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.