ABSTRACT
In May 1956, Arthur Miller received a House Un-American Activities (HUAC) subpoena in Reno, Nevada, outside the offices of a divorce lawyer, Mr Hills, who was smoothing the transition between his first wife and his second, Marilyn Monroe. Miller was indignant that he had been convicted at all, but his light sentence almost amounted to an apology. His dignified manner at his hearing may have helped. It drew the press to his side. Miller himself was nearly a tragic hero, as defined by AC. Bradley, but Bradley's views on this matter were not quite the same as Aristotle's. One bone of contention lay in what was meant by 'above average'. He wanted to show the shadows behind the radiant screen, how neighbourliness concealed moral evasions and how the American dream of self-made success bore down heavily on middle-aged has-beens and never-weres, like Willy Loman. The purpose of tragedy had been removed, the reconciliation of man to god.
