Women Represented As The Other In Arthur Miller’s Early Plays

As one of the most influential playwrights in 20th century American literature, Arthur Miller is often considered as the "conscience" of American theater, for which Christopher Bigsby procliams that "no other American writer has so successfully touch a nerve of national consciousness". While Miller creates numbers of flawed "tragic common man" in his early plays, his female characters are always represented as the passive and repressed Other.By adopting the term of the Other, the thesis has carried out a careful and detailed reexamination of Miller’s early plays. It demonstrates that in his early plays women are always represented as the passive and negative characters, who can neither possess their subjectivity, seek their true self, nor voice their own voices. The seven female characters in the four plays are divided into three categorizations:the dolls as the object of men’s desire, the repressed and silenced housewives, and the demonized and sainted women.Chapter one examines the roles of Catherine in A View from the Bridge^ and Ann in All My Sons. It is to contend that Catherine and Ann are represented as the Other in the sense that they are reduced to be dolls, the impersonal being that can be consumed and exchanged. They are represented as merely the objects of men’s sexual desire, which would never possess their subjectivity, their own action and voice. Catherine, the niece, is the submissive paper doll:the object of Eddie Carbone’s incestuous desire. As to Ann, she is endowed with a rather ambiguous and complex quality as the betrayal daughter and sister in her own family, and moreover she is depicted as a subordinate and dependent girl that can be exchanged between brothers of the Kellers.Chapter two explores the roles and psyche of the married women, who are repressed and silenced by the masculine oppression. Kate Keller, burdened with the shame and guilt of Joe’s culpability and Larry’s mysterious suicide, is driven to the edge of hysteria and madness. Her hysterical actions are the manifestations of her crushed conscience, repressed soul and silenced voice. Beatrice, though she speaks out her husband’s secret desire, is greatly repressed and abused by her husband, especially by his sexual refusal.Chapter three reexamines the dichotomized female images in Miller’s works including Abigail, Elizabeth and Linda. They are the stereotypical female images in literature. The chapter argues that in spite of overt differences among them, they are all represented as the Other, who are endowed with the goodness and evil by male domination. Their images are the reflections of male perspectives of women. Abigail, the sinister temptress and accuser, can be also interpreted as a victim of John’s sexual desire, and an accomplice under the male-dominated authorization in Salem Witch Trial. Elizabeth, who is not hanged at the end, exemplifies a good Puritan wife who bends to male domination and claims her responsibility in her husband’s adultery. When it comes to Linda, she is the foil character to Willy, the ultimate model wife, who is willing to sacrifice all for her family and believes in her husband whole-heartedly.Miller’s characterization, though biased and male-dominated as some critics called it, can be read as a reflection of the female existence of his time and country, and still an alarm to warn for today’s females in America and the world.