The Crucible Book Review Essay, Research Paper

Arthur Miller, the son of a wealthy father who lost all of his money in the crash of 1929, quit school as a young child to support his family by holding several different odd jobs. From these jobs, Miller learned about the life of a simple man of America who became the highlight of many of his works (View from the Bridge, The Misfits). After working all of these odd jobs he finally discovered the value of literature. He convinced the University of Michigan to accept Miller as a student, even though he did have a full high school education. Miller paid his way through college by writing for a newspaper, and winning prize money from his writings.

The book The Crucible was written with the average person in mind. This is because Arthur Miller had alot of interest in the common man. Because he worked many odd jobs trying to support his family, he could identify with the common man and the problems they were faced with. You can see Miller’s concern for the common man in almost all of his plays. “Miller had associated himself with the common man so much that people thought that there might be the possibility of Miller being a communist” said Denis M. Calandra. You can also tell that Miller was gearing his style towards the common man by him actually telling you what he changed and the accuracy of the play, he also tells you what is going on through out the whole book.

The book The Crucible was not a translation, compilation, or a revised edition. The book The Crucible was first published in the United States of America by the Viking Press in 1953, and then in 1964. The other dates that Viking Press published The Crucible are 1965 (twice), 1966, 1967, 1968 three times, 1969 (twice), 1970 (twice), 1971 (twice), 1972 (twice), 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1976. Then, in 1976 Penguin Books started publishing the book till 1986. The copyright dates on The Crucible are 1952, 1953, 1954, and the last copyright date was in 1981.

Miller’s style of writing, again, refers back to when he was a child and the way he grew up. His writing style is easy to understand due to the fact that he tried to focus on the common man and the fact that most of his life he was dealing with the common man. His writing was not pre-school reading level nor was it Harvard College reading level, it was right there in the middle. Miller was not your average writer, he was far more superior due to the fact that he understood the average man which makes him have a great writing style.

Arthur Miller, the author of the book The Crucible, if you did not know yet was a prejudice writer. He is a prejudice writer due to the fact that he was always trying to support the average person no matter what. If there was a good rich person and a bad poor person Miller would probably be supporting the poor person or the lower middle class person because he once was poor or lower middle class.