Viewing the Playwright Through a Different Lens: Miller’s Fiction and How It Connects to His Life and Drama

Abstract

Although best known as a dramatist, Miller was also a skilled writer of fiction with a successful novel and three published volumes of stories. This is an aspect of his writing we hear too little about as it gets overshadowed by his plays. There have been several studies that usefully consider the relation between the fiction of Tennessee Williams and his drama, but little has been done with Miller’s prose. Put into the right framework, his published fiction, written over a period of 73 years, ranging from 1932 to 2005, effectively illustrates those central Miller concerns regarding identity and commitment, guilt and responsibility, hope, and individual potential. This overview and analysis of his fiction, including uncollected pieces, explained in context against Miller’s life and corresponding drama, illustrates the endemic quality of Miller’s intrinsic humanism. Even more interesting is that Miller achieves this in different ways in his stories than he does in his plays and introduces us to interesting new characters who offer intriguing reflections on several of those dramatic characters we thought we knew so well, suggesting new ways of looking at and understanding Miller’s career as a whole.