biographical context

• Born 1915 in NYC
• Due to the wall street crash, his family was devastated and he had to move to Brooklyn - a cheaper area of NYC.
• The story that inspired AMS was a newspaper that told the story of a young girl who reported her own father for selling faulty parts.

  Miller said he admired her moral courage.
• Miller knew that Keller was going to die from the beginning of the play: 'i dont see how he could've survived this, psychologically. He would've had to destroy himself.'
• He felt he could not publish during the war as tensions were higher, so many were breaking the rules to make money. He felt audiences would support Joe and be unable to take moral ground.
• Miller is inviting an audience to consider what it means to be human and live in a human society.
• McCarthyism = the practice of making false or unfound accusations of treason. McCarthy made false claims against left wing politicians and policies - he led the country on a witch hunt for communists.
• Miller came to the American theatre in the immediate post war era and wrote with a fresh voice for an audience ready for new challenges and approaches to drama.
• Miller critics have noted the influence of Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen in his work.
• IBSEN


  Ibsen was a playwright from the late 19th century.

  He held the idea of theatrical realism - the unity of time, place and action.
• Ibsens notion of the return of the past inspired Millers quote 'the chickens coming home to roost.'
• Ibsen explored the concerns and problems of everyday people, including the lower classes of society.
• Miller was the son of jewish-polish immigrants with middle class roots.