“Sartreism” in Late Modern American Theatre from New Historicist Lenses: Arthur Miller’s After the Fall (1964)

Abstract

This dissertation explores how Sartreism reflects the psychological, moral, and ideological anxieties of postwar America through a new historicist reading of Arthur Miller’s After the Fall (1964). In the aftermath of World War II and amid Cold War tensions, American society experienced political paranoia, moral disorientation, and cultural fragmentation. This study examines how Miller dramatises these tensions through characters facing existential crises. Combining Sartre’s existentialism with new historicist methods, the dissertation situates the play’s dilemmas within their socio-political context, showing how Miller’s characters are shaped by historical and ideological forces. The play’s fragmented structure and its blending of memory and trauma reflect Sartre’s theatre of situations and align with new historicism’s focus on ideology and discourse. The work is divided into two chapters. Chapter one lays the theoretical foundation, outlining Sartre’s philosophy and its influence on postwar American theatre, alongside key concepts of new historicism and its application to theatre. Chapter two offers a close reading of After the Fall, analysing how its characters embody existential conflict and mirror broader societal shifts. The analysis shows that the play transcends autobiography to become a cultural text expressing the moral contradictions of its time. Through its synthesis of existentialist thought and historicist critique, this study highlights how theatre articulates the human search for meaning in an unstable world.