final decision. There are var ious "ideas" in the play, but they remain subordinate to |the main theme, serving to enrich the density and signifi cance of the dominant theme. If certain elements remain "ambiguous"— so much the better for Miller's play. Although a strict accounting would probably show that Alfieri as commentator is unnecessary, a wiser view would hold that ^the play would be greatly impoverished without him; he ex tends the scope of the action and his meditative language contrasts with the utterances of the other characters. The I final speech of the play is far from being the thematic muddle it has often been represented as being by hostile 263 critics. A comparison of the two versions of A View suggests that Miller has made the final text more dense, gaining more sympathy for Eddie, and rendering Rodolpho less easily de fined. CHAPTER VII AFTER THE FALL Structure For six years after A View from the Bridge was first iproduced in New York, no new Miller play appeared before the public. It was rumored that during his absence from Broadway, Miller had written four or five plays but that none of them had satisfied him. Miller did unveil, however, a film called The Misfits (1961), which was subsequently published as a "cinema-novel" (a "Note" on this work will appear at the end of the present chapter). Finally, when many observers of the theater scene were perhaps prepared |to declare that Miller would write no more plays, After the i I ^ jFall (1964), a long two-act drama, was presented as the i |premiere production of the Lincoln Center Repertory Company jin New York City. ^New York, 1964. 264 265 In the scope and seriousness of the themes involved, in sheer bulk and number of characters, perhaps even in technique, After the Fall is Miller's most ambitious work. The play is designed for an open stage— a stage without curtains, proscenium arch, or scenery. "The action," says Miller, "takes place in the mind, thought, and memory of Quentin" (p. 1). Quentin is a "successful" New York lawyer who has reached what some would call a spiritual impasse, others an existential crisis, and still others simply a neurotic collapse (perhaps the categories are not mutually exclusive). A chair downstage facing "front, toward the audience" "holds" the Listener, "who, if he could be seen, would be sitting just beyond the edge of the stage itself" (p. 2). In a monologue, interspersed with dramatic epi sodes that enact the verbalizations, Quentin tells the Lis tener the story of his life. Says Miller: "The 'Listener,' who to some will be a psychoanalyst, to others God, is Quentin himself turned at the edge of the abyss to look at » 2 his experience, his nature and his time. ..." The stage directions, then, are highly relevant: 2"A Foreword by the Author," Saturday Evening Post. February 1, 1964, p. 32. (The Post published the complete text of the play a few days after its opening performance.) 266 The setting consists of three levels rising to the high est at the back, crossing in a curve from one side of the stage to the other. A stairway, center, connects them. Rising above all, and dominating the stage, is the blasted stone tower of a German concentration camp. Its wide lookout windows are like eyes which at the mo ment seem blind and dark? bent reinforcing rods stick out of it like broken tentacles. On the two lower levels are sculpted areas; indeed, the whole effect is neolithic, a lava-like, supple geography in which, like pits and hollows found in lava, the scenes take place. The mind has no color but its memories are brilliant against the grayness of its landscape. When people sit they do so on any of the abutments, ledges, or crevices. A scene may start in a confined area, but spread or burst out onto the entire stage, overrunning any other area. People appear and disappear instantaneously, as in the mind; but it is not necessary that they walk off the stage. The dialogue will make clear who is "alive" at any moment and who is in abeyance. The effect, there fore, will be the surging, flitting, instantaneousness of a mind questing over its own surfaces and into its depths. (p. 1) The mode of imitation in FallP it need hardly be added, is non-representational. The point of view is wholly Quen tin's. Typically, Quentin bridges the scenes from his past jby addressing the Listener, and quite often during a scene I he delivers remarks to the empty chair in the manner of an laside. Telephones and other props are usually described in ! the text as "invisible" (see, for example, p. 18). The scenes that take place when Quentin is a boy are played to an invisible and silent Quentin. Techniques from the cinema are freely employed; for instance, in one scene a character 267 "vanishes as the tower appears" (p. 34), a device which is similar to the rapid replacement and juxtaposition of images on the screen where analogies and contrasts are underlined. Sound effects are also used imaginatively; the roar of a jet plane accompanies one character's arrival at an "airport" (p. 68); the screech of a subway car helps to remind Quentin that his best friend committed suicide by jumping under the wheels of a train (p. 111). Symbolic methods which owe nothing to any other medium are used, too. In several scenes, "anonymous men appear" around Quentin and the hero ine, and these shadowy figures are visual projections that ‘ suggest the nameless men in the heroine's past, as well as in her present (p. 49). Hiller also indulges in what he calls "condensed dialogue," a technique calculated to create the impression of "time swiftly passing in the mind." Thus, Quentin and his second wife are listening to a recording she has made and the latter is unhappy with her pianist. Sud- i jdenly Quentin steps out of the scene and shouts: i Weinstein, get her Johnny Black1 | The music turns over into another number and her voice. | swift, sure. | There now! Listen now! (p. 101) ! • Note that the dialogue is not "condensed" in the sense that the language itself is truncated or mutilated; perhaps it 268 would be more correct to say that time is condensed, which, in turn, results in a condensation of speech. Characters, as the stage directions suggest, come and go by the "logic" of the free association of ideas. In structural terms, the rapid appearance and disappearance of certain characters is, in part, a device for foreshadowing, a means of suggesting complications and arousing suspense. In thematic terms, the characters sure, in part, recurring motifs. Enough has been said, perhaps, to suggest the special techniques of the pla? and the aura in which the action unfolds. It is time to look at the action itself. Out of the semi-darkness that covers the stage, which only partially reveals figures moving about and whispering in a seemingly aimless manner, steps Quentin downstage to confront the audience and address the Listener. Apparently buentin and the Listener are old acquaintances. After a few pleasantries, Quentin states his reason for calling the Listener: i ! I have a bit of a decision to make. You know— you mill | around about something for months and all of a sudden there it is and you're at a loss for what to do. Were you able to give me two hours? It might not take that long [it takes three hours], but I think it involves a great deal and I'd rather not rush. (p. 2) Quentin's "decision" is whether, after two broken marriages, 269 he has the right to take on the burden of a third. Actual ly, however, "it involves a great deal" more than this, for the "decision" does not pose itself in isolation from Quen tin's total experience. What emerges, finally,, is Quentin's attempt to find the source of his failure in love by track ing that failure to what he believes to be its lair in the dark past, but, not content with psychoanalysis alone, Quen tin seeks to relate this private drama to a wider field of causation, of social and cultural and historical experience, in such a manner that what appears to be Quentin's unique experience is in reality the essential journey of Everyman through the modern world. Act One may be viewed as chiefly a vehicle for carrying the basic background of Quentin that will enable us to grasp the significance of the failure attending Quentin's second Lnarriage in Act Two, which in many respects is the dramatic jcore of the play, and to prepare us for the final insights jwhich close the play. Immediately, Quentin establishes his present circumstances. About fourteen months back, Quentin !explains, a few weeks after his second wife, Maggie, died, he quit his lucrative law practice because it had "lost its necessity" (p. 2). About ten months later, around the time that his mother died, Quentin met Holga, a German archaeolo— 270 gist. His indecision in respect to marrying Holga is not simply doubt about his ability to love; it also involves the question of life's meaning: I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day . . . and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was the endless argument with oneself, this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. (p. 3) Holga, however, is a source of "hope" to Quentin: "if I could corner that hope," he says, "find what it consists of and either kill it for a lie, or really make it mine ..." (p. 4). Thus, in the first two and a half pages of mono- jlogue, Miller establishes the point of attack— Quentin has reached a turning point in his life, he is faced with a decision that must alter the circumstances of his life, and the major dramatic questions have been framed. For the sake of clarity and brevity, it would seem wise to isolate the various movements or "associations" of action in the play and to present them in a coherent order, remem bering, however, that these summaries sure translations from jwhat are in the play most often not continuous developments but fragmentary episodes that violate chronology. In view ! jof the fact that Fall stresses Quentin's character to an unusually high degree, for Miller, and heavily emphasizes 271 theme, much will be left out of account here that can be treated with more profit elsewhere. i A number of structural developments may be isolated in j Act One: first, there is Quentin's relationship to his I parents? second, there sure Quentin's sexual relationships-- with his first wife, Louise, with the girl who becomes his second wife in Act Two, Maggie, with a casual acquaintance, i Felice, and, finally, with Holga; and lastly, there is Quen- I tin's relationship with his friends— Lou, Elsie, and Mickey i i : — who connect the other two strands of action to a wider i social reference. These three movements converge toward a i connection in Quentin's mind with the Nazi concentration i camp, partly by the experiences of Holga, who had survived one of the camps. i Quentin's mother married Quentin's father because her parents arranged the match for her. In spite of this, the girl had been impressed by her fiance's appearance. Un happily, this romantic view soon disappeared when the young wife discovered that her husband could neither read nor ynrite. What made this discovery particularly painful to the girl was the fact that she had given up her plans to go to college in deference to her parents' wishes that she marry. In her disappointment, she turned to Quentin, vowing that 272 he would learn to read and write beautifully (pp. 19-20) . When the economic crash came in 1929, Quentin's father, like many others, lost his money. The mother calls her husband, at this point, a "moron" and an "idiot," convinced that her mate has bungled away the business (p. 22). At the mother's death, however, the father is broken with grief; but Quentin cynically observes that in spite of the loss, his father managed to vote in the next election (p. 11). In spite of his cynicism, guilt haunts Quentin, for he cannot grieve over his mother's death (p. 7) and he feels, moreover, a vague link between the mother-son alliance against the fa- i ther and the Nazi tower across the sea (p. 23). Quentin's marriage with Louise is as unsatisfactory as was the marriage of his parents. Louise, in fact, believes that there is a causal connection between the two marriages, in the sense that Quentin is influenced too much by his mother; says Louise: "you don't really see any woman. Ex cept in some ways your mother" (p. 32). Quentin, in this view, has been fashioned by his mother into a selfish man. !0n Quentin's side, the fault, he feels, is partly Louise's, inasmuch as he finds his wife cold in bed (p. 45). Quentin admits to having slept with another woman once, but he did it, he says, because Louise had threatened to divorce him 273 (p. 45). Louise refuses to play the adoring mother-role any longer to what she conceives to be Quentin's chi Id-like megalomania; she wants to be loved and appreciated as a separate person (p. 46). When she discovers that Quentin has passed time with Maggie, she refuses to sleep with him any longer (p. 63). Three years later, Quentin relates, the marriage ended (p. 67). Maggie Is presented as an uneducated girl who has suf fered from being unloved as a child (pp. 78-79). She has- sought to compensate for this Inner emptiness by a series of superficial sexual affairs (p. 89). Quentin assumes a pro tective stance toward Maggie (at least that Is what he con vinces himself It Is at first [p. 91]); but even In the beginning he is strangely attracted to the girl, to her naive openness to experience, to her ability to live fully jand sensuously in the present moment (p. 86), a trait far different from his own excessive intellectuality and his caution. Little need be said about Felice, who means "nothing" to Quentin (p. 7), and who appears to be merely someone to cling to for a time between Maggie's death and the encounter with Holga’. Quentin had arranged Felice's divorce and sub sequent ly became friendly with her, seemingly taking an 274 interest in her hopes and plans for the future, and, in short, eliciting the girl's admiration for his concern. As far as Felice is aware, Quentin refutes Louise's charge that he is wholly self-absorbed, but on Quentin's side there is self-doubt about the authenticity of his role (pp. 4-7). Holga is drawn to Quentin partly because she shares his increasing sense of guilt and complicity with evil. Holga, who survived Hitler's era, declares: "no one they didn't kill can be innocent again" (p. 23). For Quentin, Holga promises a way of overcoming the paralysis of will from which he suffers because she is convinced that, in spite of the evil in life, "one must finally take one's life in one's arms" (p. 24). Taking Holga in his arms, then, is more than ja merely sexual gesture on Quentin's part. | The third strand of action in Act One involves Quen tin's ex-law professor, Lou. It was Lou's lies about Stalin's Russia, lies from motives of mistaken loyalty to the goal of ultimate "perfection," that first disillusioned Quentin about his own sense of innocence (p. 28). Lou is burdened with a wife, Elsie, who, in addition to being a dominating shrew, would betray her mate sexually with his best friend, Quentin (pp." 25-26). When Lou is subpoenaed to appear before an investigating committee to answer 275 charges about his leftist activities in the Thirties, and when another friend, Mickey, who is also subpoenaed, urges Lou to "name names" with him (p. 40), the sensitive Lou is emotionally overwhelmed and destroys himself under the wheels of a stabway train (p. 64). In Act Two, Quentin's father seeks to rebuild his business, and he asks his sons to help him. Dan, Quentin's older brother, agrees to surrender his own plans for collegei and to stay behind with the father, but Quentin, prodded by his mother, refuses to sacrifice himself and departs instead for law school (pp. 73-74). Near the end of the play, in a crucial and partly hallucinatory scene, a scene which de picts the final collapse of Quentin's second marriage, therci is made concrete and projected Quentin's hatred for his mother, stemming largely from an incident out of his child hood when the mother had deceived her boy and left him be hind with a nurse while she went to Atlantic City with her husband. In the scene with Maggie, Quentin, confused with rage, suddenly finds himself torn by unconscious eruptions from his past and, instead of facing his wife, he is con fronted by his mother— whom he proceeds, to choke in a mur derous frenzy (p. 125). The main action of the second act, however, involves 276 the relationship between Quentin and Maggie. One might locate the turning point of the play in the wedding scene between Quentin and Maggie, which occurs about midway in the act (pp. 99-100), in view of the fact that this moment marks the highest level perhaps of Quentin's fatal ignorance about himself, and it is the point from which Quentin's descent into his final crisis really gathers force. Due to the particular form of the play, however, such designations are not especially meaningful and seem a bit arbitrary. Maggie, who in Act Two has become a famous popular singer, grows increasingly dependent on alcohol and sleeping pills, and, in her neurotic insecurity, which was foreshadowed in the first act, she strikes out against everyone, not least of all Quentin. Like Louise, Maggie, now, accuses Quentin of being "cold" (p. 102), but in addition, she charges him with not working heard enough for her rights (p. 104). Quentin grows more and more dissatisfied, not only with Maggie, but also with himself. He begins to believe that perhaps he does not know how to love, that he has been more guilty of evil than he has been willing to allow. Yet Quentin refuses to assume all the responsibility; he insists that others— Louise, Maggie, his mother, everyone— share the guilt of hatred and, because the Nazis were part of humanity, even 277 murder (p. 127). The climax of the play occurs when Maggie, who has had a bitter argument with Quentin, swallows a num ber of sleeping pills in an effort to shift the guilt for her self-destruction onto Quentin. The latter, enraged, reaches for Maggie. This is the moment in which Quentin has a fantasy of choking his mother. When the "superimposed shot" (to borrow a filmic term) concerning the mother dis appears, Quentin finds himself strangling his wife; before regaining his senses, he presses Maggie into unconscious ness (p. 126). With this, the marriage ends and, a few months later, as Quentin tells it, Maggie fulfills her sui- i t cide threat (p. 126). The play ends, as it began, on a two and a half page i monologue. Quentin, in effect, summarizes the theme of the play in the guise of his final insights. He owns that he had tried to kill Maggie, and he accepts the responsibility for that deed. Within the stretching shadow of the Nazi tower, however, Quentin insists again that his guilt is not i ! an isolated thing, and that his relief at being alive is a feeling shared by the survivors of the last war. A good ! thing would seem to have emerged from his experience, Quen tin feels, for now there is knowledge on his part of good and evil, now he knows that; 278 the wish to kill is never killed, but with some gift of courage one may look into its face when it appears, and with a stroke of love . . . forgive it; again and again . . . forever? . . . No, it's not certainty . . . But it does seem feasible . . . not to be afraid. Perhaps it's all one has. I'll tell [Holga] that. . . . (p. 128) Then, striding upward toward Holga, and leaving behind the figures from his buried life, Quentin hopefully embraces a new life as . . . "darkness takes them all" (p. 129). Richard Gilman has said that the structure of After the Fall is faulty because it suffers from "a lack of focus and of realized encounters; almost nothing is dramatized, noth- ! 3 jing is discovered in action." It might be more accurate to i 'say that Fall suffers because too much is both discussed anc, I "dramatized." Miller's point of view traps him into "say- jing" everything, or nearly everything of importance, twice— once in monologue directed to the Listener and once in en actment . A typical example is the scene immediately follow- i ling the introductory monologue of the play. Felice emerges j from the shadows of the open stage and there is an encounter I i between her and Quentin which consumes about three pages of I text (pp. 4-7). The gist of the scene is summarized by 3"Getting It Off His Chest, But Is It Art?" Book Weak. jMarch 8, 1964, p. 6. _____ _______________________ 279 Quentin to the Listener, however, shortly after the scene beginss "It's thiss somehow, whatever I look at I seem to see its death" (p. 4). Aside from the fact that this idea of death-in-life was suggested in the introduction, the scene is presented as little more than an illustrated ser mon, or as Quentin himself calls it, an "instance" (p. 4). The method, then, seems not only repetitious but excessively abstract and didactic. Exposition is often conveyed in solid blocks. There is, of course, a natural tendency for this to happen whenever Quentin talks for any length of time to the Listener; but it also appears on occasion in f | the dramatic sequences— several of Holga's expository speeches are to the point here (ten lines, p. 12; eleven lines, p. 13; eighteen lines, p. 16; and twenty-two lines, jp. 24). Foreshadowing is often a transparent device for i creating expectation and suspense. Early in the play, dur- i jing a scene between Quentin and Holga, an image of Maggie {suddenly appears; says Quentins "Maybe I can get to it | later. I can't now ..." (p. 12). At the end of Act One, jMaggie's image once again appears before Quentin, and Quen- I |tin says: "I'll get to it, honey . . . I'll get to it" (p. 68). Similarly, complications are often suggested in an awkward manner. After a quarrel with Louise, Quentin sayss 280 Good God, can there be more? Can there be worse? Turning to the Listener! See, that's what's incredible to me— ’ three years more'. (P. 67) There is almost no irony in the play, and what there is, is heavyhanded. Elsie, who had tried to seduce Quentin, is the subject of the following discourse: Louise: And you know how she admires you. Quentin nods seriously. Suddenly he turns out rsicl the Listener and bursts into an agonized, ironical laughter He abruptly breaks it off, and returns to silence before louise. (p. 32) The irony here would seem to speak for itself. At first glance, the rapid "cutting" (Miller's play encourages the use of filmic terms) from one character or scene to another suggests complexity; in final effect, how- ever, the shifting most often results, and this is especial- j jly true of Act One, not in depth but in superficiality. In i Act. One, there is no discernible line of steadily rising tension; action, instead of rising, circles statically be tween monologue and "instance." Act Two is much better in this respect, with its fairly steady focus on the disinte- Jgration of Quentin's second marriage, and with its painful ;dramatic climax in Quentin's attempted murder of Maggie. The play as a whole, however, fails to maintain rising ten sion. One reason for this perhaps is that when the play 281 opens Quentin is very close to the insight he achieves when the play ends— 129 pages, or three hours in the theater, later. The chief difficulty, though, lies in the nature of Miller's subject and in the point of view he has chosen. As a way of approaching this problem, it might be il lustrative to comment on the ending of Act One. Quentin must pause in his recitation in order to allow the audience time to stretch their legs. Given the subject matter and method of the play, it is extremely difficult to accomplish this feat with any degree of smoothness. Thus, Quentin agonizes one moment over the mutations of human love— and in the next moment, he sends the Listener to the toilet (p. 68). No doubt there is some irony here, but the reader must judge for himself about its success. Compare this ending in I its technical awkwardness, its abrupt change in tone, its flimsy motivation, and its crude foreshadowing ("I'll get to it, honey") with the brilliant closing of Act One in i jDeath of a Salesman. Why, if the Listener is "Quentin him- i self," must he be there on stage? When Act Two commences, Quentin remains alone for a moment; there then follows a scene between Quentin and Holga, and then a scene between Quentin and Louise, before the Listener returns. Although Quentin does not philosophize in the Listener's absence, 282 one might fairly ask, Why not? Addressing the audience directly, without the device of the Listener, may or may not have been more theatrically engaging; I for one feel, and for reasons to be discussed in a moment, that its effect would be negligible. In either mode, for example, the con clusion of Act One would be difficult to render in a cred ible manner. The problem is complex. "The action," it will be recalled, "takes place in the mind, thought, and memory of Quentin." From the beginning of the play, then, the audience is supposed to be locked as tightly inside Quentin's skull as the novel reader is i |locked inside the skull of Joyce's Bloom in the relevant ! section of Ulysses. or inside the skull of another Quentin in Faulkner's The Sound and the Furv. Joyce and Faulkner i I jwere scrupulously consistent in their method. Is Miller jconsistent in Fall? To repeat, the play is supposed to take ! place inside Quentin's mind. The stage levels are intended |to represent various levels of Quentin's consciousness, and I the figures moving in the darkness of the stage are mental 1 representations of persons that Quentin has known. This is Miller's convention, and the reader should have no diffi- i culty accepting it. Suddenly, however, one of the mental representations inside Quentin's skull disengages itself 283 from the other mental representations and moves to the fore stage. This Is Quentin. Where, one might inquire, are we now? The second problem involves the Listener. Is "he" inside Quentin's skull? Apparently not--otherwise, why would Quentin trouble to bring "him" up to date on events? How can the Listener, except in a very loose figurative sense, be "Quentin himself" in view of the conclusion to Act One? The stage directions euce misleading then— all the action does not take place inside Quentin's head. The Lis tener is evidently outside Quentin's head; and the scenes and visions, which in the absence of the Listener might be jaccepted as events inside Quentin's head, now seem to lack a warrant. In itself the confusion here is not necessarily ruinous. One might, for example, discount Miller's remarks about the Listener as Quentin and view the dummy simply as a sounding board or analyst. Or one might contend that an illogical convention is acceptable if the practical results are worth the concession. In the case of Fallr however, the presence of the Listener, whatever the rationale behind the i device, would seem to have misled Miller, as I have said, into repetition. No doubt Miller felt that he required the Listener as an aid to selection; but an audience that can accept the convention of being inside a man's head as he 284 | stands before them and as action unfolds around him, can also accept the processes of a mind more ordered and fo cused than they would be in "real" life. In short, Miller could have dispensed with the Listener entirely and written, in my opinion, a more logical and more tightly constructed play. In After the Fall. Miller has revived some of the tech niques that he exploited successfully in Death of a Sales man. In the earlier play, Miller moved easily in and out of Willy Loman's mind, dissolved the barriers of time and place, and succeeded in recreating— "subjectively," "objec tively," and "subjectively-objectively"— the significant moments in Willy's life. In Fall, time and place barriers are also erased and a life-story is compressed into two acts, but instead of an inarticulate salesman the focus is on a sophisticated lawyer. I have said that there is little or no irony in Fall. The irony in Salesman arose from the tension or interplay between appearance and reality, or be tween the three kinds of viewpoint. There is no such cross reference— hence no such tension— in Fall. A brief compari son of the play to the novel form may help to clarify the matter. It is generally agreed that in the novel the first person point of view is best if the focus of interest is on 285 characters and events other than the narrator. For one thing, it is very difficult for "I" to be candid about him self. When, moreover, there is a strong philosophical bias Jin the first person narrative the reader is more conscious than is usually the case that he is being urged to evaluate the evidence solely on "I's" word for it. True, there is concentration, unity, and a certain primitive veracity in i the mode ("i was there!"); but it remains, in terms of the reader's immediate response, a more limited philosophical i vis ion than other modes of narrative, such as the third i I i iperson main character angle as developed chiefly by Henry ! James and refined still further by Joyce, or eventhe older omniscient viewpoint .where the novelist, says Tolstoy, moved inside and outside his characters at will. The diffi culty for the reader of the stream of consciousness novel, and it is well to recall that the total stream of conscious- ness method has been abandoned by novelists, is partially i i overcome by the fact that the reader can stop to puzzle over i i |a section. A play, however, demands immediate clarity. Perhaps not even the "dream plays" of Strindberg are emi- 4 nently suitable for the stage. Death of a Salesman may be ^John R. Hilton, "The Esthetic Fault of Strindberg's 286 as feu: as one can go in the direction of subjectivity, broken chronology, and the like, on the stage; and Miller himself has said why the Salesman method could not be re- ! peated: It is not possible, in my opinion, to graft it onto a character whose psychology it does not reflect, and I have not used it since because it would be false to a more integrated--or less disintegrating*—personality. Evidently the straightforward naturalistic method also seemed unacceptable to Miller. (It is interesting to note |that Eugene O'Neill, after his experimental phase, returned i | to the naturalistic mode for his autobiographical play, Long •Dream Plays,'" Tulane Drama Review. IV (March 1960), 108- 116. See also Edward Groff, "Point of View in Modern Dra ma," Modern Drama. II (December 1959), 268-282. Robert Hogan, who considers Fall "very possibly a masterpiece" and jwho asks critics not to compare it to more "conventional" plays, including Salesman, says: "Technically the play is a brilliant accomplishment . . . Strindberg in his dream plays also probed fascinatingly into man's mind but less ilogically and probably too chaotically for the simple neces sities of the drama. Inheriting Ibsen's feel for structure 'and for point, Miller arranges the Strindbergean situation into a kind of order." (Arthur Miller, pp. 40-44). I agree With Hogan's opinion of Strindberg's dream plays, but not with his evaluation of m i * It is, for one thing, Miller's arrangement of "the Strindbergean situation into a kind of order" that is, because the result is too neat, unsatisfying and suspect. | j 5"Introduction," Collected Plavs. p. 26. 287 DavJa Journey into Night.) Finally, the loose structure of After the Fall encour ages abstract generalizations that do not always seem to spring naturally from concrete particulars, and, as I shall argue later, the form actually seems at odds with the main thrust of the play. Basically, Miller was much more crit ical of Willy Loman than he is of Quentin, and this critical attitude toward Willy permitted Miller to be ironic and to objectify part of Willy's story. This balance, as has been said, is missing from the later work. The reader stays confined with Quentin for a long time. Consequently, with i no recourse to the objective, with no relief or contrast, the character of Quentin, the quality of his mind, even his jspeech, becomes exceedingly important. I Character I The rationale for the stream of consciousness technique rests upon the claim that it enables both the writer and the reader to come to closer grips with the complexities of l character and that it reflects a more accurate picture of t "real" life. Miller has taken pains to project Quentin— , bis past in terms of psychology, the conditioning forces of economic imperatives, and the influence on him of political 288 ideologies. All of these factors sure, to one degree or another, brought to bear on the protagonist in an effort to make Quentin not only an articulate man but a representative one as well. Although Miller has said that his play "does not look toward social or political ideas as the creators of g violence, but into the nature of the human being himself," this should not be interpreted to mean that there are no "social" or "political ideas" in the play. Once again, in order to appreciate what Miller has accomplished, it is jdesirable, at the risk perhaps of a certain minimum of repe tition, to rearrange the facts concerning Quentin which sure I ‘ conveyed in a disjointed fashion in the play into a chrono- | logical and coherent pattern of development. i ! Quentin's character, Miller suggests, was partly de- termined inside his mother's womb: The first time X felt you move [says Quentin's mother], j I was standing on the beach at Rockaway . . . And I saw ! a star, and it got bright, and brighter, and brighter! j And suddenly it fell, like some great man had died, and | you were being pulled out of me to take his place, and be a light, a light in the world! (p. 73) The "great man" who "died" was Quentin's father, who re- I mained, except in his wife's affections, very much alive. i 6"A Foreword toy the Author," p. 32. | 289 No sexual motive between mother and son is ever stated or suggested; the play avoids an orthodox Freudian interpreta tion. At the time o£ the economic crash, the mother finally verbalized her intense dissatisfaction with her husband, and this harsh articulation profoundly shocked the boy Quentin (pp. 22-23). To Quentin the man, there was a "com plicity" in evil in his alliance with his mother against his father, a complicity not unlike the one that all men, ac cording to Quentin, share with the Nazis (p. 23). Quentin was so outraged when his mother left him behind on her trip jto Atlantic City that upon her return he attempted, or at | least threatened, to kill himself (p. 84) . That Quentin's i hostility was primarily directed against his mother rather than himself is clear from the scene described above when Quentin chokes his mother. "A suicide kills two people, Maggie," Quentin says at one point, "That's what it's for" ;(p. 116). According to Quentin, his mother was to blame j for dividing him from his father; but he refuses to general ize and "lay it all to mothers" (p. 34). Quentin's attitude ! toward his mother is an ambivalent one. He says: so many of my thoughts of [mother] degenerate into some crime; the truth is she was a light to me whenever it was dark. I loved that nut, and only love does make her real and mine. (p. 95) 290 In seven years of married life, Quentin and Louise apparently never had a real "meeting" (p. 30). According to Louise, Quentin has been spoiled by his mother. For example, Quentin admits that once he had wanted to be un faithful to Louise but that he had desisted because: "I realized what you meant to me"; but Louise, far from being flattered, regards this confession as an effort on Quentin's part.to cast her in the role of his mother, who used to beam at her son's "conquests" (pp. 32-33). As for his actu al infidelity, perhaps Louise would never have learned of this affair if Quentin had not written a letter to the girl jwhich Louise was permitted to discover. Quentin suggests i ! that he "left that letter for [Louise] to read . . . in i I jorder to . . . somehow join the condemned . . . to start being real" (p. 60). The first time that Quentin encoun tered Maggie he had rushed home to inform Louise that he had i {wanted to sleep with the girl but that he "didn't because I I {thought of you, and in a new way . . . like a stranger I had inever gotten to know" (p. 62). Louise also fails to appre- i jciate the implications of this "compliment." She is per- i I suaded that Quentin wants an end to their marriage, but that he lacks the courage to admit it (p. 61). Quentin's thought on the matter is expressed by an exclamation followed by 291 what seems like a rhetorical question: "God! Can that be true?" (p. 63). Actually, to his way of thinking, Quentin has been abused, for he had tried to tell Louise the truth and he had received no thanks for It. Perhaps, he con cludes, It would be best, more prudent, to "pursue Louise not with truth but with attention" (p. 67). Feelings of guilt, evidently Inexplicable to Quentin, continue to plague i him, however; thus he tells Holga: there were times when [Louise] looked into the mirror and I saw she didn't like her face, and I wanted to step | between her and what she saw. I felt guilty even for her face! (p. 72) l ! Quentin's first impression of Maggie was that she was i"silly" and "stupid," but he liked the fact that "she was i I just there. like a tree or a cat" (p. 61). Admittedly, his i t feelings were, from the start, mixed about her. He felt i j that she was a "joke," yet he perceived in her "a strange, i surprising honor" (pp. 78-79). She offered Quentin not !"power" alone— but also "salvation" (p. 75). Quentin tells Maggie: "You're not pretending to be . . . innocent!" (p. 82); and this fact is important to Quentin because Maggie | represents "now" to him, whereas Louise is the "future"— a j"vase that must never be dropped" (p. 86). Later Quentin ! I admits that he had played the "cheap benefactor" with Maggie 292 (p. 79); that he could not sleep with her "without a prin ciple," and that the "principle" was "that she had to be 'saved'" (p. 91). The marriage between Quentin and Maggie a good one at first. Quentin gave himself freely, as he saw it, of his time and labor to further Maggie's career; he says: Well, honey, I'm putting in forty per cent of my time on your problems . . . Maggie, I keep a log; I know what I spend my time on! (p. 104) But Maggie's neuroticism, according to Quentin, could not permit her to accept his efforts in her behalf as convincing proof of his love for her. Maggie, echoing Louise, calls Quentin "spoiled" (p. 116). Quentin's explanation is more theological or philosophical: I . . . God's power is love without limit. But when a man deuces reach for that . . . he is only reaching for the power. Whoever goes to save another person with the lie of limitless love throws a shadow on the face of God. (p. 119) ; i A strange letter also figures in Quentin's second meurriage. On one occasion when Quentin felt disgust and pain at the i thought of his wife's past, and when she had accused him of coldness because of it, he had written a letter to himself but had taken no great pains to conceal it from her. In the letter, Quentin said: "The only one I will ever love is my ! 293 daughter" (p. 121). His motive for writing this, he says, was "to face the worst thing I could imagine— that I could not love" (p. 121). Though love eventually dies between iMaggie and Quentin, the latter feels that salvation lies in confession, in facing unflinchingly their deep hatred (p. 120). Maggie, however, prefers suicide— an act that will compel Quentin to feel like a murderer. Quentin's response, i as has been said, is to choke Maggie in an effort to achieve "peace" (p. 127). | Maggie dies a short time after this incident, but i i "peace" eludes Quentin— at least until Holga appears on the i scene, representing "hope" to Quentin. Quentin is attracted |to Holga for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that she can endure "uncertainty"; she is not looking i for a "moral victory" (p. 16). These appear to be Quentin's j v . values, too. I Louise, unlike Quentin, is not developed in a very icomplex manner. She was studying to be a bacteriologist 1 when Quentin met her (pp. 69-70). Like Quentin's mother, iLouise had given up her studies and her hopes for a career I i in order to marry. In one scene, she accuses Quentin of I not wanting her to be happyt "Quentin, I saw you getting | jangry when I was talking about that new anti-virus vaccine" 294 (p. 43). Quentin's reply to this charge reveals "a basic concession made by his tone of admitted bewilderment" (p. 44). Louise admits to being cold in bed, but argues that t lit is because Quentin is cold (p. 45). Louise is rather | smug and self-righteous at times: "I don't do things," she says, "I'll be ashamed of" (p. 61). As Louise sees it, Quentin tends to "make relatives out of people" (p. 59), but if he were "mature," she claims, he would view men and women as distinct and "separate" individuals (p. 47). I Louise has taken her troubles to a psychoanalyst: i I I. don't intend to be ashamed of myself any more, I used to think it was normal; or even that you don't see me because I'm not worth seeing'. (pp. 31-32) i i i It is analysis, in fact, that has helped Louise to define "maturity" in these terms: "you know another person exists i ! . . . I'm not in analysis for nothing 1" (p. 47). I j Maggie is more complex than Louise. Her father desert- i ed her mother when Maggie was eighteen months old (p. 78). Miller suggests that Maggie has spent her life searching |for a "father-figure." Once, after she was grown, she had gone to upper New York to visit her father. She had had a |fantasy of her father being overjoyed to see her and holding j her in his arms as if she were a baby; but when she had i 295 arrived he had denied ever having known her. On -the way home, Maggie, who had already met Quentin, found the lat ter ' s picture in the newspaper and went home to frame it, jtelling herself: "I know who I am. I'm Quentin's friend" I I (p. 79). In fact, the father-figure, in the person of Luentin, is translated by Maggie into "a god" (p. 79). jMaggie's mother was, like the father, unsatisfactory as a parent. Maggie says that once her mother: i tried to kill me . . . with a pillow on my face, where as . . . I would turn out bad because of her . . . like | her sin. And I have her hair, and the same back. (p. ! 82) i When Quentin chokes Maggie, then, he is repeating what Mag gie 's mother did first. Mote also that Miller, though he again suggests that one's fate is to a very large extent i determined from birth, never implies that there is no margin iof freedom or responsibility. As will be seen in the sec tion on theme, Miller affirms freedom and responsibility. Maggie, who never graduated from high school, is a telephone operator when Quentin first encounters her in a park (p. 74). She formerly demonstrated hair preparations, ishe says, but she quit that job because the men expected ! jmore than hair demonstrations from her (p. 54). Not that I iMaggie was a prude, for she had been quite generous with ! 296 i i her favors. She had lived, for example, with an elderly judge for a time (no doubt a father-figure), but the judge i 'was dead now. Maggie, who also has recourse to psychiatry, ideclares: ; My analyst says I used to think it was like charity— j sex. Like I give to those in need? . . . Whereas I'm j not an institution*. (p. 89) On their wedding day, Maggie informs Quentins j I . . . was with two men . . . the same day ... I mean the same day, see. But I didn't realize it till that night. And I got very scared. (p. 97) | I I Louise suggests that Maggie's promiscuity is pseudo—sexual ity: "You don't imagine," she tells Quentin, "a real woman Igoes to bed with any man who happens to come along?" (p. ! 62). As for Maggie, she charges her pianist with being a "fag" (p. 101) and her television director with telling "faggy jokes" (p. 102); and once, looking at Quentin's tight pants, she remarks: Fags wear pants like that . . . I've known fags and some of them didn't even know themselves that they were . . . I didn't know if you knew about that. (p. 109) [To which Quentin replies: "That's a hell of a way to re assure yourself" (p. 109). i Maggie, one might judge, has always felt "alone" (p. 297 78), and as a result she has no real sense of Identity. For example, she likes to disguise herself in wigs (p. 84), |and often she uses the name "Miss None": I made it up once, 'cause I can never remember a fake name, so I just have to think of nothing and that's me! | (p. 86) jwith such a background and personality chart, it is not ;surprising that Maggie's marriage to Quentin fails. They jcould not live entirely in the "now," for the past is i |"holy," it has its claims on the present. Future troubles are clearly foreshadowed on the wedding day when Maggie shows signs of jealousy because Elsie kisses Quentin in a sexy fashion. This jealousy is merely symptomatic of Mag gie's pervasive feeling of isolation (p. 99). Also sympto matic is the feeling of potency Maggie experiences from | spending money in an imprudent manner (p. 100). The "per sonal" shades into the "social" when Maggie says: "I'm a joke that brings in money" (p. 102). It is not strange, then, that Maggie has a record of attempted suicides (p. t 112) . The girl has no religious faith to sustain her and no strength of will with which to confront the menace of her inner fears (p. 117). In her alcoholic fantasies, Maggie ! I regresses to childhood: "I want my mother," she cries (p. 298 i t 117). Quentin' s explanation of her behavior is that she is I using him as a screen on which to project "all the evil in j the world . . . All the betrayal, the broken hopes, the i murderous revenge" (p. 116). In the golden days of their i love, Quentin could say: "You're all love, aren't you?"— and Maggie could reply: "That's all I sun'." (p. 87); at the i lend of the marriage, however, Quentin says: "Do the hardest thing of all— see your own hatred, and livel" (p. 120). Maggie will not accept the hostility and aggression that is in her; she insists on the fiction of her "innocence": i You gonna be good now? 'Cause all I sun ... is love. And sex. (p. 124) Such "innocence" is not of this world, and a few months i I after this statement Maggie destroys herself. Holga, like Louise, is sketched in rather lightly. Unlike Louise or Quentin's mother, Holga refuses to quit her job as an archaeologist in order to marry (p. 14). Unlike Maggie, who also continued working after marriage, Holga can face the truth about life: "one doesn't want to lose the past, even if it's dreadful" Jp. 13). Like Maggie, Holga had once tried to kill herself, but failing in that attempt, she learned to "kiss" her "broken life" (p. 24). During the I war in Europe, Holga "became a courier for the officers who | 299 i \ were planning to assassinate Hitler" (p. 16). Later Holga was detained in a concentration camp (p. 13). Unlike Quen- i tin's first two wives, Holga is "not a woman who must be 'reassured every minute" (p. 14); she is not supremely con fident of her own "good faith" (p. 15); and she shares Quentin's guilt for the sins of mankind (p. 23). All the characters are part of a complex thematic pat- i tern, and they will be discussed again in the final section. i A few remarks on Quentin's character .as. character, however, j would seem to be in order here. Quentin, as I have tried to suggest, is one of Miller's most interesting creations. Whether he is more "real" or ‘ complex than, say, Willy Loman or Eddie Carbone, is an open question. At any rate, Miller deserves credit for seeking i Ito depict a figure fully rounded in terms of modern know ledge. He has obviously not been content to project still i another dramatized case history— whether he has in fact i avoided doing so is another question; nor has he retreated into the often too pessimistic theater of the Absurdist ! i school. Characteristically, Miller has tried to present i the "whole truth"— but once again, whether he has even ap- jproached doing so in actuality is another matter. Aim in iAfftar the Fall would seem to have outdistanced achievement. 300 i Some readers may feel that Quentin, In spite of his i self-torment, does not come to grips with his problems in ian entirely satisfactory manner. In a sense, Miller white washes Quentin in his relations with his mother because the focus is almost wholly on her guilt and on Quentin's "com- i plicity"; this complicity, however, is rather passive, and i not necessarily blameworthy in all respects. Who would seriously censure Quentin for refusing to place his future jin the hands of an obviously incompetent businessman like i his father? True, economic factors are partly the cause of the father's losses; yet the man is shown as overly depen dent on his wife and far from intelligent or capable. Who would insist that Quentin ought to have surrendered his | hopes for the future and a career of his own? The play re veals that people who do this— such as Quentin's mother and Louise— tend to regret it later and as a consequence make others unhappy. Who would share Quentin's vehement denun ciation of his mother because she left him to go to Atlantic City with her husband? Why s;uch murderous rage in Quentin— boy and man— over this seemingly trivial incident? Quentin betrays signs of an Oedipus complex, yet Miller resists, as jl have said, interpreting the experience of his protagonist I in such a light. Granted, the hatred for the mother is I 301 i owned; the fact that Quentin has been spoiled is there; the j {contempt for the father is admitted ("[Dan] was always the {one who idolized the old man, and I saw through him from the ;beginning," [p. 8]); and quite evident is Quentin's inabili- r t ty to achieve lasting happiness with any woman; but the strong love for the mother that would normally accompany these facts is absent. The reader may not share Quentin's i powerful conviction about his mother's "crime," that her i guilt is attributable to a crime equal in kind to the Nazis' i j murder of the Jews, nor feel that Quentin's attachment to i ( his mother has been adequately encompassed by the rather embarrassing remark: "I loved that nut. . . ." One may feel that Quentin indulges in too much rationalization, that too' much of his experience is translated too quickly into • j intellectual, formulations without sufficient inspection of i the affective content of that experience. One may almost sense, as T. S. Eliot said of Hamlet, that there is often an emotion present that "is in excess of the facts as they 7 appear." Perhaps Gordon Rogoff had something like this in mind when he said that the play was "a triumph of unremit- 7"Hamlet and His Problems," Selected Essavs (New York, 1950), p. 125. 302 8 ting ego over real analysis." Similarly, Robert Brustein I has said "that the real discoveries were . . . concealed or g had yet to be made." Miller is certainly to be commended ;for withstanding the oversimplification that mothers are I the root cause of evil in the universe. Yet it is difficult I |to escape the feeling, in view of the fact that so much is made of Quentin's and Maggie's past, that there is any othex cause of evil as crucial as the parental in their lives. | The worst thing that Quentin can accuse himself of, he ! feels, is failure to love. We might all confess to as much, and yet fail to be more specific about other, perhaps smal ler and less fashionable, shortcomings which are, for us. much more to the point. Favoring Quentin, Miller often stacks the cards against the other characters. Louise is an example. When after an altercation with Quentin about the meaning of "maturity," an altercation in which sensible things are said on both sides, Louise is made to say: "I'm not in analysis for nothing 1," the reader suspects that the game is rigged. It is laudable that Miller wants to see all 8"Theater," The Nation. February 10, 1964, p. 153. ^"Arthur Miller's Mea Culpa," The Mew Republic. Febru ary 8, 1964, p. 28. 303 jaround his subject and characters, for he seeks to univer- jsalize Quentin's experience— he is not merely trying to •shift the burden of guilt onto others. Not merely? yet the limpression remains that there is this shifting of guilt in ja self-justifying manner on Quentin's part, and that the | shifting continues until the end of the play. True, there 'are two sides to every story; but in art, and here we return to the limitations of point of view in Fall, those sides are jbest portrayed objectively, and not in one side's monologue or memory of the affair. In the confessional box, the penitent confesses his sins alone; on the analyst's couch, the analysand comes to grips with his neurosis. It has been said that Quentin's "faults . . . sure big and wicked," but that Maggie's "faults sure petty and childish.Indeed, I Quentin's choking of Maggie is a serious matter. Often i enough, though, Quentin is as "petty and childish" as Maggie is said to be. Quentin's propensity for writing notes for his wives to discover is pertinent here. How many men keep a log in which to record the amount of time they devote to their wives? It seems clesur that Quentin is deceiving *®Tom Prideaux, "A Desperate Search by a Troubled Hero," Februsury 7, 1964, p. 64d. ! 304 Ihimself about the guilt he felt over Louise's dislike for |her own reflection. It is more likely that Quentin is pro jecting the dislike iia felt for his wife's fading looks. Miller seems deluded, too; he says that his hero feels guilt "even for what he did not do."** This is neurotic. Fur thermore, Quentin lacks the compensating grace of humor. He ! is not depicted with the requisite detachment. The stilted, •stereotyped language of Willy Loman was fitting in Salesman because it was one with Willy's character and with the tex- »■ ture and theme of the play. The frequently stilted and self-conscious utterances of Quentin are disturbing because Fall is not about the death of a salesman, but about the 12 Rebirth of Man (the extension is Miller's). Quentin, in other words, is an inadequate vehicle to carry the message of modern humanistic values. Consequently, language is here, for the first time in a Miller play I believe, a major defect. Again it is largely a question of technique. Blanche Gelfant has called attention to the difference ^"With Respect for Her Agony— But with Love," tw . February 7, 1964, p. 66. 12"I believe After the Fall to be a dramatic statement iof a hidden process which underlies the destructiveness |hanging over this age." ("With Respect for Her Agony— But with Love," p. 66.) 305 I between James T. Farrell's studn roniaan and his later Ber- nard Glare. The first, like Miller's Salesman, is an "ob- | jective" study; the latter is "subjective," that is, it is strongly autobiographical in the sense that Farrell, like Miller in Fall, identifies himself with the protagonist. Gelfant's comments on the two novels can be extended, I believe, as criticism of Miller's two plays: To indicate that a person is unsure of himself by a direct recording of the questions he constantly asks himself is . . . one of the least subtle or dramatic methods of creating a state of mind . . . In Studs Loniaan. the inner state of mind is revealed as revery. Unlike Bernard, Studs, who does not have a clear in sight into the problems troubling him, cannot verbal ize his insecurities . . . Here [in Studs 1 are no stilted questions . . . but the thing itself— the human emotions moving with their own logic . . . in an immedi ate way. . . . *3 It is "the thing itself," caught so beautifully and memor- ably in Death of a Salesman, that is so largely absent from After the Fall, despite its pretentious devices and staging. Theme Miller, in response to accusations that he was shame fully autobiographical in After the Fall, has rightly argued that such questions are irrelevant and that the critic must 13The American Cl tv Hovel, pp. 225-226. 306 jproperly "grapple with the objective meaning of the work at hand." According to Miller, the "value" of a specific play "depends, or ought to, on its general application to other 14 men besides" the author. What, then, is the theme of Miller's play? I In the final two and a half pages of the play, Quentin sums up its intent: "Look, I'll say it. It's really all I came to say" (p. 126). And what Quentin says amounts to this: Man must learn,to love, not in ignorance of his de fects and death wishes, but in spite of them; Man must face life with self-knowledge and self-forgiveness. The first thing to remark about Miller's theme— as theme, that is— is that, the disparaging attitude of some Broadway reviewers to it notwithstanding, the same idea has been expressed by some of the most important minds of the past two centuries. The idea is present, for example, in Dostoevsky's Karamazov (and one should recall here that Miller has credited. Ibsen and Dostoevsky with teaching him what a writer "was supposed to be"):15 14,1 With Respect for Her Agony," p. 66. 15"The Shadows of the Gods," p. 37. 307 There is only one means of salvation [says Father Zossima] i ... take yourself and make yourself responsible for all men's sins . . . that is the truth, you know, friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself re sponsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for every one and for all things ... no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime.16 I Albert Schweitzer seems to echo Father Zossima when he says: I must practice unlimited forgiveness because, if I did not, I should be wanting in sincerity to myself, for it would be acting as if I myself were not guilty in the same way . . . Because my life is so liberally spotted with falsehood, I must forgive falsehood . . . because I myself have been in so many cases wanting in love, and guilty of hatred . . . I must pardon any want of love, and all hatred . . . Nor is this any eccentric proceed ing; it is only a necessary widening and refining of ordinary ethics.17 And, finally, Carl Jung has said: None of us stands outside humanity1 s black collective shadow. Whether the crime lies many generations back or happens today, it remains the symptom of a disposi tion that is always and everywhere present— and one would therefore do well to possess some "imagination in evil."18 One might go further in defense of the nobility of Miller's 16(New York, 1916), pp. 340-341. 17Civillzation and Ethics (London, 1946), p. 248. 18Tha Undiscovered Self (New York, 1959), pp. 108-109. theme as such and note that the idea is implicit in the Talmudic saying: "Him who destroys one human life, the Scripture regards as if he had destroyed the whole world." i It is also implicit in Christ's equation of desire and act in regard to lust-*-and if the equation be accepted as valid for lust, why not for death wishes, providing those wishes are not consciously rejected? Quentin goes further, of course, and actually chokes Maggie. It may or may not be in order to charge Miller with failing to distinguish legal and perhaps moral guilt from "mystical" and psychological guilt. How explicit need a playwright be? The crucial question, it seems to me, lies elsewhere. If the theme is such as Quen tin summarizes it, the reader has a right— since this is a 19 play and not a " lectern at the YMHA" — to see that theme embodied in action, to see the play build concretely and convincingly to its concluding insight. Rationalization should follow dramatization. Does Miller, in short, "prove the theme"? Quentin's mother failed in love because she turned from her husband to her son for emotional support. She showed that she could be inconstant with her son, too, as the t ^Brustein, p. 27. . 309 Atlantic City incident demonstrates. Modern psychological theory tends, with Quentin, to regard suicide as murder of an introjected "other"; hence, many of the characters in Fall are "murderers." Quentin's attempted suicide as a child was an expression of murderous rage against his par ent. Maggie's suicide is also relevant to the theme. Louise, by refusing to accept her share of guilt, must be regarded as destructive through lack of self-knowledge ("one must know oneself, but no man knows himself who cannot face the murder in him, the sly. and everlasting complicity with 20 the forces of destruction"). Quentin1s father is made "guilty" because he voted in an election too soon, as Quen tin sees it, after his wife's death. Moving out beyond the family, Quentin points the accusing finger at society. Lou has betrayed Quentin and others with his lies about Russia. Mickey is prepared to betray Lou. Quentin "betrays" Lou because he feels a sense of "joy" in his release from the burden of protecting his friend. Lou's suicide would seem to be still another "murder." Elsie is ready to betray her husband with Quentin. Hence, Quentin, Mickey, and Elsie all appear to be guilty for Lou's death. Felice's divorce is ^°Miller, "A Foreword by the Author," p. 32. 310 still another failure In love. Not content with the local i scene, Quentin moves toward an even wider universalization of the theme. Holga is brought forward, in part, to link Quentin's family, his marriages, and his friends' fate with the Nazi horror, which was perhaps the most total manifesta tion of man's inhumanity in history. The "burning cities of Europe" and "the death of love" taught Holga and Quentin the same truth— "we sure very dangerous I" (p. 128). There is something a little too pat about this theme. For all its non-representational machinery, After the Fall remains very much an old-fashioned thesis play. It is al most too heavily didactic. The attempt to encompass such a vast range of data almost automatically precludes working in depth in any one segment. Economic influences are in troduced in the 1929 crash which rends Quentin's family, in Maggie's inability to buy self-respect, and in Quentin's failure to be happy as a "successful" lawyer. Political motivation appears in the sequence involving Lou and Mickey. Most of the economic and political significance of the play, however, disappears after Act One. The latter half of the play concentrates on what Miller would probably call "the nature of the human being himself" but which really comes down to psychological, or character, study. As a result, 311 ithe economic and political dimensions of Fall seem rather :thin and not really worked into the texture or substance of the play. Quentin and Maggie are solidly drawn characters, but the other figures sure, on the whole, little more than puppets. With its diversity of characters and experiences, Fall ought to possess some of the analogical richness of Elizabethan tragedy (I sun using "analogy" here in the sense as developed chiefly by the Scholastic and Neo-Scholastic philosophers and as applied to the drama by Francis Fergus- 21 son); due to its over-conceptualized approach, however, what is actually projected is a kind of thematic "monism" — a flat, impoverished, only partly convincing picture of life which leaves one with the feeling that significant differ ences in characters and experiences have not been acknow ledged. Needless to say, it is precisely the "differences" that convey the sense of life to us in the drama. After the Fall is simply too much of the same. The extension of guilt from the personal to the social, the latter in this case symbolized by the Nazi concentration camp, may be a perfectly valid generalization. In dramatic terms, though, that generalization is not made convincing. 2JThe Idea of a Theater (New York [n.d.]). 312 There is too much an air of contrivance. By employing a loose and open form, Miller, in his haste to articulate an intellectual formulation that will tidily sum up our present plight, is tempted to circumvent, or to leapfrog over, that need for close inspection of matter, that necessity to definitely particularize time and place and gradually accu mulate significant details, which results in a tight mesh of probability. To put it another way, unity in Fall is chiefly mechanical, merely verbal. Someone has said that the characters in Miller's play are always "functioning in 22 isolation." At one point, Quentin says: "some unseen web of connection between people is simply not there" (p. 44), and near the end, echoing Louise, he remarks: "We are all separate people" (p. 119). If you accept these lines at face value, you might argue that the form is appropriate to the theme and that the above criticism is beside the point. It would not be prudent, however, to place too much stress on these lines because they are expressions of a particular mood— the first arising during a quarrel with Louise, the second in the final scene with Maggie; moreover, the lines are at odds with the main thematic thrust of the play. It oo Brustein, p. 27. 313 can be more cogently argued, perhaps, that the form Is in appropriate to the theme because what else does Fall assert if not that all men are one— one in hatred, one in evil, one in guilt, but also one in their need for love and hope , and courage and understanding? The form generously allows for focusing on moments scattered in time and place; it does not accommodate, it is not hospitable to, that sense of related ness that it is the burden of Quentin to propound for three hours in the theater. Holga is a good example. As a con crete link with the "burning cities of Europe," Holga is not entirely adequate. It is possible, of course, that Holga could be part of an abortive anti-Hitler coup— but is it probable? More to the point, does Miller make it seem probable? Why was Holga sent to a concentration camp? She was not betrayed, she says; she was not a Jew; and she was not a communist (p. 13). There is only a suggestion that before the war was ended she had rebelled in some way against the regime (p. 16). But in what way? Furthermore, Holga is unsatisfactory merely as a woman in love. She has not a single fault. She is seen too much, in spite of Quentin's passion to discern things clearly, with the blurred vision of early romantic emotion. Holga, finally, is too much the foil to the other women in Quentin's life. She remains merely another "instance" to "prove the theme." This same scarcity of details, this continuing attempt to reduce a multitude of differences to a single formula, is unfortunately everywhere in evidence in Fall. The extension of guilt is, in the main, merely asserted--it is not made to seem "real." As a result, the theme, which is broad but not i very deep, is vitiated and its relevance blurred. Summary After the Fall is probed)ly Miller's most ambitious play. Technical devices, some of which are borrowed from other media, sore used in a bold and imaginative way. Aim, however, would seem to exceed accomplishment. The play is frequently static. Exposition is often crude, and fore shadowing is defective in its obvious transparency. The most glaring defect of structure involves the point of view Miller has selected— Quentin, the first-person narrator, and his dummy Listener. The latter betrays Miller into often "saying" everything twice: once in verbalization and once in dramatic action. The method is excessively abstract and didactic. There is no steady and rising line of tension in the play. The rapid shifting from one character or experi ence to another results in loss of focus and in thinness of 315 ! texture. The play violates its own conventions because all ithe action obviously does not transpire inside Quentin's head. This conceptual confusion leads directly to the repetitive element in the work noted above. Point of view j also results in a lack of irony, the chief reason for this I being the fact that there is no cross reference of view points, no check against the narrator's point of view. Wher Quentin himself tries to supply the irony, the consequences ; are lamentable. Quentin and Maggie, particularly the former, are treat ed in a complex manner. The other characters are little more than puppets in a heavily thematic play. Quentin, in spite of his depth, is not wholly satisfactory. There is often a lack of candor in facing the full implications of his behavior, especially the affective dimensions of that behavior. In spite of Quentin's indulgence in all manner of guilt feelings, the cards sure too often and too obviously stacked in favor of the protagonist. There is, in short, too much rationalization of psychological content. It might be argued that the universality of Fall is simply intellec tual and verbal, and that Quentin's narrative is little more than a neurotic case history. Too often Quentin is not the great sinner that he says he is, but merely a childish and petty and nasty man. Dialogue is unsatisfactory because Miller's inadequacy with language undercuts Quentin as a sophisticated and supposedly articulate spokesman for hu manistic values. Perhaps the chief defect of characteriza tion is traceable to the faulty point of view in the play; Quentin's incessant talk tends to get between the reader and i the experience that Miller is seeking to project, so that in place of the immediacy of drama there is too often stilted rhetoric, one and sometimes two removes from the event it- self. Miller's theme— as. theme— is a serious and important one. The theme as clramatized, however, is too insistently apparent, which is to say that After the Fall is dangerously i near to being a thesis play. The approach is overconceptu alized; it reduces significant qualitative differences be tween characters and events to a too rigid and too simple jsameness. One might argue that the loose form of the play i j is at odds with the message of relatedness preached by the play. The relationship of characters and events, then, is not often enough cLramatized concretely. This results in a lowering of probability, reduces credibility, and necessari ly weakens acceptance of the theme. I . 317 23 A Note on JjiS—MiafiJifl. It was not surprising that, during his absence from the theater, Miller should write a film play. The present study I j has more than once indicated Miller's use of cinematic de- vices in his plays. In the published version of The Mis fits. Miller says: j Movies . . . have . . . created a particular way of see ing life, and their swift transitions, their sudden bringing together of disparate images, their effect of documentation inevitable in photography, their economy of storytelling, and their concentration on mute action have infiltrated the novel and play writing— especially the latter— without being confessed to or, at times, being consciously realized at all. (pp. ix-x) The Misfits deals with a group of men in the modern West whc j hunt horses, not for the romance and adventure that they i ;once found in the work when the horses would be sold as ! |Christmas presents to children, for the latter in our mech anized age have scooters now, but for money alone, fully aware that the horses will be slaughtered for canned dog food. For Biff Loman, the West had seemed the answer to his frustration and discontent with city life. Miller sug gests that Biff, in the world of The Misfits, would be simi larly unhappy in the wide open spaces. As one of the | i 23(New York, 1961). •"misfits," Gay, puts it: i i ! God damn them all*. They changed it. Changed it all around. They smeared it all over with blood, turned it into shit and money just like everything else. (p. 129) i Clearly, then, there is continuity of theme between Miller's I plays and his film work. Other examples might also be ! cited. Perhaps the most interesting point to be made is the relationship between Maggie in After the Fall and the "gold en girl" (p. 7), Roslyn, in The Misfits. The biographical aspect of these two characters is not at issue here. The problem is an aesthetic one, for Miller has lifted Roslyn bodily from the film, changed her name and address, and presented us with Maggie in After, the Fall. The remarks that follow in regard to Roslyn should call to mind what has been said earlier in this chapter about Maggie. Although Roslyn's parents were not "there" when she was a child, Roslyn, in her loneliness, often finds herself •wishing that her mother were near to comfort her (pp. 15- ' 16)• Roslyn has never finished high school (p. 17). Guido describes her as "dumb" (p. 21). Roslyn is embarrassed, land likewise her lover Gay, by her past (p. 46). As Guido jsees it, however, Roslyn has the "gift of life"— she really (wants to "live" (p. 48). Roslyn even talks like Maggie: |"Birds must be brave . . . Whereas they're so small, you jknow?" (p. 37). The £ilm ends with Roslyn and Gay leaving |the past behind and driving off hopefully into a stsorry : night, both of them vowing to follow their star and to teach ] their child not to be afraid. According to Gerald Weales, the "sudsiness" of The Mis- ! Ifits reveals that Miller has tumbled into "the chief dramat ic cliche of the Fifties, the faith in the curative powers 24 jof love." The "sudsiness" is there all right; but one ineed not necessarily agree with Weales when he suggests that "love" is always thematic hokum. "Love" is open to many definitions. At issue is After the Fall, for here Miller is clearly aiming at a "love" that is more substantial than mere romantic ecstasy. True, Quentin's relationship to Holga is marred by a failure to see the woman as a whole person; yet the play in its general intention, in its de sign, is striving toward a responsible and adult viewpoint. In this respect, then, it is superior to The Misfits. 24«j^xthur Miller; Man and His Image," pp. 177-179. CHAPTER VIII INCIDENT AT VICHY | Structure | Incident at Vlchv (1964),1 written a few months after the New York production of After the Fall, is a long one- i act play. As the title suggests, the action takes place in France during the second World War. A group of characters have been arrested by the Nazis on the charge that they sure Jews, and the dramatic question focuses on the various reac tions of the captives to the enormous evil that confronts them. There is a single set: "A place of detention": At the right a corridor leads to a turning and an unseen door to the street. Across the back is a struc ture with two grimy window panes in it— perhaps an of fice, in any case a private room with a door opening from it at the left. A long bench stands in front of this room, facing a L(New York, 1965). t t l 321 large empty area whose former use is unclear but which suggests a warehouse, perhaps, an armory, or part of a | railroad station not used by the public. Two small boxes stand apart on either side of the bench, (p. 1) i J There is also unity of time and action; that is, there is a |single movement of the plot that corresponds precisely with l ! Ithe actual time of representation in the theater, which, ! according to the reviewers, is about ninety-five minutes. ! Miller carefully sets the stage for his actions I i When light begins to rise, six men and a boy of fif- | teen are discovered on the bench in attitudes expressive of their personalities and functions, frozen there like members of a small orchestra at the moment before they begin, to play. As normal light comes on, their positions flow out of the frieze. It appears that they do not know one another and are sitting like people thrown together in a public place, mutually curious but self-occupied. ! However, they are anxious and frightened and tend to make themselves small and unobtrusive, (p. 1) Exposition reveals that the characters on the bench have been arrested, but the reason for their arrest is not di rectly stated at once. The extreme nervousness of the men, i however, establishes the fact that their charge is a serious one. An air of mysterious evil hangs over the bench. An jelectrician, Bayard, says: "You begin wishing you'd com mitted a crime, you know? Something definite" (p. 3). I i Thus, the point of attack occurs within the first two pages \ 322 of dialogue; the characters have reached a turning point in their lives, and something vital is at stake; the major dramatic question, moreover, is also suggested in the vary- ing reactions of the men to the problem that is before them. | Marchand, a businessman, is the one captive who acts I self-confident: "It's perfectly obvious they're making a routine identity check" (p. 4). Lebeau, a painter, is not so sure about that— he suspects "some racial . . . implica- | |tion" (p. 4). As the men discuss their personal plight, ! the dialogue frequently carries them into abstractions and j the larger issues involved. Bayard, a Marxist, blames the i "monopolies" for the evil of the war: "Big business is out to make slaves of everyone, that's why you're here" (p. 6). Lebeau, who admits that he is not a philosopher, tends to disparage reason: "don't ask what it means; you're not God, you can't tell what anything means" (p. 6). Tension is augmented by the repeated appearances of a j police guard who strolls up and down the corridor with a revolver in view, silently eying the captives. Monceau, an actor, agrees with the businessman: "I think as soon as they start, it shouldn't take long"— to which Lebeau replies: "Did they measure your nose?" (p. 7). The "racial implications" of the arrest now become clear. 323 The office door opens and the Major comes out. He is twenty-eight, a wan but well-built man; there is some thing ill about him. He walks with a slight limp, passing the line of men as he goes toward the corridor. (p. 10) The appearance of the Major not only heightens the tension but also, through exposition, establishes motivation for a jlater crisis. A waiter appears and says: i X serve him breakfast every morning. Tell you the truth, he's really not a bad fellow. Regular army, see, not I one of these S. S. bums. Got wounded somewhere, so they I stuck him back here. (p. 11) l With the situation established, then, Miller introduces the two chief actors in his drama. Leduc, a psychoanalyst, and Von Berg, an Austrian prince, are brought in, along with an Old Jew, by the police. A hint of Leduc's character is i immediately conveyed when a detective warns him: "Don't you give me any more trouble now" (p. 12). The procedure is for the police to call the captives, one by one, into the office. This is another device calcu lated to produce tension. Marchand is the first of the men to enter the office. During his absence the other men con tinue to discuss their dangerous situation. Bayard, who works in the railroad yards, reports that a trainload of Jews were taken away the other day (p. 16). Monceau, 324 jhowever, persists in looking at the bright side of things: ! ]"A lot of people have been volunteering for work in Germany" i |(p. 16); besides, he adds, the "Germans are still people" |(p. 19, italics in original). For Bayard the Germans sure Fascists, and that fact settles the matter. For Leduc they are simply human, beings— and what could be worse? (p. 20). jvon Berg, upon learning that Leduc had studied in Vienna, i i jasks the latter if he had known Von Berg's cousin, Baron | Kessler; but Leduc, "with an odd coolness," denies having known the man. According to Von Berg, Kessler was "ex- i tremely democratic" (p. 20). This exchange is important foreshadowing for the climax of the play. Von Berg's posi- i tion on the bench puzzles the men, for he is an aristocrat, j a Catholic, and apolitical, and, consequently, they do not know why he was arrested. Perhaps, they imply, the Nazis made a mistake. Von Berg affirms his pride in his name and family, as represented by his title, and declares that he would not dishonor himself (p. 22). This is also prepara tion for the climax of the play. The office door opens then and Marchand exits— with a ! ipass to freedom. Says Lebeau: "I could have sworn he was ja Jew I" (p. 25). Bayard, Monceau, and Leduc continue to I | 'indulge in a philosophical analysis of the situation; Bayard) 325 believes that one must draw strength from identifying the self with the working classes; Monceau's strength lies in ihis ability to fashion his "own reality in this world" (p. 29); and Leduc amuses himself by being cynical about both positions. Von Berg agrees with Leduc; one cannot pin one's i hopes upon a specific class— only a relatively small number I of "people of integrity" spell the difference between civi lization and descent into utter barbarism (pp. 33-34). Once I 1 jagain, this is important foreshadowing for the crisis and i j climax of the play. The waiter, who has spoken to someone who knows the truth, reports the words that end any doubts the prisoners may have had about the danger of their position: "People 1 get burned up in furnaces. It's not to work. They burn you up in Poland" (p. 35). This is precisely the half-way mark of the play. At this point, Bayard is removed to the office— never to return. Desperate now, Leduc suggests that they try to escape. Von Berg, who lacks "strength in his hands," asks to be left out of consideration (p. 37); Monceau, who still will not believe that the Germans could do such a vile thing, also refuses to act (p. 38); the other prisoners say nothing and j do nothing. Leduc is shocked by their passivity. 326 Suddenly the Major reappears, this time with the Pro fessor from the German Race Institute. The Major asks for permission to be released from his duties, but the Professor is inflexible. The latter's threat to report the Major is sufficient to quell the soldier. Says the Professor: "The Army's responsibility is quite as great as mine here1 1 (p. 43). This is an important line in the thematic structure i of the play. Lebeau finally agrees to try to escape, warning Leduc, however, that he is as "weak as a chicken" (p. 44). The boy i is also willing to make a run for freedom. Now it is Leduc i i who is reluctant to try the escape because Lebeau and the i i boy sure not very strong: "I wanted to get away," he says, ! "not just slaughtered" (p. 48). This is, as I shall argue later, an important line in the play. When the boy makes a dash for the door, however, Leduc casts caution aside and follows him. But the Major, who has been drinking, appears and blocks their path. At first, the Major appeals to their sympathy: "this is all as inconceivable to me as it is to you" (p. 53); but Leduc will have none of this, for he says: "I'd believe you if you shot yourself. And better yet, if you took a few of them with you" (p. 53). Stung, and feel- ing guilty, the Major shouts: "You— goddamned Jews 1" (p. j 54). In his defense, the Major argues that no one can be ■ responsible in the modern world because every man is a i prisoner of another (p. 55). The incident ends with still I another lamb— this time Lebeau— led into the office. Mon ceau and the boy quickly follow him, and only the Old Jew, Von Berg, and Leduc remain. Leduc asks Von Berg, who will be released because he is not a Jew, to inform his wife about his fate. Von Berg feels a sense of guilt: "It will not be easy for me to walk out of here" (p. 60). As they talk, the Old Jew is taken i into the office. Leduc grows increasingly bitter, denoun cing the fact that he had been stupid enough to live his ilife by ideals. Von Berg protests, for he cannot accept a | world without ideals: There are ideals . . . There are people who would find it easier to die than stain one finger with this murder. They exist . . . People for whom everything is not per mitted, foolish people and ineffectual, but they do ex ist and will not dishonor their tradition, (pp. 65-66) Leduc's reply is that every gentile harbors, if only uncon sciously, a "dislike if not a hatred for the Jews" (p. 66). Von Berg denies this. Leduc, "with a wild pity in his i voice," explains that the Jew is only a scapegoat for the f gentile: "Each man has his Jew; it is the other" (p. 66). 328 The dramatic question of the play— "How should these men jconfront the evil of Nazism?"— is now sharply focused at the Iclimax of the drama. Leduc leads Von Berg to the challenge of the theme: now . . . you must see that you have [your Jew]— the man | whose death leaves you relieved that you are not him . . . i And that is why there is nothing and will be nothing— I until you face your own complicity with this . . . your own humanity. (p. 66) In the face of Von Berg's denials, Leduc informs the Prince i {that Baron Kessler, far from being a democrat, was a vicious i Nazi who "helped to remove all the Jewish doctors from the medical school" in Vienna (p. 67). Von Berg, "stunned, in- ward-seeing," admits that he had heard of it, but that he i "had forgotten it" (p. 67). The climax is prepared when Leduc says: It's not your guilt I want, it's your responsibility . . . if you had understood that Baron Kessler was ... in some small and frightful part— doing your will. You might have done something then. . . . (pp. 68-69) Von Berg, asking: "What can ever save us?," is removed to the office. When Von Berg returns from the office, he has his pass to freedom. He does not hesitate. Quickly he hands the i pass to Leduc: 329 Leduc backs awavf hie hands aprlnaino to cover his eves in the awareness of his own quilt. Leduc— a plea In hla voice a I wasn't asking you to do this! (p. 69) i | Never the less, Leduc— "his eyes wide in awe and terror"— f j |dashes outside to freedom. The play ends with the police i icrying: "Man escaped1 .," with a new group of prisoners being Iherded into the detention room, and with Von Berg and the I Major "forever incomprehensible to one another, looking intc jeach other's eyes" (p. 70). ! ! I In his review of Incident at Vichv. Henry Hewes calls the play an "illustrated essay," a "dramatic essay," and p ends by saying: "Instead of incident we get instances." Robert Brustein takes a similar line: "since the action is mainly restricted to a bench, it cannot help being static 3 for long periods and melodramatic for short ones." Douglas 4 Watt calls the escape plans "bits of contrived theatrics." i- Walter Kerr finds that Miller has written a "declamatory ^"Waiting Periods," Saturday Review of Literature. December 19, 1964, p. 24. 3"Muddy Track at Lincoln Center," The New Republic. December 26, 1964, p. 26. *New York Daily News. December 4, 1964, p. 64. 330 climax with bite in it; but he has not yet been willing to replace editorial rhetoric with actual drama."5 Thus, Miller is accused, on the one hand, of presenting an exces sively abstract and didactic play, and, on the other, of seeking to enliven the static scene by indulging in mere melodramatic decoration. Is this fair? The description and analysis given above should suggest |an answer. Incident at Vichv is a play, not a sermon. iTrue, there is a good deal of "talk" in the play. Aside I | from the fact that Shaw and Sartre have demonstrated that I "talk" can be dramatic, the point must be stressed that Miller's play has a definite dramatic structure. There is, ;as has been said, complete unity of time, place, and action. i i |(There is also unity of theme.) The point of attack comes I almost at once. The major dramatic question is immediately jfocused, and the question continues to motivate every word |and movement in the play until its resolution. One should be able to detect, in looking over the description and analysis, not only small patterns of crisis, climax, and i conclusion, but an over-all line of steadily rising tension. ^"Wiping the Smirk off the Face of Tragedy," r^->a Anan ias Times. Calendar Section, January 3, 1965, p. 26. 331 The objection that confining action to a bench causes the play to be static is not only contrary to the particular fact of this play, but in a general sense, seems absurd as ! well. As Howard Taubman rightly says: "The very fact of the steady attrition of victims is in itself a dramatic 6 device of unfaltering suspense." The attempted escape from the detention room, far from being mere "theatrics," strikes me as wholly credible; in any group of actual prisoners, jone or two of them at least would risk a dash for freedom; and, moreover, in the play itself, Miller makes the attempt ! [convincing through the argumentation that the plan arouses, I ;a discussion that reveals various human reactions to such a j [problem, and, especially, by making the instigator, Leduc*, an angry and desperate man, precisely the kind of a charac ter who would make such a move. Miller's control of his i i medium is evident from his careful foreshadowing of events; ! Von Berg's climactic behavior, for example, is prepared for [step-by-step, yet that preparation is never crude or trans- i parent. The technical advance of Incident at Viehv over After i | 6New York Times. December 4, 1964, Section L, p. 44. j 332 the Fall- -or, to express it another way, Miller's return to the technical mastery of Death of a Salesman. The Crucible, and A View from the Bridge--needs no extended underlining. i ilncident at Vichv is one of Miller's most finished works. ! | Character Von Berg, as has been stated, is an Austrian prince; he is also a Roman Catholic and politically ignorant, which i jis presumably a class defect because the Prince explains that most nobles "never took responsibility" for the Nazis j(p. 22). For Von Berg the Nazis are to be censured on aes thetic grounds— they sure simply "vulgar" (p. 23). He asks: "Can people with respect for art go about hounding Jews?" I (p. 24). For all his weakness, however, there is a vein of Iron and good sense in the aristocrat. The iron stems from i his pride in his tradition; the good sense is evident in his belief in "certain aristocrats . . . And in certain common I people"— in short, in real individuals, not in Nazi and Marxist abstractions (p. 33). Physically, Von Berg is weak l(p. 37), but the will, as the play's climax shows, is not dependent on muscle. That Von Berg's response to events is I not wholly aesthetic in the beginning is apparent from his i reaction to the Nazis* murdering of his musicians in Vienna. f i I He had wanted to destroy himself then, he says, because so many of his friends were indifferent to the killings (p. 61). That Von Berg could contemplate suicide reveals his ! |conviction that a life without ideals is not worth living i |(p. 61), and this conviction helps to make his final action credible. It is, in fact, a certain innocence about the man— "I know so little about people" (p. 63), "I have no great . . . facility with women" (p. 60)— that also helps ! i to make his self-sacrifice understandable. Perhaps a more |calculating man, even a more intelligent man, would have iconvinced himself that in the circumstances of Vichy self- sacrifice was not the way. Moreover, given a man of the limited reasoning powers of Von Berg— he is, in some re spects, as he himself puts it, "foolish . . . and ineffec tual" (p. 65)— it is made convincing that he might hoodwink himself about Baron Kessler (p. 67). Even his Catholicism iis made to function in an active manner. At the climax of the play he cries: "What can save us?" (p. 68, italics mine); this would seem to be the way in which a Christian would look at the problem— and his act of self-sacrifice, i of course, takes Christ for its model. Von Berg, it will jbe seen then, is a sufficiently complex and believable I 'dramatic creation. i Leduc is in many ways Von Berg's opposite, or foil. As a psychoanalyst, Leduc has been trained to be introspective i and analytical. He is also, unlike Von Berg, a calculating man (p. 14). His professional role enables him to arrive at the same conclusions, however, that Von Berg holds in regard to the opium of Marxist propaganda— he sees, that is, i not labels but people (p. 20). Yet even Leduc can harbor I i -built-in prejudices, such-as his belief that an "aristocracy j is . . . always behind a reactionary regime" (p. 22). Leduc has an icy sense of fact; to Monceau's argument that one i | must create oneself, the doctor asks: "But when they tell you to open your fly?" (that is, to see if you are a circum- ! cised Jew) (p. 49). Leduc is an "activist"— he is unable to appreciate "passivity" (p. 49); he is afraid that "Jew and ; gentile both" have been "trained to die" (p. 51). That Leduc is no plaster saint is, to take but one example for Ithe present, evident from his talk about his wife. At first jhe asks Von Berg to inform his wife that he was sent to the furnaces (p. 59); later, however, he confesses that he is no longer in love with his wife and that he had wanted revenge bn her because he would never have been captured had he not jgone out to get medicine for her. "God, at a time like jthis," he exclaims, "to think of taking vengeance on her! What scum we are!" (p. 63). The other characters are less complex than Von Berg and I Leduc, but all of them are vivid and interesting. Lebeau, j the painter, is "a bearded, unkempt man of twenty-five" (p. ] 2). He admits to being "utterly confused" by the evil that faces him (p. 6). He assumes the stance that, in effect, jart "must not mean, but be" (p. 7). Feeling himself an out- jcast from middle class society, Lebeau implies that all i business is organized stealing (p. 9): "Whenever a people i starts to work hard, watch out, they're going to kill some- i body" (p. 10). His own wish is to "work without making work a god!" (p. 10). Miller suggests, however, that Lebeau is a contemptible weakling. He blames his mother, for example, i for his present plight: In 1939 we were packed for America. Suddenly my mother wouldn't leave the furniture. I'm here because of a brass bed and some fourth-rate crockery. And a stubborn, ignorant woman, (p. 6) Lebeau's philosophy is that every man must think of himself: "What the hell am I supposed to think of? Who're you thinking of?" (p. 28). He reveals that a Jew— he means him- | self— grows to "believe" what the Nazis say about him. jReality, Lebeau confesses, is simply too much for him: "I could never paint what I saw, only what I imagined" (p. 51); ! 336 "you get tired of believing in the truth . . . tired of seeing things clearly" (p. 50). | Reality is also too gross for the actor, Monceau: "One must create one's own reality . . . I'm an actor, we do this all the time" (p. 29). As Monceau sees it, life is merely j a problem of mind over matter, or the power of positive 'thinking: "everyone said I was crazy to stay in the [act- i jing] profession. But I did, and I imposed my idea on others" (p. 49). Failing to distinguish between unequal situations, neglecting the difference between the theater and the place of detention, Monceau, it is not surprising, jis similarly deluded in respect to the nature of Nazism: j "the Germans sure not illogical; there's no conceivable ad vantage for them in furnaces" (p. 37). Monceau is not only ignorant of the "illogical" evil that pervades the racism lof the Germans, he is further mistaken about the status of jlaw in a world in which certain assumptions about map's nature are no longer taken for granted. (As Lebeau, in one of his more lucid moments, expresses it: "After the Romans and the Greeks and the Renaissance . . . you know what this means?") "I go on the assumption," reports Monceau, "that jif I obey the law with dignity I will live in peace" (p. I 1 52). Although one might doubt the validity of Monceau's I . . _____________________ I 337 j : insight into reality, the actor insists that one must, * • i ! finally, conform to the world as it is, for, he argues, if jthe majority did not want a specific law they would simply ’ abolish it. Standing squarely on a philosophy without jvisible means of support, Monceau demands that Leduc cease jhis "romantic challenges!" (p. 52). After this indulgence !in semantic sleight-of-hand, Monceau disappears into the police office. He is not heard from again. 1 | Bayard is described as a young man, "poorly but cleanly j dressed, with a certain muscular austerity in his manner" j (p. 2). This description fits the role that Bayard performs i in the world— he is an electrician in the freight yards. In spite of his Marxist jargon ("Big business is out to make | slaves pf everyone", [p. ‘6] . . . "The bourgeoisie sold i France" [p. 30] . . . "the future is Socialist" [p. 31], r ‘ etc.), Bayard is very much the Rousseauistic "romantic." He refuses to agree with Leduc that human nature has a pro pensity to evil as well as to good. No, argues Bayard, the Germans are bad because they are Fascists— if they became, Bayard implies, Marxists they would then be admirable fel lows (p. 20). The truth, which has an unpleasant tendency (to contradict theories, does not seem to be especially im- i I portant; like Monceau, Bayard urges positive thinking: | 338 j "you'd better ram a viewpoint up your spine or you'll break jin half" (p. 31)--the need, then, is for '\a viewpoint," not necessarily one that corresponds with the measurements of the situation. Bayard has no regard for the individual— i ! only the mass is relevant: "You can't make sense of this on ! ja personal basis" (p. 31); thus, he accepts alienation: I l "How can my spirit [in such a world as this] be where my body is?"— and his spirit, he roundly affirms, is in the !"future" (p. 32). The most vital part of Bayard, then, is i i unrelated to the existential area of his operations; he is waiting for the great day when "the working class is master of the world" (p. 32). Is this "mystical"? Not according to Bayard: "A human being," he says, "has to glory in the facts" (p. 33). The Major also stresses the "facts," at least as he sees them. And, for him, the facts are that the old world of Judaic-Christian and humanistic values is irretrievably gone: There are no persons any more, don't you see that? There will never be persons again. What do I care if you love me? . . . What am I, a dog that I must be loved? (p. 54) According to the Major, man has no responsibility for evil, | land to ask for man's responsibility is to ask for his self ! 339 destruction: I have you [to Leduc] at the end of this revolver— indicates the Pro-fessor— he has me— and somebody has him— and somebody has somebody else. Now tell me. (p. 55) j lit is part of Von Berg's office to refute the Major. i " i I Henry Hewes has said that "seldom do we believe that 7 the characters in this play are real people. ..." Robert jBrustein says that the characters are "not so much private ! 8 men as public speakers, each with a symbolic role. . . ." t Perhaps one might answer these charges by repeating What Richard Watts said about The Crucible: "this is really i not a criticism of the drama but a description of the sort 9 of drama it is." In the next section, I shall argue that Incident. like Crucible, is a "philosophical melodrama and further evidence that Miller is a master playwright of the didactic in the sense that Shaw was."*^ One might also 7"W a i t i n g Periods," p. 24. ®"Muddy Track at Lincoln Center," p. 26. Introduction" to The Crucible, p. xiv. I ^Leonard L. Korf (rev. of the published version of Incident), Angelas Timas. Calendar Section, March 28, |1965, p. 1. ! 340 ! reply to the criticism of the reviewers by pointing out that Miller's play meets several crucial dramatic tests in re- jspect tp characterization. For one thing, the description of Von Berg and Leduc jas presented in the beginning of this section reveals that j both characters have several traits, a fact that should suggest that they are more than mere "public symbols." For i another thing, Von Berg, Leduc, and the Major grow in the i I {course of the plays Von Berg moves from a stance of de tached sympathy but essential irresponsibility for the Nazi I evil, through a revelation that he had deceived himself i about his complicity, to a position of responsibility, even {unto death, for the evil represented by the place of deten- j tion; Leduc moves from a self-righteous conviction of his moral superiority to Nazi and to passive victim alike, {through cynicism and loss of ideals, to a final shattering ,of his lofty pose of superiority and to a rebirth of his 'belief in the human potentiality for good; the Major moves from a distinctly human concern that he be well-thought of {through his claim that the evil is inconceivable to him, ithrough growing guilt feelings and resultant rage against jhis accusers, to a stance in which he denies freedom of the will and, in the process of renouncing this human faculty, 341 cuts himself off "forever" from comprehending the purposes of a man like Von Berg. Finally, the unity of opposites between Von Berg and Leduc grows Increasingly binding. If jVon Berg walks out the door to freedom, he remains, In the j eyes of Leduc, a coward and a hypocrite, a proof that i | jldeallsm Is a fatal Illusion. If Von Berg forfeits his pass ! i 'through acceptance of his complicity in evil, he vindicates the latent goodness in the human animal— but at the cost of i I his life. Between these two poles lies tension and con flict, and a guarantee that the characters involved must grow and, in the act of growing, reveal the theme of Mil ler's play. Theme Incident at Viehv. says Howard Taubman, "returns the theater to greatness."^ Henry Hewes, who finds fault with the play, yet feels that it has "provocative substance and | I Q a certain beauty. ..." Robert Brustein, however, can j find nothing good in the play; he disagrees with his fellow reviewers; "it has about as much vigor and beauty as an 1XNew York Timas. December 4, 1964, p. 44. : 12"Waiting Periods," p. 24. 342 jold dray-horse about to be melted down for glue"; "It re turns the theater ... to the thirties, a period the au thor seems never to have left." Brustein is explicit about I what he conceives to be the shortcomings of Incidentt Only one character has an option on the Truth, which the others will eventually take up with a cry of Eureka! . . . [Why should Von Berg] he held accountable for the politics of his relatives? . . . As for the ideas of the | work . . . these have been tiopelessly watered down . . . | It is apparently Mr. Miller's fate to stumble upon I Pressing Questions long after more subtle minds have i exhausted their possibilities, and then to pass them off as Profound Revelations— but all he adds are the capital letters. The theme . . . is nothing but half-understood Hannah Arendt . . . [who] showed how all of Europe was implicated in the fate of the Jews, but she hardly ex culpated the Germans . . . Miller somehow manages to get the Germans off the hook. If everybody is guilty, then nobody is guilty, and the extermination of six million can be attributed merely to the universality of human evil, another agency recently discovered by the author.13 I have quoted Brustein at length because he expresses in a summary fashion almost every possible negative critical reaction to the theme of the play; moreover, Brustein's view of Miller has become the "official" one in some quarters. I Whereas Eric Bentley led the chorus of anti-Millerites in the forties and fifties, criticizing Miller for writing i exclusively of the "wholly guilty and the wholly innocent," 13"Muddy Track at Lincoln Center," pp. 26-27. Brustein seems to have set the tone for the sixties, criti cizing Miller how for writing exclusively of the "guilty." One thing, however, has remained constant: Miller is still being damned as a "liberal" playwright. Miller is not an extreme relativist, not a thinker who holds that all views are equally true— or equally absurd. iBayard and Monceau are shining examples here. Although Miller permits them to express their thoughts and feelings in an open fashion, he makes no pretense that their response | to the cold facts of the Nazi evil is an adequate or accept- j able one. In his review of After the Fall. Brustein accused 14 Miller of political ignorance; this charge cannot be ileveled against Incident. Facts do not support Bayard's | Marxist arguments— the non-aggression pact between Germany land Russia being one such fact (p. 30), the working classes' jrefusal to destroy Fascism being another (p. 34). Similar- i lly, the approach advocated by Monceau in his mentalist, or I spiritualist,stance is untenable in the presence of the t i^Brustein says: "it is difficult to ignore Miller's foggy political discussions . . . he still conceives of Ipolitics in the simplOminded language of the thirties . . . [l]s Miller still defining Stalinism as if it were a senti ment without any reference to ideas, ideology, or power?" ("Arthur Miller's Mea Culpa," p. 28) „ 344 Nazi furnace. The stage is "make believe"; but one cannot "make believe" that the furnace is not the end--for Monceau Jgoes into the office and he does not return. t When the critic comes to consider Von Berg and Leduc, i however, the theme reveals itself in a more complex light. ( ! lit is not correct to say that one character alone "has an option on the Truth." Leduc— and I take it that Brustein intends the doctor as Miller's sole custodian of "Truth"--■ i is not without his ambiguities. In his argument with Mon- jceau, Leduc criticizes the actor for his "desire to be sac- i rificed" (p. 48). Although the motivation differs in the case of Monceau's "sacrifice" and Von Berg's final gesture, the fact remains that essentially Von Berg's surrender of I his pass to freedom is a "sacrifice." Metaphysically, it is a contradiction in terms to speak of "being" as "passive"; | Von Berg's gesture is an act: but in the moral context of j - . the play, or for that matter in the distinction that we make i i in the existential area of being, Von Berg's stance is the "passive," as opposed to the "active," way of combatting ievil. Leduc does not understand "passivity" (p. 49). His | posture is consistently "active." Recall his advice to the i ! Majors "I'd believe it [that you were no part of this evil] 1 if you shot yourself. And better yet, if you took a few of ! 345 them with you" (p. 53). Recall also his words to Von Berg which imply that even suicide is not "active" enough: i£ you had understood that Baron Kessler was in part . . . doing your will. You might have done something then, with your standing, and your name and your decency, aside from shooting yourselfI (pp. 67-68) That Von Berg's way is not the doctor's is made clear at the end of the play. When Von Berg presents Leduc with the pass jto freedom, the latter " stares at him, a horrified look on his face"; "Leduc backs away, his hands springing to cover his eyes in the awareness of his own guilt"; "I wasn't ask ing you to do this! You don't owe me this!"; but with his "eyes wide in awe and terror," he nevertheless exits (p. I 69). This is not the reaction of a man who has an "option i on the Truth." One hesitates to repeat Pilate's question: i |"What is truth?" but perhaps the point needs to be made that ! Von Berg's answer to the dramatic question of the play would jnot seem to be entirely acceptable, if acceptable at all, to all people. Douglas Watt, for example, considers the play I i 15 ("philosophical claptrap"; Brustein is puzzled as to why 16 |Von Berg must die for Kessler's sins. It is part of I | 15New York Daily News, p. 64. 16"Muddy Track at Lincoln Center," p. 26. 346 Miller's design, it appears, to stir the reader into think ing about the issues involved. "What is truth?"— let the [reader place, himself imaginatively in the position of the characters in Incident and then ask himself the question. The irony of the ending should also not be overlooked. Leduc, the man who has preached responsibility for ninety- five minutes, disappears with another's pass to freedom. | Leduc, who knows the secrets of the human heart, stands in i "awe and terror" in the presenc.e of one who knows "so little about people," but who has learned enough about himself, and other men, now— thanks to the good doctor— to offer himself i as an oblation for the sins of mankind. Would Leduc, in Von I Berg's circumstances, have practiced what he has preached? jThe answer is feu: from simple. Miller has come a long dis- I tance from the "straightforweurd" thesis drama of All Mv Sons. i j Nor is this the end of Leduc's complicity in relation to the theme. There is the loss of his ideals when faced by death (p. 63), a loss which Von Berg seeks to recover i i jthrough his death. Who has an "option on the Truth" here? There is also Leduc's dispute with the Major. When Leduc | jgives the Major his advice (quoted above, p. 53), the latter jaskss "Why do you deserve to live more than I do?,1 1 and 347 Leduc replies: "Because I am incapable of doing what you are doing. I am better for the world than you" (p. 54). The Major proceeds to examine Leduc's moral superiority: | Major: If you were released, and the others were kept i ... would you refuse? Leduc: No. Major: And walk out of that door with a light heart? Leduc— he ia looking at the floor now: I don't know. ! He starts to put hie trembling hands into his pockets. I Major: Don't hide your hands. I am trying to understand why you sure better for the world than me. Why do you hide your hands? Would you go out that door with a light heart . . .? Why are you better than anybody else? Leduc: I have no duty to make a gift of myself to your sadism. | Major: But I do? To others' sadism? Of myself? I have I that duty and you do not? To make a gift of myself? Leduc— looks at the Professor and the Police Captain, glances back at the Majors r have nothing to say. Major: That's better. (pp. 56-57) | Who has an "option on the Truth" here? It will be recalled that shortly before this discussion, Leduc had temporarily refused to escape with the boy and Lebeau because he was jreluctant to be "slaughtered" (p. 48)— that is, he did not f i iwant to make, at least any sooner than necessary, a "gift" I iof himself. That he finally does decide to make a dash for I freedom seems more an act born of desperation, since he is i I ! faced with death anyway, thzui of genuine courage, the kind 1 of courage that Von Berg evinces. It should also be noted, finally, that the dialogue quoted above is a good example ! 348 of how Miller combines "drama" and "ideas" into "drama of ideas." How adequate sure those "ideas"? Incident at Vichv. like The Crucible, is a "philosophical melodrama." Eric Bentley has used this term to describe the plays of Sartre (see, for example, The Flies) as a "combination of histrionics and 17 serious thought," and with no "slur" in mind. Shaw has i also exploited this kind of theater. But critics have not ^always applauded Shaw, Sartre, and Miller in their efforts here; the usual chsurge is that the plays deal with symbols jinstead of "people" and that there is too much "talk" and I too little "action." The three words with quotes embracing them should suggest that some redefinitions of terms are in Order. I have tried to show that in Incident there is both I talk and action (the duplication, or redundancy, of After ithe Fall is of course not intended here), and that at times the talk Aa the action. I have also argued that Von Berg and Leduc are more than mere symbols, that question marks surround their behavior, particularly that of Leduc. r f True, the other characters, representing for the most part i i I 17The Playwright as Thinker (New York, 1955), pp. 200- 201. ! 349 ibut a single idea, are relatively £lat. In this respect, the play seems simple, as do the characters of one of our i greatest novelists, Dickens. According to Edmund Wilson, iDickens was often unable to "get the good and bad together I 18 I in one character.1 1 Dorothy Van Ghent has answered this i jobjection in a way that is relevant to philosophical melo- i drama: i In a naturalistic world, obeying mechanical laws, each character is organically discrete from every other, and presumably each contains a representative mixture of "the good and bad." But in Dickens' [world] . . . that does not know the laws of mechanics but knows only spiritual law, one simple or "flat" character can be superimposed upon another so that together they form the representative human complexity of good-in-evil and evil-in-good.^ Incident, like Crucible, is only apparently a naturalistic play (compare these two works with a genuine naturalistic ipiece, All Mv Sons): it is, like the novels of Dickens and 'many of the plays of Shaw, largely a spiritual drama. The jimportant point is that all the characters "together . . . form the representative human complexity" in regard to the theme. Looked at from one angle, then, Incident indeed 18The Wound and the Bow (Boston, 1941), p. 65. English NOVflli Form and function (New York, 11961), p. 134. i ; 350 appears simple; looked.at from another perspective, however, the play is complex. Whether it is Miller— or Brustein— who fails to under stand Miss Arendt (or whether neither of them misunderstands 20 her) is irrelevant here; not irrelevant, though, is the fact that Brustein seems to miss the thrust of Miller's play. Miller has not, any more than Miss Arendt, "excul pated the Germans." The dramatic image of the play makes I i |the Nazi evil enormously vivid. What Miller has done is to extend the limits of guilt beyond the narrowly juridical ! until complicity shades over into active moral permissive- i ness and passive acceptance of evil. Miller has written a play, not a legal brief. In Fall, complicity seemed strained and remote; in Incident it is rendered concrete anc I immediate. There cure times when the dialogue becomes too ^°Says Miller: "It seemed to me, reading [Hannah jArendt's Eiehmann in Jerusalem1 . . . That she was trying to make a spectacularly simple and quite evident point. Name ly, that the significant truth about Eiehmann was not that he was a monster but that, in order to exercise his mon strousness ... he had to have the moral permission of others . . . even to Jews and to well-meaning Gentiles who . . . were less than total in their active opposition to barbarity. But the suggestion that 'we' could . . . bear responsibility for what 'we' abhor was turned upside down by some people so that Miss Arendt was made to seem an apolo gist for Eiehmann." ("With Respect for Her Agony— But with Love," p. 66.) 351 abstract; but on the whole the language tends to spring naturally from character and incident. It is also true that Incident. like Crucible, lacks that sensuous quality found in Salesman and A View? this is an inherent limitation per haps of philosophical melodrama, and for that reason might | jnot be for all tastes. For that matter, melodrama has never i been for all tastes. And it is not difficult to find the I melodrama in Incident. The repeated appearances of the police guard who silently watches the prisoners early in the play is an obvious instance. (Within the context of the i j • play, however, this device is less crude than analysis might suggest.) Most of the characters, it might also be object- jed, are— and this is usually the case in melodrama— finished ! . when they make their first appearance; they do not, save for i jLeduc and Von Berg, take shape before us. Even the ending, ; limited as it is to a gesture, has, some might argue, melo- | dramatic overtones. Brevity sets certain limits on depth, ! Sand the structure, almost flawless by conventional stan dards, is perhaps too neat for some readers. There is some truth in these observations, and no balanced critique of i 1 incident should leave them out of account. In my opinion, jhowever, the credits outweigh the debits in a final account- i I ling of the play, and Miller's use of the detention room in 352 Vichy as a symbol of man's indifference to his fellows in anv human situation is a valid and compelling one. Finally, Von Berg is "held accountable for the poli tics" of his cousin because the Prince shut his eyes to his relative's anti-Semitism and murder. Would the Nazis have succeeded without the complicity of others? The question is not academic. Von Berg's complicity is made plain. But j •nobody in the play, except Leduc— who does not have an "op- | jtion on the Truth"— says that we sure all responsible; the I reader infers as much from the action, and either accepts or i 1 rejects the idea according to his lights. Which is another i reason why Incident is not to be confused with a thesis play. As I have stressed, however, the play does represent 'a complex range of possible alternatives to evil. For some, ;and Brustein is not alone here, these important questions •have been "exhausted' 1 by minds more profound than Miller's; j 21 (for others, the last word “has not yet been spoken." It i ^"How frustrating that the unmeasurable crimes and the buffering of the victims must submit to the limits and pos sibilities of art or be forgotten. Unless art keeps their memory, the tears and the trembling of all the children who Walked to the terrible school of the gas chamber will be no part of our lives . . . The words that will console them • not yet been spoken." (Edward T. Gargan, "Reflections E unneling out of an AntheapV [rev. of The Holocaust Kincr- , Commonweal. February 12, 1965, p. 644.) | 353 flight well be an exaggeration to say, with Taubman, that j - ^Miller's play "returns the theater to greatness," but one flight not be inclined to disagree when that same critic t affirms that Incident at Vlchv is "a moving play, a search op ing play, one of the most important plays of our time." Summary The structure of Incident at Vlchv is an almost fault less example of expert dramaturgy. There is complete unity of time, place, and action. The point of attack occurs j within the first two pages of dialogue. The dramatic ques tion is posed immediately, is relentlessly pursued, and is satisfactorily resolved at the conclusion of the play. I Foreshadowing is excellent, every development in the drama I being carefully prepared for and thus rendered entirely I credible. Tension is almost constant, which is to say that there sure few really static moments in the play. | Hiller's characters sure symbols, but they are also, at 1 least two or three of them, complex personalities as well. j Von Berg and Leduc have several traits that give to them a certain bulk and the illusion of life; in fact, they have ! 22Maw York Timas, p . 44. ! 354 i contradictory traits that promise vital growth. Both char acters, and the German Major, grow in the course of the act. Also evident is the unity of opposites between Von Berg and Leduc, which guarantees tension and conflict, and which ifinally results in the revelation of the theme. | Incident at Vlchv is a philosophical melodrama which ^presents a rich criss-crossing of ideas. The alleged cus- i todian of truth, Leduc, is not presented unironically. The jplay raises many questions about him which deepen the read- i I er1 s appreciation of both character and theme in the play. i j The ideas in the work, though occasionally abstract, are I most often iodged in the action; not infrequently the talk ibecomes the action, as idea collides with idea in a gripping | 'existential situation. The play is simple in the sense that ;the secondary characters chiefly embody a single viewpoint; i the play is complex in the sense that the two chief actors are rich personalities and that the cast taken together is a reasonably full representation of possible human responses to the question posed by the play. Incident. then, must be judged as a drama of ideas, specifically a philosophical i i melodrama, and not a naturalistic work. It can be argued i jthat Miller's theme remains not only relevant but urgent, |and that the dramatisation of that theme is both subtle and 355 powerfully executed. Incident at Vlchv joins Death of a Salesman. The Cru- jsiblft, and A View from the Bridge as one of Arthur Hiller's most impressive dramatic achievements. CONCLUSION Arthur Miller's first two plays betray the hand of the i beginning playwright. In That They Mav Win (1943), the structure is obvious, the characters are stereotypes, and the theme is "whittled down to thesis." The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944) is a better play but still remains unsatis factory. The structure is episodic and the action often improbable. Some attempt is made to render David Frieber complex, but on the whole he is not a credible creation. The problem he faces, for example, seems too "mystical," and in the last act, instead of growing, he jumps. This jump points to thematic difficulty, for once more Miller i strains to underscore his message and, consequently,’ is open to the charge of writing thesis drama. ! All My Sons (1947), though definitely the work of a more skillful craftsman, suffers from some of the same de fects that marked That They Mav Win and The Man Who Had All ithe Luck. Inconsequential byplay unduly delays the point of j ! . 356 _ __________________ attack; the turning point is brought about by a "slip of the tongue"; and the resolution is accomplished through a bidder i letter written by a character who is never seen on stage. jMiller's single most important failure in character is the j contrived nature of Joe Keller's suicide. This failure to make Joe's final action credible is related to the delayed ipoint of attack but also stems from the fact that Chris, not i Joe, is the protagonist in the .action. The confusion re- i I jsults in an inadequate treatment of Joe. And, once more, ! Miller seems to have tumbled into thesis drama— the shot i i that ends Joe's life, for instance, is on cue with the mes sage of the play. In Death of a Salesman (1949), however, Miller estab- i lishes himself as a major playwright. The structure of the i play is tight, but thanks to the complex time-sequences and the shifts in point of view the action seems neither con trived nor oversimplified. Brilliant use is made of light ing and sound effects, and this heightens the sensuousness and density of the play. At least two characters— Willy ;Loman and Biff roman— are round and memorable creations. In this play, Willy is definitely the protagonist and his suicide at the end is entirely credible. Unlike Miller's earlier efforts, theme in Salesman cannot be reduced to thesis. Part of Miller's thematic complexity here can be traced to his fusion of personal and social motivation. J The Crucible (1953), though not on a level with Sales man in complexity of structure or character, is an important play and demonstrates Miller's continuing mastery of his art. Although the structure is tight and straightforward, there sure no awkward jumps or contrivances to drive home a point. Unlike All My Sonsr the turning point in Crucible is foreshadowed and relevant to the theme. John and Elizabeth Proctor are round characters, and both of them develop in jthe course of the play. The other characters are simple in i Iconstruetion, but taken together they are well-orchestrated I and compose a complex thematic pattern. Crucible escapes | being thesis drama, then, because, in spite of Miller's i "intentions," no single character has a priority on the jtruth. Complexity also results, once more, from Miller's i jcareful fusing of personal and social motivation. Miller's next play, A Memory of Two Mondays (1955). is defective in structure because there is no coherence between its two modes of imitation. Kenneth and Gus, however, are S well-drawn and believable, and both of them grow in the jcourse of the play, a Mamorv is not a thesis play because jit offers no general solution for the problem under review. | 359 t ! Although not one of Miller's best plays, A Memory succeeds where the first three plays failed, namely, in characteriza tion; and, though its awkward structure resembles that of The Man Who Had All the Luck, it does not fall into the easy i didacticism of All Mv Sons. A View from the Bridge (1955) is probably, after Sales- i man. Miller's best play. Here again is a tight but complex i structure and a point of view that alternates smoothly and effectively. An imaginative use is made of the "poetry of ithe theater"— lighting as a fluid transitional device, for jexample, and the use of a chorus character, Alfieri. The i protagonist, Eddie Carbone, is tri-dimensional, and his growth is made to seem inevitable. Two other characters, Catherine and Rodolpho, are also round. A View is rich in I irony and ambiguity, and the various ideas in the play, though they are kept subordinate to the main line, render jthe theme complex and provocative. In After the Fall (1964), Miller attempts to depict total causation in the life of his protagonist, Quentin, but an ill-chosen point of view— Quentin as first-person ! 'narrator— renders the structure static and repetitious, I destroys any effective tension and irony the material of the play might inherently possess, makes the narrator I 360 suspect in terms of realistic character!zation because the cards seem stacked in his favor, and, finally, reduces theme Miller into oversimplification and overconceptual!zation. The hand of the experienced craftsman is again in evi dence, however, in Miller's latest play,- Incident at Vichv time, place, and action— and the point of view is objective. Although Miller's characters are symbols here, and this is not the only feature of Incident that suggests the drama- i turgy of The Crucibler two or three of them are also indi viduals. Thematically, the play is complex because the many characters represent a full range of viewpoints on the ac tion, because the subject is not oversimplified (no one There is, then, no smooth line of development in Mil ler's work; no neat and satisfying evolution from crude ex perimental efforts to finished masterworks. True, the early thus destroying what is in itself a seri ous and important statement, because the point of view leads | ( 1964). The structure is tight— there is complete unity of character has a priority on truth), and, finally, because Miller evinces a "mature" use of ambiguity and irony. plays are defective, but A Memory of Two Mondays follows The Crucible* A View from the Bridge, playing on the same bill I yith A Memory, precedes After the Fall. Even Miller's best I plays are, if not vastly, at least manifestly unequal in jmerit. Compare, for example, Salesman with Incident. |Structurally, Miller's best plavs— Salesman and A View— are complex and coherent. If Crucible and Incident are in dan ger of being too "neat," they are saved from being "empty" by their density of theme. All Mv Sons fails because it is I |both neat and empty. There is nothing neat, however, about iThe Man Who Had All the Luck. A Memory of Two Mondays and |After the Fall, for these plays are awkward and episodic. | {(Miller is no Chekhov; he needs a plot.) The stock criti cism of Miller's characters is that they cure too often schematized, too nearly black and white puppets. This charge, as my analysis of the plays has shown, needs to be i drastically qualified. Willy Loman, Biff Loman, Eddie Car- i bone, Rodolpho, even Leduc, cure all complex creations. Everi in A Memory of Two Mondays r Miller manages to partially i {redeem that play through his robust portrayals of Gus and i Kenneth. Every playwright produces flat and static charac ters , and Miller has produced his share of them. At times, ithis appears to be a fault— one thinks especially of Linda land Happy in Salesmani but no sane critic evaluates a play t j solely on character, much less on the evidence of merely ione or two unsatisfying characters in an otherwise excellent. | 362 drama. It might be objected that Crucible and Incident are too neat and schematized in characterization, but I have jattempted to answer this criticism by arguing for their full jrange of representation and their thematic complexity. Von Berg and Leduc sure, it is clear, poles apart from the char acters of That They Mav Win, for in the earlier play humani- jty was neatly divided into the "good" and the "bad," a situ ation that is not in evidence in Incident at vlohy. Themat- j jically, and this is one measure of his achievement, Miller i i has created a related body of work. Certain themes, such as i i i "integrity" or "compromise," may be isolated for discussion; but this abstraction, perfectly valid on one level, tends to ignore other themes in Miller's work, themes which I have i . analyzed in my studies of individual plays. And these themes are not easily given one word tags. To say, for in stance, that Willy Loman, John Proctor, and Eddie Carbone, are all concerned with their "integrity" is true; but does that observation do justice to the thematic density of their respective plays? It may seem that I am undercutting my previous statement that Miller's plays are related. What I am trying to say, however, is that there is both unity and {diversity in Miller's work, and that we oversimplify and jdistort his achievement by focusing too narrowly and too ! 363 insistently on one or two obvious and fashionable aspects of his work. One must beware, for example, of branding ! jMiller an "objective*' and "sociological" dramatist, for as j janalysis of the plays makes clear he is equally "subjective" jand "psychological." Nor is it correct to say that Miller's i !"dilemma" is that his characters have lost their will, or that the main burden of guilt in his work is borne by socie- i ity, for the truth is that Miller's characters— Willy Loman, i John Proctor, Eddie Carbone, Quentin, and Von Berg— "take their life in their hands," as Holga expresses it in After the Fall, and that the accusing finger of guilt is leveled at both the individual and society. If one rejects Miller's work because it is too "narrow," because it lacks a meta- I - physical base or a theological dimension, then one should be prepared, I think, to reject the work of Ibsen, Chekhov, O'Casey, and Brecht; in short, one should be prepared to reject the most vital plays of the modern theater. Nor will |an alert and sympathetic reader blur the distinction between a thesis drama like All Mv Sons and a play like The Cruel- i fclfi, or between Ail My Sons and Incident at Vichv. In All Mv Sons, character is made to iumo in order to drive home the message and structure is a series of gross improbabili ties. In Crucible, however, neither character nor structure j 364 (is manipulated to prove a point. John Proctor's death |"proves" nothing, for the reader is given an option on how jto interpret the "meaning" of his death; Danforth, for i 3 (example, does not put a bullet through his head when John (strides to his death; and there is nothing incredible, noth- i (ing improbable, about John's willingness to die— there is, i (in short, smooth transition here, not a jump. In Sons. the (full range of human responses to events is not always in (evidence; for instance, Chris and the other soldiers sure j unrealistically idealized and Joe and others on the home i front are made to regard the war as merely a "bus accident" i(Chris). But Crucible and Incident avoid this oversimplifi cation through the use of characters who see the action I differently. Moreover, in Incident one can find evidence of i irony and ambiguity, qualities that are conspicuously absent from the "straightforward" (Miller) Sons, it is not easy to (classify plays like Crucible and Incident— they might be called "morality plays" or "philosophical melodramas"— but however classified they should not be confused with thesis drama. Even Miller's most ardent supporters have recognized I his tendency toward the didactic, .a tendency that is the root cause of the previously noted criticisms of his neat | (structures and schematized characterizations, but it cannot ! 365 i jbe too strongly emphasized that in his best work— Salaaman. Crucible. A Viewr and Incident— he has transcended, at times jin spite of his "intentions," the defects that distinguish iThat They Mav Win and All My SQM. i Arthur Miller is "a central figure in the drama and consciousness of our time" (Raymond Williams), then, because I t ' jhe has written one great plav— Death of a Salesman— and three others that should rank high on any list of important i modern dramas. At their best, Miller's plays show a high jlevel of technical accomplishment and themes that are com- ! | plex and of continuing relevance. He has avoided the ex tremes of clinical psychiatric case histories on the one hand and mere sociological reports on the other. Assimilat ing available technical devices to his own unique aims, he i j has indicated, often in the face of incredible critical jstupidity, contradiction, and malice, how the dramatist I I might maintain in delicate balance both personal and social motivation. Not all modern playwrights, it need hardly be iadded, have succeeded in projecting such integral motiva tion. In Incident at Vichv. Miller shows that he still has icontrol of his medium, that he is by no means spent as a playwright. The critic would appear to be justified, there fore, in anticipating other important— perhaps even.greater i — plays from Arthur Miller. I BIBLIOGRAPHY I BIBLIOGRAPHY /- Archer, William. Pi«y-M«vincr. New York: Dover, 1960. i |Atkinson, Brooks. The Plav: A Critical Anthology, ed. Eric 1 Bentley. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, | 1951. i Barksdale, Richard. "Social Background in the Plays of Miller and Williams," CLA Journal. VI (March 1963), 161-169. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Murray, Edward James (author)

Core Title Structure, Character, And Theme In The Plays Of Arthur Miller

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program English

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format dissertations (aat)

Language English

Advisor Lecky, Eleazer (committee chair), Kastor, Frank S. (committee member), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-206700

Unique identifier UC11360074

Identifier 6608793.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-206700 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6608793.pdf

Dmrecord 206700

Document Type Dissertation

Format dissertations (aat)

Rights Murray, Edward James

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA