Unlike other plays of Miller which are male oriented, where the women remain conventional and shadowy figures, diffused and unfocussed, in After the Fall, we find an exception, and see a noticeable change of attitude towards sex in general and women in particular. In the play, Quentin returns to the past to discover the true nature of his guilt to reveal his life and urge the audience to be aware of the limits of love, friendship, truth and justice. Ultimately, he realizes that the family is pivotal for a smooth and easygoing life. Harold Clurman finds "After the Fall a signal step in the evolution of Arthur Miller as man and artist" (Themes and Variations 96).After the Fall focuses Quentin and his problem with women. The play is a violent speech against women "a verbal attack." The play After the Fall includes a thinly disguised portrayal of Miller"s unhappy marriages. The play was published after a gap of seven years. Until then, Miller had written nothing for the stage. When the play was produced in 1964, many spectators considered the play offensive and embarrassing. Quentin is Miller"s prototype and the play is highly autobiographical. Symbolically, Miller is the protagonist of this play. His life including his two failed marriages, his childhood, is reflected in the character of Quentin.The play presents the events of American history, the effects of war, the Depression, the McCarthy era, the holocaust on the minds of the people. Miller dramatized all this with power for sixty years. Morris Freedman says, "We may read After the Fall along with Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Price as a kind of Galsworthian family tetralogy, an integrated saga in which there is a thematic progression. The play may be read, indeed, as a work about the same family considered under changing circumstances and from different perspectives. The development of the first play to fourth play provides a record of the changing values of American middle class family life during the period in which they are written"(Freedman 43).Miller has used the stage as a medium to justify and rationalize the cathartic explanation of his life including his two failed marriages. The play is therefore, a sort of therapy session, recapitulating painful dull events where he explains his shattered relationship from his childhood, his nagging wife Lousie, his neighbors and the struggle of the co-workers torn between integrity and career. Miller, however, manages to bring them together into the play. With themes such as introspection, betrayal, responsibility and innocence, the play is outstandingly penetrating and brilliantly written.The bright spot in the play is Maggie who is a clear reflection of Marilyn Monroe. The play is also an implication that there is no such thing as private life. "The play was about how we-nations and individualsdestroy ourselves by denying that this is precisely what we are doing. Indeed, if Maggie was any reflection of Marilyn, who had many other dimensions, the character"s agony was a tribute to her. For in life, as ...
