Arthur Miller is recognized as an important and influential playwright, not to mention essayist and novelist. Although he has had plenty of luck in his writing career, his fame is the product of his ingenious ability to control what he wants his readers to picture or feel. As one of his critics state, "Miller writes ingeniously, conveying the message that "if the proper study of mankind is man, man's inescapable problem is himself (Brater 306)."" Miller accurately puts into words what every person thinks, feels, or worries about, but often has trouble expressing. By the use of symbolism, Arthur Miller portrays Willy's (along with the other Lomans) problems with family life, the society, and himself in "Death of a Salesman.".
Arthur Miller is an interesting author in the sense that many of his plays reflect or are a product of events in his life. He was born in 1915 in New York City and was the son of a successful businessman, up until the Great Depression when his father lost most of his wealth. This greatly impacts Miller's life, and influences the themes for many of his future writings. To make ends meet at home, Miller worked as a truck driver, a warehouse clerk, and a cargo-mover; consequently, these odd jobs bring him close to the working-class type people that will later be the basis of many characters in his plays. It is while he is involving himself in these jobs that Miller forms his love for literature; he is greatly impressed by Fyodor Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazov because it questions the unspoken rules of society, a concept he often wondered about, especially after the Great Depression. He believes that American society needed to be made over; for this reason, many of his earlier plays show sympathetic portrayals and compassionate characterizations of his characters. In 1956, Miller marries the eminent Marilyn Monroe. This event significantly affects his writing in that he focuses on female characters more than he had formerly.