Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005) spent his boyhood playing football and baseball. He was fond of (appassionato di ) adventure stories, but only after reading Dostoevsky’s novel – The Brothers Karamazov – he decided to become a writer. He graduated (si laureò) in English in 1938, then moved to (si trasferì) New York where he joined (si unì al) the Federal Theatre Project, and wrote scripts (sceneggiature) for radio programs. He married three times, the second time to actress, Marilyn Monroe. At first influenced by the classical Greek dramatists and by Ibsen, who could bring “the past into the present”, Miller mixed realism and symbolic elements in his plays. He used a common language and dealt with (trattò) the everyday problems of common men. His characters are usually men from the working classes and their stories are tragic, destroyed (rovinate) by false values. They are men who struggle (lottano) with life and with its difficulties. Nevertheless (ciononostante) for Miller the theatre represented a way to change (un modo per cambiare) the world, he believed in the power of the stage (palcoscenico) to change totally the society he lived in. His plays show how the deeds (gesti) and sins (peccati) of the past come back home and how private lives come into conflict with social responsibilities. For this reason some elements become allegories and echo (fanno eco) true-life (vita reale) adding a deeper meaning (aggiungendo un significato più profondo) to the poor everyday actions of his protagonists. He tries to give his own ideas of right and wrong (giusto e sbagliato), of ethical values, and shows the difficult to adhere (essere coerenti) to these values in this society. in his plays, Miller shows a great compassion for his characters whether (sia) they adhere to their values (valori) till the end or sacrifice them to survive (sopravvivere) .