Jonathan Ng
Period 1
Mr. Clark
Questions
“Miller’s
Questions.”
1.
Columbia asked Authors Miller to sign an
anti-communist declaration to ward off picket lines; it was a confusing thing
to do to author miller, because it was like if they owned him. Columbia also
thought the film look communist. They didn’t just ask Author Miller to sign an
anti-communist declaration, but when they bought the rights on the film they
also added a short introduction called, “Life of a salesman.” The title is
ironic because it is completely the opposite of the meaning of “Death of a
salesman.” The purpose of the film was completely destroyed.
2.
Author Miller explains “the surreal sensation as
being trapped inside a perverse work of art. One of those Escher constructs in
which it is impossible to make out whether a stairway is going up or down.” He
also describes how “everyone I know stood within the conventions of the
political left of centre.” they were mostly communist who were getting fired
from teaching or jobs involving government, but he knew or thought that most of
them were not traitors. To him it felt as if life was an unreal art piece,
because he doesn’t understand how it could ever happen to a country that
emphasize on freedom of speech and the rights of the people.
3.
Author miller describes radical rights as a “ministry
of free floating apprehension toward anything that never happened in the middle
of Missouri.” In saying this, we as Americans get scared or apprehensive of
every one little thing, but there is never something be afraid of in the first
place. It is bias because he realizes
that this country always tries to pick on foreigners like Jews, Catholics,
fluoridated water, alien in space thus meaning this country had to have
something to blame on for its misfortunes, so in the 50’s we link this
“happened in the middle of Missouri” to communism.
4.
The fear experienced by leftist wasn’t physical
fear but It was the sense of impotence. Author
Miller is describe how everyone who are leftist or communist, are getting
prosecuted and having their lives destroyed by either losing their jobs, exiled
from the US or they would be going to jail or they would been murdered because
perpetrators would think if they killed a communist they would have a reduced
sentence in jail. Communist and
noncommunist alike where know fearful of even getting accused of being
affiliated with communism.
5.
According to Miller, America was so afraid of
communism because as he quoted “it stirred up a fear in American of our own
ineptitudes.” This basically means that despite the power of our military we
could not control the world whose liberties we had so recently won back from
the Axis powers.
6.
The HUAC subpoenaed Miller because he was cited
for contempt of congress for refusing to identify writers that he had met at
one of the two communist writers’ meetings he had attended. It was similar to the crucible because like the witch
trails, they wanted the witches, which in 1950’s were treated like communists , to give the names of other who were witches,
communists, so they could have multiple people to be charged.
7.
Author Miller was going to marry Marilyn Monroe,
so there marriage had some connection with Miller be subpoenaed, in which it was
confirmed when Chairman Walters, he was affiliated with HUAC, sent word to
Joseph Rauh who is his layer, that he would be inclined to cancel my hearing if
Miss Monroe would consent to have a picture taken with him.
8.
The controversy was that Brooklyn Longshoremen
thought that the script, “Death of the Salesman.” Was communist propaganda. AFL
and Roy Brewer wanted Author to take away gangsters from the script and change
them into communists instead. He refused
and redrew his script and went back to threatre, because in threatre it had no
such complications, and no blacklist.
9.
The heart
of the darkness was perceived as the belief that a massive, profoundly
organized conspiracy was in place and carried forward mainly by concealed
phalanx of intellectuals, it was precisely the invisibility of ideas that was
frightening so many people in American society.
10.
When Author Miller said “There were witches, if
not to most of us then certainly to everyone in Salem; and there were
communists, but what was the content of their menace?” this means that back then not everyone believed that there
were witches real or even real , but in Salem they all did. In the 50’s not
everyone believed that the accused where all communist, and they did not really
know if it was really that bad, but the society labeled it as bad. Miller grew
up learning about Marxist approach to society, and thought of communist people
weren’t bad, but on the other hand American bored children grew up thinking
communist was completely malicious and wrong.
11.
Spectral Evidence is seeing the familiar spirit,
his living ghost, in doing debauchery, but the physical person could be
sleeping unconscious of what they are doing.
12.
The people in Salem thought of the Witch trails
as a serious thing, whereas the people from Boston thought I was hysterical, as
if it was like a joke because they, provincial governor’s nephew and a college
friend, use it as a source of entertainment.
13.
The one thing Arthur Miller regrets about
writing The Crucible as he quoted,
“Looking back I have often wished I’d had the temperament to do an absurd comedy.”
The reason why he said this is because even he himself thought the trial was a
disgraced to human rights and logic, which would seem so absurd that it would
be funny.
14.
When Author Miller said, “only this ritual of
humiliation, the breaking of pride and independence, could win the accused
readmission into the community.” This means that when you deprive everything of
the accused the society would rejoice that the accused in a way escaped the
grip of the devil, in which in the 1950s everyone thought communism was like
the devil. Danforth wanted him to confess because he if does end up confessing,
it will convey to people that even a good person like Procter would be a wizard
, the community will be convinced that there is actually witchcraft going on in
Salem.
15.
A. The quote “And yet one can't forever stand on
the shore; at some point, filled with indecision, skepticism, reservation and
doubt, you either jump in or concede that life is forever elsewhere.” This
basically mean that you could jump in and experience what is going on or just
merely stand on the side lines and think about what is going on.
B. He describes delusion as “its vivid colors,
blazing lights, explosions, whistles and liberating joys, the search for
evidence is a deadly bore.”
C. Miller’s Thoughts on political left in
2000 was that his heart was with the left if only because the right hated him
enough to kill him. Miller stated, “And now, the most blatant and most foul anti-Semitism
is in Russia, leaving people like me filled not so much with surprise as a kind
of wonder at the incredible amount of hope there once was, and how it
disappeared and whether in time it will ever come again, attached, no doubt, to
some new illusion.” This is ironic because the people were going to kill him
and that is literally what the Germans did, to the people who did not believed
in what the Nazis believed in.
