Posted on 10/19/2015 12:34:00 PM PDT by servo1969
was he a communist?
a communist wouldn’t show a guy succeeding in a capitalistic society like the neighbor’s son in Death of a Salesman.
He wouldn’t point out that he could have gone with his brother and been wealthy.
he wouldn’t show how spoiling kids is a disaster or that being very well liked means nothing.
he showed the rough side of capitalism, like the son didn’t care about his relationship with the father, who owned the business and made all kinds of promises.
that just tells me to get things in writing.
All My Sons, he’s right. He didn’t say profiting was bad. He did say profiting when it endangers military or innocent is bad.
maybe i didn’t read his real communist books.
I will have to read A View..
never heard of it. i enjoy his plays.
Now Streetcar is great but Williams is a huge fruit the size of a watermelon :)
And F. Scott Fitzgerald may be the worst “left wing” writer in the world even if you could categorize him as such. He tried his hand at it in the 1930s because he was being hounded by Hollywood leftists and communists (the awful wife of Nathaniel West comes to mind) and he was desperate for money to help clear up his debts and provide for his wife. Possibly America's greatest writers, I'm surprised you would single him out.
P.S.: the other writers you mention are pretty damned good too.
I’m not sure “View” is political. It was about homosexuality, I think - but not in a political way and not in a positive way. The old commies were not fond of fairies unless they could blackmail them for Mother Russia! Miller also wrote a play about Marilyn, I’m forgetting its name at the moment. It failed and is very infrequently revived.
I had a friend who was, I believe, a commie mole. (Well, that’s what happens when you’re in show biz for 40 years) and he once said to me: they never caught the real men who destroyed America. I sat there for about an hour trying to absorb what he said. He was dead within the year at about 90.
I was quoting another site.
wow. i wonder who they were.
i would put money on Johnson. But that’s too obvious.
Hollywood and tv station owners maybe
Oh, sorry. You don’t ascribe to what you quoted?
No. This person went back to the 30s and 40s and 50s. Yes, maybe Johnson, but I think he was referring to more obscure people - perhaps people in the State Dept. He took his secrets to the grave. He was the last man to see Carlo Tresca alive.
Only about Death of a Salesman. Sort of. I still think it can work outside of its historical context.
Salesman will always be about the Depression, I think. The Crucible works as an historical piece. I wish I could once see a good production of it! I was in it in high school, lol.
Alger Hiss comes very quickly to mind...as does one of FDR's VPs (can't recall which one...not Truman).
Now I have to look up Carlo Tresca :)
i’m used to that at FR and enjoy it.
i’m 47, and thought it seems old to me, it seems a number of FReepers have info from the 30’s on. It’s Great!
I just turned 60 (don’t tell my FRenemies that!)
Carlo was an anarchist and political fixer - an Italian-American who outed Sacco and Vanzetti as liars and killers which kind of ruined his relationship with the commies. My friend was a member of OAS during WWII and was assigned along with Tresca to help the Mafia orchestrate the American invasion of Sicily and then, of course, the mainland.
We now think Carmine Galante assassinated Tresca on Fifth Avenue after a meal at a local Italian restaurant. My friend was first suspected as his killer. His Wikipedia page reveals none of this - I think his wife wrote it!
I read “The Crucible” in my college freshman English class in the 1960’s, but I can't recall if the McCarthy and Rosenberg connections were heavily emphasized or not.
I do recall that my well known freshman chemistry professor wore an anti-Vietnam War “Peace Symbol” pinned to his suit coat each day, which was a fairly scandalous and brave act at my fairly Conservative southern university.
In the 1970’s, I saw “All My Sons” performed in Fort Lauderdale with Jack Klugman in the lead role. Since I come from five generations of American small business owners, I found a play about the habitual corruption of business owners to be, well, tendentious and irritating.
The greatest impact that Arthur Miller had on my then adolescent generation was his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Complete shock is the only way I can describe the reaction of my male friends when America's greatest female sex symbol married an ugly old man. That shock was soon eclipsed when Jackie Kennedy married the grotesque Aristotle Onassis.
Did Miller ever write a play about beautiful women who marry gross old men?
At this stage in my life, I could use some good literary advice on that subject!
WOW!! I’m Italian and live on Staten Island.
my uncles in brookly grew up with a lot of those guys. Persico, Gambino associates, and a number of other guys in the five families.
Fascinating post by you. I could see Galante doing that.
I didn’t know mafia had part in invasion of Sicily and mainland. Wow.
I’m sure there was profit in it for them as they are ruthless.
They were much tougher back then, the gangsters i know on staten island are cruel but not so tough. and would squeal in a second to get out of jail.
i try not to think of my ancestors’ past as socialists in america. And anarchists.
I’m glad Italian Americans are a conservative base now.
Wild story you have. If you have more, i would love to hear, if you’re too busy now, at another time!!
Destruction of the family. That is the image of Arthur Miller’s agenda in the minds of most Americans...both those who like and those who don’t like him.
Sicilians despise Americans (I learned that firsthand) because Mussolini had wisely wiped out the Mafia but we turned to the American Mafia to grease the way into Italy for the invasion. After the war, of course, the Sicilians were left with a revival of the Mafia. (I’m not a student of this so I’m taking shortcuts). Of course, I would counter, that Sicily and Italy supported the murderous Mussolini and possibly deserved much of what they got. But the present-day mafia in Sicily should burn in hell for the havoc they have created on that beautiful island.
I would recommend the wonderful book “All the Right Enemies” which is a study of the fascinatingly charming Carlo Tresca. His Wiki page says he supported Sacco & Vanzetti. He did, in fact, get them their amazing lawyer, Fred Moore, but he turned on those two with a vengeance. What a fascinating character!
Yeah, and here’s another page from the Miller family album. With his first wife, the playwright had a son who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Mrs. Miller wanted to raise their child at home, but her husband insisted that he be institutionalized, and he was, for the rest of his life. In fact, it took public pressure for that compassionate liberal, Arthur Miller, to include the boy in his will.
That episode speaks volumes about Miller’s character, or the lack thereof.
Henry Wallace. Thank god, FDR was too feeble by the 44 elections to insist on keeping Wallace on. Can you imagine having an unrepentant communist as president during the start of the cold war, or during Korea?
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