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Having even a cursory knowledge of Arthur Miller’s personal life makes it difficult not to view After the Fall as autobiographical catharsis. Much has been written about the similarities between the characters in the play and those people who populated Millers’ own life: Maggie has been taken as a stage adaption of Marilyn Monroe; Quentin, the protagonist, an incarnation of Miller himself; and Holga, Quentin’s German lover, a portrait of Miller’s Austrian wife Inge Morath (matriarch of the selfie). The belief that Maggie is a portrayal of Monroe was especially a point of contention for critics, but when one stripes away the autobiographical nature of the play, what remains is a work that is not only self-reflective on a personal level, but a social and national level as well. Miller explores how individualism impacts people on the micro and macro levels, examining how America’s value are weighed down by America’s overt hypocrisy. Miller also includes conversations related to feminism and celebrity culture as he explores the ways in which women are socially objectified. There are even ecocritical/ecofeminist elements to the narrative as Miller links women with the environment whilst criticizing social constructs. The play may never be regarded with the same reverence as Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible, but it remains an example of Miller at his finest.

As he does in The Crucible (adapted into a film of the same name staring Daniel Day Lewis, Miller’s future son-in-law), Miller uses the stage as a court room of sorts where he puts America on trial for hypocrisy. When a friend of Quentin’s, Mickey, announces that he is going to go before The House Committee On Un-American Activities to ‘name names’ in the spirit of truth, Lou, another former Communist supporter blasts Mickey for his decision: “it astounds me that you can speak of truth and justice in relation to that gang of cheap publicity hounds!” (51) As Miller did in The Crucible, he frames McCarthyism as nothing more than fear mongering: a modern-day witch hunt based, not on morality, but on ensuring the popularity and in turn job security of the politicians involved. McCarthy, ever the salesman, created a need by inventing the ‘Red Scare‘, and then providing an antidote to that need: himself. Lou reduces McCarthy and his fear-mongering cohorts to three words: cheap publicity hounds. When the committee asks a Reverend Barnes if he attended a peace congress in Prague, run by communists, Quentin responds: “How many Negroes you allow to vote in your patriotic district? And which of your social political or racial sentiments would Hitler have disapproved?” (120) Whilst the House on Un-American activities was originally meant to uncover Nazis in America, Miller notes the hypocritical nature of the committee given that its members benefited from Jim Crow laws that worked in concert with eugenics policies endorsed by Hitler and the Nazis. By precluding people of colour from voting, many politicians were able to secure elections, an issue that persists today. Scenes like this have been played out effectively in more recent works, such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds when a German officer makes reference to America’s history of slavery, demonstrating how America was in no place to judge the Germans, most especially given that people of colour were still not allowed to use the same bathrooms as Caucasians, even after WWII.

America’s Jim Crow laws are not the only thing that links America with the Nazis in terms of eugenics, as their foreign policy also demonstrates that the American government is perhaps too eager to engage in violent conflict with people of colour. At the time of its first production, America was at war with Vietnam, a war that would go onto kill anywhere from 800 000 to 3.1 million Vietnamese. Recent wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that America’s propensity to invade and occupy foreign lands has not been diluted in the decades since. ‘Coincidentally’, these countries all play host to people of colour. Miller, though, makes no reference to the Vietnam war, though he does not another mass killing that America was responsible for. After Holga, Quentin’s love interests, admits that she turned against her own country when she learned about the Death Camps, she asks Quentin if “Americans turn against America because of Hiroshima?” (20) Both sides of the moral dilemma regarding Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been discussed at length (see Gar Alperovitz’s essay ‘Hiroshima: Historians Reassess and Robert James Maddox’s ‘The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Bomb’ for two opposing views on debate), but what is clear is that is that nearly a quarter of a million people died, most of them civilians. Whether justified or not, there is reason to be disgusted with the American government for committing what R.J. Rummel describes as democide. When reading Miller’s examination of his own sins as a metaphor for a nation examining its own sins, it becomes clear who Miller is addressing when Quentin asks the question “Who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls?” (162) The temptation is to absolve one’s self, but as Quentin notes, “no pill can make us innocent” (154). In the context of the play, the pill speaks to antidepressants, but metaphorically, it speaks more broadly to the fact that nobody can escape their past sins and must confront their guilt, not try to distract themselves from it. At the time, audiences would have related this to the war in Vietnam with Miller making a link to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but contemporary readers might be inclined to see the parallels with the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though many refuse to accept responsibility for sins committed by their governments, Miller has an interesting passage on guilt that provides challenges this self-absolbing tendency. When Quentin is tempted to commit adultery, he speaks to Louise, his first wife, on the subject and assures her that he had done nothing wrong. She takes issue with the fact that it even crossed his mind, but he asks her to consider her own culpability in the crime. When she disputes this, he draws to attention to the fact that she turned her back on him in bed (56). This may seem a trivial scene, or an adulterer’s rationalization, but there is something larger here. It speaks to how our inaction can carry consequences great as or greater than our action. Be it a spouse seeking an intimate connection, or a victim of abuse seeking help, or a starving person looking for food, our inaction can facilitate a crime. On a personal scale, this can drive a loved one away, and on a social scale, this can lead to a group of people being marginalized, like Jewish people were during the Nazi reign in Germany, or the manner in which people of colour have been marginalized in America. Louise’s inaction seems trivial at best, but the implications of her approach has far-reaching consequences, and if one can’t even reach out to the person they have promised to love, then what hope is there for a stranger in need?

The callousness required to absolve oneself of sin or rationalize mass murder is dependent on individualism, a philosophy which Miller seems critical of even if he sees it as a pragmatically viable option in many instances. Early in the play Holga offers a maxim that is tempting to adopt: “it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self” (30). This seems to be the embodiment of individualism, but in the context of the rest of Miller’s play, it seems to be more along the lines of the Jacksonian (no, not that Jacksonian) belief that in order for change to happen, individuals must initiate such change on their own and not wait for a group to do it. In moments where the individual impedes the collective, Miller’s protagonist seems to be filled with despair. As Quentin grows apart from Lou, he sees the division as “consigning [Lou] to hell because [they] are separate persons” (58). This prompts him to ask his wife: “When you’ve finally become a separate person, what the hell is there?” (58) The question foreshadows the dissipation of his marriage with Louise, his first wife. This tentatively self-aware individualism seems reasonable, but Miller demonstrates how self-destructive it can be when left unchecked. Maggie, who after claiming that she can’t imagine more than $25, goes onto consume millions, and as she asks for more, she is questioned by Quentin, who is now her husband. When he tries to reason with Maggie, she replies with unrestrained individualistic certainty: “If I want something you should ask yourself why, why does she want it, not why she shouldn’t have it” (138). Maggie’s reasoning resembles that of a corporation bemoaning environmental legislation. This self-serving approach leads to her tragic death as she exhausts her own fortune, and the patience of those around her in a narrative that seems to be the template for contemporary actors like Lindsay Lohan and Tom Sizemore. This individualism in the absence of foresight and reason demonstrates the inherent problems related to the philosophy on the individual scale, but it is one that can be seen on a national scale given the violence that has erupted as the result on anti-American sentiment that in turn is the result of America’s foreign policy. This may also be the template for human race if those in a position to make change don’t soon recognize the urgency of the environmental crisis. Miller’s narrative is able to telescope out to national and international levels, and collapse to the personal, but the message is clear: self-interest, in the form of individualism, is self-destructive.

Though Miller’s play seems critical of individualism, it also expresses concerns about the ways in which the objectification of women can be facilitated though collective or herd behaviour. Maggie has little to no self-confidence when the reader is first introduced to her; her confidence only arrives once she becomes famous. It is only when the world collectively accepts her that she is able to find value in herself, demonstrating that women in a patriarchal society are taught that they need validation from others to be happy. This popularity becomes problematic when she is recognized by a group of boys. Despite the fact that she is with a male companion, Quentin, the herd of adolescent boys believes they are justified in objectifying her. One asks her to remove her sweater, while another commands her to perform a provocative dance, all whilst demanding she sign autographs (114-5). The collective behaves as if they own her and she ought to obey their every command, a sentiment that is expressed succinctly by Quentin who observes: “It’s like they’re eating” her (115). Indeed, she is being consumed. This is a pattern of behaviour that is reinforced by the fact that when Maggie first started her modelling career, the male agents would require her to go to conventions and ‘entertain’ the men there (69), euphemistically alluding to a form of corporate prostitution. This network of men create expectations, and if the women trying to break into modelling hope to make it, they must yield to the patriarchal collective that treats them like a commodity.

Miller’s play also notes how the social expectations placed on women in all facets of life serve as a retarding weight on their happiness. When playing the role of maternal figure women must subordinate their happiness to that of their family as Quentin observes that there are “mothers who keep dissatisfaction hidden to the grave” (43). In the public sphere, women are expected to be attractive. This is perhaps first noted when a divorcée who hires Quentin as her lawyer and gets a Rhinoplasty, but is later pointed out by Quentin who notes how emotionally damaging societal expectations must be through a maxim he offers on women who are not deemed attractive: “How bravely a homely woman has to be. How disciplined of her not to set fire to the Museum of Art” (60). This is problematic on a couple of levels, namely that it implies whatever women can’t find social acceptance need to develop coping skills, as if they couldn’t find happiness on their own terms. This further demonstrates how women are expected to find their value through social acceptance and that those who don’t have it need to develop defence mechanisms in order to function in society. Outside of their physical appearance, women are also expected to uphold a moral standard, and though it is a collective of men who reinforce many social expectations, other women can do the same, as demonstrated by Louise, who refers to Maggie as a ‘slut’ for simply having spoken to her husband. This speaks to how far the patriarchy is able to reach given that is causes women to internalize the oppression and act as an extension of the patriarchy. It is clear through his construction of such interactions that feminine identity was clearly defined against a set of prescriptions handed down patriarchal tradition.

These constructs are far from praised as Miller frames them as abstracts that impede the authentic self and work in opposition to nature. Upon first meeting Maggie on the street, Quentin notes that “she was just there, like a tree or a cat” and goes onto say that he “felt strangely abstract beside her” and realized that people were “killing one another with abstractions” (78). Maggie is aligned with the natural realm, trees and cats, whilst human constructs/abstracts create conflict. Miller does not specify such constructs in this scene, but the rest of the play offers examples with concepts of truth, fidelity, nationalism, loyalty, government, money. This opposition between the natural realm and the abstract human realm manifests itself when Louise refers to Maggie as a ‘slut’. Whilst Maggie acts natural, following the desires of her body, Louise projects constructed morality onto Maggie and categorizes her with these constructs (which is just a fancy was of saying Louise resorted to slut shaming). Some of these abstract ideas can be helpful, but at the same time many can create divisions, as noted by Mickey who states that “As soon as there’s two people, you can’t be absolutely sincere” (44). This speaks to the notion that society changes how we act and prevents us from embracing our authentic selves. Though Maggie is aligned with nature early in the play, by the end she has adopted the constructs she was once unfamiliar with. Where she once claimed she could not even imagine $25, she soon spends in excess of the millions of dollars she has earned, and is soon taking medications to her mental distress. After Maggie embraces these constructs, her life soon delves into a downward spiral. Where the reader once saw an innocent loving figure, they soon see a miserable, hateful and prejudicial person, as demonstrated most overtly by her use of a certain pejorative slur for homosexual men (130, 133, 141 x2). Far from simply attacking others, this downward spiral becomes self-destructive and ultimately ends in tragedy. Throughout the play it is clear that human constructs/abstract impede the interconnectivity that the characters all aspire to achieve, acting as a obstruction that prevents humanity from reaching its full potential.

Whilst it is tempting to look at After The Fall as an unofficial tell-all offering insight into the death of one of Hollywood’s most iconic figures, to do so is to undermine the greater purpose of the work, which encourages the reader to explore how they engage with the world and social constructs around them, whilst simultaneously rejecting American mythology and forcing Americans to examine the violent nature of its past. In Incident At Vichy, Miller held the Germans accountable, but demonstrated how ordinary people with no predilection for prejudice or violence could serve to facilitate atrocities like the Holocaust. In The Crucible, Miller held Americans accountable for the same kind of fear mongering that led to the Holocaust, noting how America had failed to learn from its past by drawing a metaphor between the Salem witch hunt/trials and McCarthyism. After The Fall continues these conversations, subtly asking question about how white America treats American of colour, while also asking how we ought to view the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John F. Kennedy famously challenged how people perceive government during his inauguration speech, saying “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Miller’s play offers another suggestion: “Ask what you can do for the world, and hold your country accountable.” Sadly, Miller lacked the foresight required to see that critics would look straight pass this message and instead focus the sensationalism linked with Monroe’s death, and rather than note how Miller encouraged everybody to take ownership for responsibility the tragic events that take place daily, they attacked him for what they perceived as a negative portrayal of Monroe, a woman the media cared little for when she was alive.

If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out my reviews of other Arthur Miller plays, and get updates on my latest posts on Twitter @LiteraryRambler. For those who are fans of playwrights from the mid-20th century, read my reviews on works by Gunter Grass, Eugene Ionesco, Max Frisch, and Harold Pinter, and if you enjoy post-modern drama, be sure to check out my play The King’s Attrition, which is available for free on this website.

Quote I liked:

Quentin: “There are no unimportant tears.” (93)

Quentin: “no pill can make us innocent” (154)

Quentin: “Who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls?” (162)

Holga: “I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self.” (30)