The Fall And Return Of Humanity

Arthur Miller(1915—2005)is a famous contemporary American playwright.Together with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill,they are called the three giants in American drama.Arthur Miller's works are concerned with the moral predicament of the ordinary people.They explore the various ethical relationships,one's social morality,a sense of guilt and a sense of responsibility.Therefore,he is recognized as “the conscience of American drama” by the public.Miller wrote many plays in his life.Among them,The Death of a Salesman is given much more attention in the academic circle.However,his other two works All My Sons and The Crucible are very representative.All My Sons is a tragedy,which is about the protagonist,a machine manufacturer Joe Keller who sells defective parts to American air force during WW II and leads to the death of 21 pilots,including his second son Larry.He finally committed suicide since he is loaded with a guilty conscience.The Crucible,as an allegory of McCarthyism,is a social problem drama based on partially fictional story of the Salem witch trials in 1692.The above-mentioned two works have profound social significance as well as moral educational value.This thesis analyzes the fall and return of humanity in the two plays by taking Ethical Literary Criticism as the theoretical basis.Ethical Literary Criticism is a literary critical approach which analyzes,criticizes and evaluates literary works from moral and ethical perspectives.It is concerned with the ethical factors which lead to social events and the fate of the characters.It is regarded as the product of ethics and morality from the origin of literature.That is,the essence of literature is the art of ethics and morality,and the basic function of literature is teaching.In view of this,by combining the critical theory and the practice of text reading,this thesis analyzes the fall of humanity in The Crucible and All My Sons from the aspects of betrayal and denial,the return of humanity in The Crucible and All My Sons from the aspects of guilt and responsibility.And it also analyzes the factors influencing Miller's ethical value,thus readers can further understand Arthur Miller's views on social ethics and moralities.Through the analysis,this thesis draws a conclusion in three points: Miller tries to evoke people's lost conscience and find the morality and ethical value lost in humanity through ordinary people in his plays;Miller tells us that one's personal meanings and identity are the products of his free-willed actions through a belief in causality;in Miller's plays,one person's actions are influenced by the ethical environment,his ethical value and his ethical relationships.