He acknowledged to Steven Centola in a 1990s interview that his own later plays 'may seem more tragic' than his earlier efforts in which 'the characters' inability to face themselves gives rise to tragic consequences' ('Just Looking,' 86-87). Although 'tragedy is still basically the same' and can be traced back to the Bible and 'the earliest Western literature, like Greek drama,' he told Robert Martin in the late 1960s, 'it is unlikely, to say the least, that since so many other kinds of human consciousness have changed that would remain unchanged' (Conversations, 200).
The plays 'that have lasted,' he has insisted, 'have shared a kind of tragic vision of man' (Conversations, 294).
Miller has always admitted his predilection for tragedy, at times at the cost of obfuscating his plays by defending them as tragedies.
