ARTHUR MILLER - A REALIST
Dr. S. C. MATHUR
Arthur Miller is one of the most prominent American dramatists of the modern age who has experimented with various forms and techniques of drama in order to delineate reality better. J. C. Trewin’s remark about Arthur Miller’s realism is very succinct and pointed. “Of all modern dramatists, Arthur Miller pierces most resolutely to the core of a problem. He does not flick over it or under; he attacks its heart.”
Arthur Miller’s realism is the selective realism of a literary artist and not a photographic reproduction of details. He scrupulously selects and rejects out of the mass of material available to him for his artistic purposes. By this process he reinforces and strengthens certain aspects of reality which he wants to highlight in his plays.
Every great artist has a vision which he seeks to communicate through his artistic creations. He responds to the terror and beauty of life in his own way and constructs meaningful structures of art through a unique fusion of his experience and imagination. As a dramatic artist Miller seeks to express his vision of life in his plays which move us by their ringing sincerity.
The realism of Arthur Miller is not just surface realism. He is not satisfied with merely delineating the outer form of reality, he probes deeper in order to bring out the inner meaning and significance of a particular dramatic situation. Miller has always tried to show the process–how something came to be what it is, rather than delineating only the outward surfaces of things.
It is his treatment of themes more than the choice of material that makes his plays realistic. Miller establishes, very close causal relationship in the sequence of events. Hence his plays grow organically and don’t strain our credulity. The hallmark of Arthur Miller’s plays as he says of Ibsen’s dramas is the element of “Valid Causation”–one thing leading to another naturally and gracefully.
Miller differs from traditional realists in a number of significant ways. The common criterion of realism and non-realism does not satisfy him. In his view a play cannot be called realistic or non-realistic on the basis of the language used, on the other hand, the important thing is the kind of questions posed and answered. Another important factor which determines whether the play is realistic or non-realistic, according to Miller, is the concept and treatment of time in it. Miller has not followed time in its chronological, linear movement – it is one after another kind of sequential arrangement. On the other hand, he makes use of the past and. the present simultaneously. By contrast, juxtaposition and swift movements of scenes or moments, the author has built reality into his own vision. This complex arrangement of structural devices is intended to let the whole situation come to the reader directly with its impact of immediacy and intimacy.
In Miller we can perceive a continuous attempt to tide over the limitations of the realistic form. He is quite aware of the varied interpretations of the term “real”; physical reality being only one and that too a very insignificant part of total reality. In his dramatic works we also find a continuous quest for a distinctive style – tending towards poetic prose.
Arthur Miller has been a ruthless experimentalist. He has experimented with a number of dramatic forms during the course of his fairly long dramatic career. He has used a good number of interpretive forms, probably more than, most practising playwrights have and they are quite different. Arthur Miller’s plays show a very wide and fascinating range of experimentation and wherever he has felt the constraints of the realistic mode of writing, he has experimented with other forms or techniques in order to communicate his message more clearly and effectively. Miller has been able to blend and fuse beautifully in his plays the realistic technique with the expressionistic method of flashback, reminiscence and the intermingling of the past and the present. By the rapid shuttling of the mind back and forth, the playwright has been able to give us not the illusion of reality but the real essence. Arthur Miller has used expressionistic and other devices to delineate reality more vividly and forcefully.
A modern dramatist writing in the realistic vein is aware of a missing element – Poetry or Beauty – and suffers from a sense of confinement and longs for freedom. Arthur Miller has tried to overcome these missing elements and in his dramas we find the welcome presence of Nature which brings a whiff of fresh air and the beauty and fragrance of flowers. Realistic plays have been synonymous with dramas taking place in the drab surroundings of a backyard with petty and colourless people as heroes who fail to articulate their thoughts in a powerful language even during heightened moments. The heroes of Arthur Miller provide a welcome contrast and are not just petty and colourless people. They raise themselves by their persistent refusal to settle for half and their ceaseless quest for identity and integrity. The language, too, in the dramas of Miller, often rises to poetic heights at moments of climax though he is not able to sustain that pitch for a long time. Thus, Arthur Miller’s realistic plays do not suffer from the common failings and weaknesses of the realistic form.
Arthur Miller does not agree with the view of those who feel that Realism, as a form, is inferior to other dramatic forms, for example Expressionism, Verse-drama and Poetic-play. In his opinion, an author chooses a particular form of drama because, in his opinion, it fits the subject in hand the most. Though the realistic mode of writing has been assaulted and attacked by critics and dramatists alike, who revere fanciful and poetic plays, yet there is something in it that draws people instinctively to it.
Few modern playwrights have moved steadily toward consummation of their artistry by developing skill and depth in a single dramatic mode. We are even likely to encounter a blending of two or more styles in the very same play and the result is often laudable. It is the mingling of formal elements that has helped to make modern drama and theatre stimulating. Great playwrights have never given up a strong realistic basis, for any new technique in drama can survive only when it is well integrated with realism. A fruitful synthesis can come only from realizing fully the possibilities inherent in both realism and stylization. The ability to achieve both realism and theatricalism in the same play has characterized the greatest playwrights of all previous ages. Arthur Miller has attempted in his works to bring about a fusion of realism on the one hand and theatricalism and stylization on the other with commendable results as can be seen from his plays, specially Death of a Salesman. In this play the expressionistic form and the realistic theme are so well-blended that one heightens the effect of the other.
Miller’s realistic plays are a class apart from the conventional realistic dramas and are characterized by a fresh and original approach towards the subject. Arthur Miller has, thus, greatly modified and enlarged the traditional concept of realism and given it a new shape, meaning and significance. Like a true realist, Miller has tried to locate and unveil the forces of disintegration in his plays and he has also pointed out in a subtle and artistic manner the way out of the pervasive melody.