Reinterpreting the Plays of Arthur Miller: An Approach Using Cultural Semiotics and New Historicism

This study uncovers untapped symbolic layers in some of Miller's best-known plays by linking them to famed media events or social concerns corresponding to each play's initial production. This book broadens the scholarship on Arthur Miller by applying cultural semiotics, cultural anthropology and new historicism to the reception of Miller's major plays. Chapters on All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and Incident at Vichy alter the significations of the plays by connecting the works to parallel contemporary events that inform the way these plays may have resonated with their original audiences. This book offers one of the first major reassessments of the plays of Arthur Miller after his death, and the first book in general to apply a significant semiotic study to his work.