1. 1
A Hermeneutic Reading of the Matrix in Four Selected
Plays by Arthur Miller.

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Introduction
"The meaning of the text is never self-formulated; the reader must act upon
the textual material in order to produce meaning" (Selden, 47).
The reader response has been a concern of criticism since the time of the ancient
Greeks. In The Republic, Plato considers the ways in which the reader receives
representations. In his Poetics, Aristotle is interested in the effects produced on the reader by
the tragic drama. Aristotle calls the feelings of pity and fear aroused in the recipient of
tragedy, catharsis. "Classical commentaries on literature, after all, exhibit an overwhelming
preoccupation with audience response. Plato, Aristotle, Horace and Longinus all discuss
literature primarily in terms of its effects upon an audience (Tompkins, 202).
Modern reader response criticism was established in the 1960s and the 1970s,
mainly in Germany and the United States of America. "It refers to the work of critics who use
the words reader, the reading process and response to mark out an area of investigation" (P
ix). The theory first emerged as a result of Einstein's Relativity; where there is never an
absolute ultimate truth. Even, the 'fact' in science is an outcome of the frame of reference set
by the observer. The foremost pioneers of this school include the thinkers Hans-Georg
Gadamer (1900-2002), Stanley Fish (1938), Wolfgang Iser (1926-2007), Hans Robert Jauss
(1921-1997), Roland Barthes and many others. Those critics distinguish the reader as a
functional agent in the process of interpretation. Hence, the addressee is dynamically
involved in the construction of meaning and the derivation of sense.
The reader ought to be sensitive to the singularity of a text, what makes it
unique, and what constitutes the individual relation between a particular
reader and this particular text. In this way the reader responds to each
individual text to produce specific critical readings (Wolfreys, 141).
There is no single theoretical approach to a written text. A reading process is never innocent
or clear-cut; on the contrary, it is a product of the reader’s individualistic traits, encounters,
culture and above all history as well as imagination.
Reader critics...by inviting readers to describe in detail their moment – by -

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moment reactions to a text, appeared to be letting back into literary criticism all the
idiosyncrasy, emotionality, subjectivity and impressionism that had made the
literary enterprise vulnerable to attack by science and that the New Critics had
worked so hard to eliminate from critical practice (Tompkins, 224).
A modern philosophical tendency which stresses the perceiver’s central role in the
determination of meaning is known as Phenomenology. The German philosopher Edmund
Husserl claims that philosophical investigation ought to be focused on the human’s
consciousness rather than objects of the world. Truth is what is real to an individual’s
realization; consequently, the individualistic human mind is the origin of all meaning. Hans
Robert Jauss is a fundamental German exponent of the reception theory. In an attempt to
reach at a compromise between the Russian Formalism which overlooks history and the
social critics who totally disregard the text, Jauss comes up with the term ‘horizons of
expectation’. Thus, the ‘horizons of expectation’ is used to describe the “criteria readers use
to judge literary texts in any given period” (Selden, p 50). "Our horizon must include the past
and ideally the future, as well as our present situation...Jauss rejects a false objectivity and
positivism which either ignored time and history or regarded the past as closed" (Thiselton,
317). For Jauss, readers have a certain mental set, a ‘horizon of expectations’, from which
perspective they are able to read a text at any given time in history. Hence, reader-response
criticism establishes these horizons of expectation by reading literary works of the period in
question. Ultimately, the original horizons of expectation never establish the final meaning of
a literary work. " A work of art outlasts the conditions on which it originated...The text may
live on, but readers change and bring new horizons of experience, which change the readers'
perceptions from age to age" ( 317).A written text is “not an object which stands by itself,
and never offers the same face to each reader in each period” (Selden, 51).
Another renowned German thinker who laid the basis for the Reader Reception theory
is Martin Heidegger. Heidegger argues that individuals should never be detached from the
world they find themselves part of. Humans’ thinking is always in situation; accordingly, it is
perpetually historical. Ironically, the history proposed in this context, is never social or
external, but exceedingly personal and individualistic. Hans – Georg Gadamer was a follower
of Heidegger, and he is predominantly recognized for his Hermeneutics. In his massive book,
Truth and Method (1960), Gadamer offers the most systematic survey of hermeneutics in the
twentieth century.
Indeed, hermeneutics is about the fundamental ways in which we perceive the
world, think and understand. It has a philosophical root in what we call
epistemology- that is the problem of how we come to know anything at all, and

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actually how we think and legitimate the claims we make to know the truth.
(Jasper, 3)
For Gadamer, literature is a "paradigm of the artwork's beauty and the awakening of the
experience of the truth and the other" (Dostal, P 31). Gadamer stresses that any interpretation
of a text has to arise from a dialogue between the past and the present. A reader’s attempt to
perceive a literary work is not solely dependent on his cultural environment; it is also an
outcome of the questions which the work itself was trying to answer the time it was written.
A hermeneutical notion of “understanding does not separate knower and object in the familiar
fashion of empirical science; rather it views understanding as a fusion of past and present: we
cannot make our journey into the past without taking the present with us”, (Selden, P 51).
History, however, has yet to attain the finality of a text, if and when it does, there
will be no perspective from which to write the final scene…We will always
understand historical events both from a wider perspective than our predecessors
could possess and from a narrow one than our heirs will acquire. (Warnke,
19)
Thus, discernment and favourable reception of the past is exceedingly elemental in reaching
at an interpretation of the present.
We belong to history more than it belongs to us...Understanding is the
continuation of a dialogue that precedes us and has always already begun...thus,
in each new encounter with meaning we take over and modify the views of what
makes sense that have been passed down from the tradition and are present in
us. (Grondin, 116)
An individual’s denial of his own, as well as others, history is redeemed a state of living
death. If yesterday is dimmed, then today is muddled and tomorrow is never to come.

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The way in which one understands one’s life as a whole is itself an
interpretation of the various experiences one has had. Indeed, the way in which
one anticipates the future depends upon the way in which one has understood
experiences in one’s past, just as the experiences one has reorient one’s
understanding of that past. (Warnke, 29)
In his most recent plays, Arthur Miller is persistently reminding himself, as well as his
readers, that a misty memory, is a massive danger.“Fine: What you can’t chase you’d better
face or it will start chasing you, know what I mean?” (Clara, 30). It is Miller's mission to
investigate how humans regard the past. His work is about folks “trying not to remember.
Memory is the danger” (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 360). Accordingly,
those are people who can only accomplish salvation when they are forced to relive the
blissful flashes of their past. Admitting the notion of death (their own as well as their loved
ones), and reconciling their own regrets and fatalities, they can conclusively come across
serenity and contentment. "The answer, tentative though it is, lies in part in the past, in a
confrontation of the denials and betrayals that had come to seem the necessary price for
continuance” (p 364).
Wolfgang Iser (1926-2007) is a leading pioneer of the German reception theory.
He presents the text as a potential structure which is concretized by the reader
in relation to his or her extra-literary norms, values and experience. A sort of
oscillation is set up between the power of the text to control the way it is read
and a reader’s ‘concretization’ of it in terms of his or her own experience- an
experience which itself be modified in the act of reading. (Selden, 52)
Hence, meaning is formulated as a product of the adjustments that occur in the reader’s mind
as he goes forward with the process of reading. Iser argues that a critic’s task is not to view
the text as an object in itself, but should trace its effect on the recipient. "Thus, the text is
made up of a world that is yet to be identified and adumbrated in such a way as to invite
picturing and eventual interpretation by the reader" (Iser, 250). He classifies the readers into
implied and actual ones. An implied reader is the recipient whom the text creates for itself, he
is constantly responding to the network of response-inviting structures which influence him
to read the text in a certain way. Iser identifies the actual reader as the person whose stock of
experience inspires the way he perceives a literary piece. Consequently, a reading process is
inevitably the result of the recipient’s historical occurrences. "The manner in which the
reader experiences the text will reflect his own disposition, and in this respect the literary

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texts act as a kind of mirror; but at the same time, the reality which this process helps to
create is one that will be different from his own" (Tompkins, P 56-57). Readers hold in their
minds certain expectations based on their memory of characters and events. However, these
outlooks are continually modified, and the memories are gradually altered as readers go
through the text.
For Iser a literary work is actualized only through a convergence of reader and
text...a reader must act as co-creator of the work by supplying that portion of it
which is not written but only implied. The concretization of a text in any
particular instance requires that the reader's imagination comes into play. Each
reader fills in the unwritten portions of the text, its 'gaps' or areas of
'indeterminacy.' (XV)
Wolfgang Iser shifts then to elaborate the role a literary reading has in varying a
recipient’s prospects and foresight of life. A literary work embodies precise models and
values that are so essential in decoding the chaos a reader finds himself part of. Yet, “only a
reader can actualize the degree to which particular norms are to be rejected or questioned” (p
54). As a matter of fact, the encounters, dilemmas and regrets undergone by the characters in
a literary work will indisputably stamp their impact on the reader. "The production of the
meaning of literary texts...does not merely entail the discovery of the unformulated...it also
entails the possibility that we may formulate ourselves and so discover what had previously
seemed to elude our consciousness" (68). Each reading shall contribute to a more intense and
extensive perception of being. Miller comments on the dramatic form: “The dramatic form,
at least as I understand it, is a kind of proof. It is a sort or court proceeding, where the less
than true gets cast away and what is left is the kernel of what one really stands for and
believes” (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 380). Hence, reading literature is
all about accessing genuineness, truths and discernment. Paradoxically, wisdom is attained
through the frailties and flaws of those folks dwelling in a book. A sharp reader is
continuously fortunate to learn a lesson without undergoing a real bitter experience.
Inasmuch as we encounter the work of art in the world and the world in
the individual work of art, this does not remain a strange universe into
which we are magically transported for a time. Rather we learn to
understand ourselves in it, and that means that we preserve the

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discontinuity in the continuity of our experience. (Iser 2007, 34-35)
The French Semiotician Michael Riffaterre supports the Russian Formalist
classification of literature as utilising an exclusive use of language. If everyday common
speech is used to indicate some sort of reality, then literary language ought to concentrate on
the message as a sole priority. "In everyday language, used for practical purposes, the focus
is usually upon the situational context, the mental or physical reality referred to...the focus is
upon the code used in transmitting the language itself...In the case of verbal art, the focus is
upon the message as an end in itself" (Tompkins, P 26).
Furthermore, Riffaterre draws his own version of a competent reader, who has the
faculty to delve profoundly beyond surface signification. He can, efficiently, grab the
ungrammatical features, and capture the implicit allusions symbolized by the author, until he
deduces the ultimate worth of a literary work. "It seems more satisfactory to recognize that
there is an unconscious of the text that works like human unconscious. This unconscious of
the text is represented by the symbolism of the subtext and by the intertext this symbolism
mobilizes" (Riffaterre, p xvii). Riffaterre identifies the Matrix as the uppermost level of sense
accomplished by a competent reader after elucidating the ungrammatical features of the text.
These ungrammaticalities are the most effective and conspicuous, not just
because they disturb verisimilitudes but because in a time-oriented
context, they focus on an unchanging intertextuality, deriving their
significance from their reference to an intertext that has no past, no future,
no temporality, an image therefore of immovable truth. (xviii)
Accordingly, a literary work is associated with its Matrix by means of recurrent statements,
clichés and quotes that are called Hypograms. Thus, the reading process has to abide by
certain steps. First of all, a reader has to distinguish the outward ordinary signification,
secondly, he is to underline the ungrammatical elements. Thirdly, the hypograms have to be
revealed, and conclusively, the Matrix is deduced through the exposed hypograms. Thus,
inferring the Matrix is actually the reader apprehending the ultimate beliefs and messages
intended by an author. In other words, it offers a rediscovery of the world and its individuals.
The message and the addressee- the reader- are indeed the only factors involved
in this communication whose presence is necessary...the appropriate language

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of reference is selected from the message, context is reconstituted from the
message. (Tompkins, 37)
In an interview, Arthur Miller comments on his works; “like everybody else, I think I believe
certain things, and I think I believe others, but when you try to write a play, you find out that
you believe a little of what you disbelieve and you disbelieve a lot of what you think you
believe” (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 380).
The American theorist, Stanley Fish proposes that “all readers are part of
interpretative communities, which train the reader into a shared set of expectations about how
a text should be read and what it might mean” (Wolfreys, p 146). In Doing What Comes
Naturally, Fish presses his career harder. Formalism is bound to be destroyed. "We cannot
but see the world and the texts from the point of view of our own interests" (Dostal, P 310).
Fish rivets attention on the sequence of decisions, revisions, anticipations,
reversals, and recoveries that the reader performs as he negotiates the text
sentence by sentence and phrase by phrase...Essentially what the method does
is slow down the reading experience so that events one does not notice in
normal time, but which do occur, are brought before our analytical attention. It
is as if a slow-motion camera with an automatic stop action effect were
recording our linguistic experiences and presenting them to us for viewing.
(Tompkins, xvi)
Fish wraps up his theory by highlighting the role of a critic as investigating “the rules and
conventions of any interpretative community which determines the outcome of a reading” (p
146). Unlike Iser's reader who has to fill in the gaps of the text and extrapolate from its hints,
the reader of Fish is the source of all possible significations. Thus, he is the place where all
sense is made. Nevertheless, the notion of ‘interpretative communities’ has been immensely
criticized; “by reducing the whole process of meaning production to the already existing
conventions of the interpretative community, Fish seems to abandon all possibility of
deviant interpretations or resistances to the norms which govern acts of interpretation”
(Selden, p 57).
The French thinker Roland Barthes is one of the wittiest and most renowned
theorists of the reader oriented criticism. In his essay, The Death of the Author (1968),
Barthes discards the conventional notion of the author as the foundation of the text and its

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meaning. Barthes’s “author is stripped of all metaphysical status and reduced to a location (a
crossroad), where language, that infinite storehouse of citations, repetitions, echoes and
references, crosses and recrosses. The reader is thus free to enter the text from any direction;
there is no correct route” (150). Thus, readers are totally free to dominate the signifying
process and to connect the text with systems of meaning without any consideration for the
signifieds or the author’s objective. Barthes differentiates between two kinds of texts, the
readerly and the writerly. A readerly text allows the reader to be a consumer of a fixed
meaning; it is then only intended for reading. As for a writerly text, it has all the privilege of
turning the reader into a producer of sense and meaning. Hence, it is written by its recipient.
Barthes describes a writerly text as: “A structure of signifieds, it has no beginning…We gain
access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the
main one; the code it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can reach” (Wolfreys, 151). As a
reader utilizes a range of viewpoints and norms to develop a meaning out of a text,
signification comes in a fragmented form that lacks any sort of unity. Hence, a writerly
transcript is “a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language can be imposed” (19).
Barthes configures a realist novel as a readerly text, for it is purely a depiction of the world as
it is. He is exceedingly hostile to the realistic form of writing. And since the role of a literary
work is to make the reader no longer a consumer but a producer, then a writerly text is
redeemed by far superior to a readerly piece of writing.
Furthermore, Barthes splits up a written transcript into a number of reading units, or
Lexias. The lexias are read in sequence through five codes: the hermeneutic, semic, symbolic,
proairetic and cultural. The Hermeneutic code refers to the enigma that is born at the
commencement of a literary work. It raises questions like: Who is this manuscript about?
What is happening? What is the obstacle? The Semic code deals with the issue of
characterization and the psychological traits represented in the written work. It is all about
“the connotations arising from characterization and description” (Selden, P 151). The
symbolic code covers the organization of symbolic meanings, and it is produced as a reader
delves deeper and deeper into a writerly text. Followingly, the proairetic code is the system of
actions; “the basic sequential logic of action and behaviour” (152). Finally, the cultural code
“embraces all references to the natural fund of knowledge” (151). It is about the role of a
reader’s own physical and psychological history in the configuration of signification.
Consequently, Barthes draws a distinction between connotation and denotation. “Connotation
is a secondary meaning, whose signifier is itself constituted by a sign or system of primary
signification, which is denotation” (Wolfreys, 33). Semiologists agree on the hierarchy of the
denotated and the connotated.
In his Five Readers Reading, the American theorist Norman Holland (1927)
stresses that an individual has a core identity theme or behaviour. This core gives a person a
certain style of being and reading. Thus, each reader utilises the physical literary work, plus
invariable codes (like the shapes of letters), in addition to variable canons (e.g. different
interpretative communities) to build a distinctive response. Since there are no indistiguishable
styles of reading, no response is ever analogous to another. The American semiologist
Richard Gerrig has experimented with the reader’s state of mind during and after a literary

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experience. He has shown how recipients disregard ordinary erudition and ideals while they
go through a literary text, treating for example criminals as heroes. Gerrig has also
investigated how readers consent to improbable or fantastic occurrences, then discard them
after they are done with the reading event.
Ultimately, a text only becomes meaningful and alive once it is read. The reading
experience is shaped by a reader’s memoirs, persona, ethos and principles. A piece of
literature has no subsistence unless it is read, and reviewed by its recipients.

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Chapter One
A Hermeneutic Approach

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"The term Hermeneutics goes far back and traverses a long history from still
there is still much to learn today" (Grondin, preface)
“Hermeneutics in its various historical forms from antiquity to modern times in general
offered methodological help in solving interpretive problems that arise with certain kinds of
texts: dreams, laws, poetry, religious texts” (E. Palmer). Hermeneutics raises philosophical
questions about how individuals come to understand, and the basis on which understanding is
possible. "It involves literary questions about type of texts and the process of reading. It
includes social, critical or sociological questions about how vested interests, sometimes of
class, race; gender or prior belief may influence what we read" (Thiselton, 1). Historically,
the ancient word of Hermeneutics connotes "translation in the broadest sense" (Grondin, x).
Biblical hermeneutics investigates "more specifically how we read, understand, apply and
respond to biblical texts" (Thiselton, 1). Furthermore, the Seventeenth century witnessed a
reviving interest in Hermeneutics as an art of interpretation. With the age of metaphysics
coming to a close, and the claims of modern sciences to process a monopoly on knowledge
finally reduced, "the attempt to develop a genuine universality could look to this ancient
conception for a starting point. There were, however, deep lying reasons when, beginning in
the Romantic age, hermeneutics expanded to the point that it comprehended the theory of the
human sciences as a whole" (x). In the nineteenth century in Germany "hermeneutics was
taken out of what had been a largely theological context and developed as methodology for
interpreting texts generally, especially those texts at some historical distance" (Dostal, 2). The
new version (the twentieth century version) of hermeneutics came out as an outcome of the
modern revolving mass media, of a "century of unprecedented mass destruction and the fear
of the nuclear holocaust" (Jasper, 99). "The new hermeneutics is fundamentally unacademic,
representing a new approach to the task of understanding, which prefers to let questions hang
in the air and resists all easy solutions and answers"(100). Martin Heidegger, “Gadamer’s
teacher, completed the universalizing of the scope of hermeneutics by extending it beyond
texts to all forms of human understanding” (“Hans-Georg Gadamer”, Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy IEP).
“Gadamer developed a distinctive and thoroughly dialogical approach, grounded in
Platonic-Aristotelian as well as Heideggerian thinking, that rejects subjectivism, abjures any
simple notion of interpretive method, and grounds understanding in the linguistically
mediated happening of tradition” (“Hans Georg Gadamer”, Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy). Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy figures out the way human beings make
sense of their lives by anticipating the future in the light of the past. “According to Gadamer,
what a text means depends most fundamentally upon two things: the historical situations of
the author and that of the interpreter or reader” (“Hans-Georg Gadamer”, about.com). In his
massive book, Truth and Method (1960), the conservative thinker, Gadamer, offers the most
systematic survey of hermeneutics in the twentieth century. "Its title indicates the dialogue
between the claims of 'truth' on the one hand and the process of 'method' on the other" (106).
“Gadamer adhered to the principle that philosophy was useless unless it could be understood”

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(Kuan). He suspects the validity of the modern age itself, with so many variable divisions of
learning and understanding, individuals are at risk of losing their sense of a whole and
coherent existence. "Gadamer ultimately reformulated universal hermeneutics as a theory of
the ineluctable historicity and linguisticality of our experience" (Grondin, 3). Reaching a full
recognition of history and the past is the principal vehicle of a consistent understanding.
"What has been constitutes the connection with what is becoming…A long series of events,
succeeding and next to one another, in such ways bound to one another" (Warnke, 14).Thus,
The meaning of an event or action is directly correlated with a particular historical
perspective on it, however, the meaning "of events will change with changes in historical
perspective" (19). Developing "a consciousness of historical effect parallels becoming aware
of one's own hermeneutic situation" (Grondin, 113)."It is history that determines the
background of our values, cognitions and even our critical judgments. 'That is why', says
Gadamer, 'the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the
historical reality of his being" (114). Thus, history and knowledge are quite inseparable. For
Gadamer, "all knowledge of the natural and social world, of ethical demands, aesthetic
values, or the requirements for political action is grounded in a traditional orientation" (168).
In 1983, Gadamer gives a speech at Castel Gandolfo to a small group of distinguished
intellectuals, he announces that humans can actually "learn something especially from the
Greek heritage of our thought, which has indeed left us 'science', but a science which
remains integrated in the conditions of the human life world and in the guiding concept of its
thinking" (Dostal, 30).Hence, history "interpenetrates our substance" in such a way "that we
cannot ultimately clarify it or distance ourselves from it" (Grondin, 14). An individual's
consciousness is undeniably influenced by his history. Thus, understanding is "re-
experiencing the experience as it happened" (Warnke, 23). "An individual's life history is
now conceived of as taking place not only within the vertical dimension of the individual
subject's life but within a horizontal dimension as well, incorporating the individual's social
and cultural environment"(30).
Gadamer's hermeneutics moves to elucidate how a reader's awareness and beliefs are
incessantly modified throughout the process of reading. He utilizes the term Reversal of
Consciousness to refer to the learning experience that alters a reader's prior spectacles and
convictions. It embodies a state of maturity, where what was redeemed as truth, is not "truth
at all" (26). "We start off with vague anticipations of the whole, which are, however, revised
the more we engage the text and the subject matter itself…true experience must thus lead to
an openness to ever newer experiences", (Dostal, 44). Consequently, hermeneutics is highly
circular. An individual gets to move from a state of pre- supposed understanding, to fuller
knowledge, "and then returning back to check and to review the need for correction or change
in this preliminary understanding" (Thiselton, 14). Gadamer elaborates:
In life itself certain experiences can cast doubt upon one's conceptions,
prejudices and self understanding. Such doubts can lead to further reflection,

14. 14
revision in one's interpretation of one's life or one's projects, and then to further
experiences and revisions. This kind of doubt is thus part of the connection
between experience and understanding and part of retrospective re-evaluation of
the meaning of one's life. (Warnke, 32)
Thus, openness to develop one's conceptual framework is a crucial feature of rationality.
Gadamer defines rationality as a "willingness to admit the existence of better options. The
awareness that one's knowledge is always open to refutation or modification" (173).
Accordingly, knowledge persists as a form of justification. The acceptance of new
experiences, results in the birth of reliable warranted beliefs. Gadamer states that an
individual's 'Horizon' that is his visions and views, is recurrently modified. Hence, the
Horizon is "something into which we move and that moves with us. Horizon changes for a
person who is moving. Thus, the horizon of the past is always in motion" (Gadamer, p 304).
Hermeneutics is all about an individual reaching at a full comprehension of his
own self and disposition. "All understanding in the end is self-understanding" (Dostal,
189)"Life in the end becomes subjectivity" (Thisleton, 217). A proper discernment of one's
own reality is the key for a better perception of the world, and existence as a whole.
"Understanding always involves something like applying the text to be understood to the
interpreter's present situation" (Gadamer, 308). Thus "application" is the central problem of
hermeneutics (315). Nevertheless, the issue of self understanding is hardly free of
modifications or changes; "Self understanding is never complete but moves within a circle of
experience, interpretation and revision" (Warnke, 29). Hence, knowledge of history is
attained in the same way as is Self – knowledge "painfully, in a sense or at least through
experience and reflection upon it" (31). "The very first task of interpretation consists in Self-
critique: working out one's own fore – projections so that the subject matter to be understood
can affirm its own validity in regard to them" (Grondin, 112).
One of the most outstanding features of hermeneutics is the incessant call for
tolerance and the respect for the Other. "The possibility that the other person may be right is
the soul of hermeneutics" (Gadamer, July 9, 1989, Heidelberg Colloqium). Thus, it is the goal
of hermeneutic understanding to establish bridges between opposing viewpoints.
"Hermeneutics produces habits of respect for, and more sympathetic understanding of views
and arguments that at first seem alien and unacceptable" (Thiselton, 5). Hence, mutual
understanding, without undermining the integrity of a belief that is seriously and
individualistically held, is an essential component of knowledge. "Now, instead, there is an
Other, who is not an object for the subject but someone to whom we are bound in
reciprocations of language and life" (Grondin, x). Acceptance of the opponent entails a better
conception of the Self as well as the Other. Hence, Gadamer’s understanding is
“characterized by a willingness to truly listen to what the Other has to say and to be

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transformed by it” (Vilhauer, xiv). Furthermore, this process "involves recognizing that I
must accept some things that are against me, even though no one else forces me to do so"
(Gadamer, 361). Amazingly, Gadamer explores the rehabilitation of authority and tradition.
As an opponent of Nazism, and racial discrimination, Gadamer announces that authority
does not mean blind obedience. "It rests on acknowledgment and hence on an act of reason
itself, which aware of its own limitations, trusts in the better insight of others" (219). Thus,
tolerance and openness to Others can be redeemed as a means of reformation and
reconciliation.
In confronting other cultures, other prejudices and indeed the implications that
others draw from our traditions, we learn to reflect on both our assumptions and
our ideas of reason to amend them in the direction of a better account…In
confronting other beliefs and other presuppositions that we can both see the
inadequacies of our own and transcend them. (Warnke, 170 – 171)
Encountering the defects of the Other, can, irrefutably, amend the imperfections of the Self,
eventually, the Bildung is attained. Gadamer's Bildung describes the process through which
individuals and cultures enter a more and more defined community. It is the outcome of
tolerance and forbearance, and the reward of an open minded individual, who "is not only
familiar with but interested in issues, problems and ways of life that may be quite distant
from his or her own" (173). For Gadamer, Bildung entails more than culture; it is involved in
"human formation, and is almost ethical. It certainly addresses education, and above all keeps
oneself open to what is Other" (Thisleton, 212). "Although Gadamer never attempted to
develop an ethics or a politics, his hermeneutics is both ethical and political…The ethic of
this hermeneutics is an ethic of respect and trust that calls for solidarity" (Dostal, 32).
Furthermore, Gadamer's hermeneutics moves on to elaborately explicate the notion of
human understanding. In his masterpiece, Truth and Method (1960), Gadamer emphasizes
the necessity of distinguishing between two forms of understanding; the understanding of the
truth – content and the understanding of intentions. The second kind of comprehension
involves "a knowledge of conditions". It entails an awareness of the "psycological,
biographical, or historical conditions behind a claim or action" (Warnke, 8). According to
Gadamer, understanding in its strongest sense involves the first form of perception, as a
substantive conception of truth. "In contrast, the second, intentional, form of understanding
becomes necessary when attempts to achieve an understanding of truth fail" (8).
Consequently, hermeneutics is supposed
to exhibit the inner truth that inheres in a given claim so that its audience can

16. 16
understand and learn from it…As hermeneutics develops, however, attention
is redirected away from the understanding of the truth – content of a text and
toward the understanding of intentions. (9)
Thus, a hermeneutical analysis of a text is indispensible whenever the content of a text no
longer makes sense; and the only question that ought to be raised is "what the author intended
to say" (14). And just because understanding depends on application, perception turns out to
be a productive activity. Human beings tend to comprehend differently, each in his own
manner, accordingly,
to understand something means to have related it to ourselves in such a way
that we discover in it an answer to our questions – but our own that these
questions, too, are assimilated in a tradition and metamorphosed by it.
(Grondin, 116)
Hence, human understanding is after all an "agreement". People usually perceive one another
immediately, or they communicate until they reach at a state of harmony. "Reaching an
understanding is thus always reaching an agreement about something" (Warnke, 9).
Consequently, the aim of understanding is no longer seen as a substantive knowledge, but
rather "as insight into the historical and biographical circumstances behind the expression"
(9). An individual's conception of an action requires a historical description of it. When a
person arrives at an understanding of a text, "he has not only projected himself
understandingly towards a meaning…but the accomplished understanding constitutes a new
state of intellectual freedom" (Thisleton, 217). An individual's perception is a mode of
freedom and rationality.
On his hundred birthday, the astute philosopher announces that the sole "being that
can be understood is language" (Dostal, 29). According to Gadamer, humans understand by
articulating a meaning, a thing or an event into words; "words that are always mine, but at the
same time those of what I strive to understand" (41). For Gadamer, the terms understanding,
application and translation are almost equivalent; "the meaning that is to be understood is
always one that needs to be translated" (43). A listener is taken up by what he strives to
comprehend; "he responds, interprets, searches for words or articulation and thus
understands" (43). Accordingly, language has the authority of revealing new truths; it
"enables us to see the world in a new way" (Thisleton, 223). Gadamer utilizes the concept of
disclosure; after all, language "discloses our world, not our environmental scientific world or
universe, but our life world" (224). "Language for Gadamer means language in use, never a

17. 17
set of tools as vocabulary, grammar, syntax and so on. Language is used in conversation"
(Dostal, 186). Language is the sphere dominating the whole process of human understanding.
In fact, "language embodies the sole means for carrying out the conversation that we are and
what we hope to convey to each other" (Grondin, 120). In making sense out of a written
literary text, a reader has to search for the 'inner word', a word that is never spoken, yet
"resounds in everything that is said" (119). "What is stated is not everything. The unsaid is
what first makes what is stated into a word that can reach us" (119). Hence, the
corresponding realization of the 'inner word' is what grants hermeneutics its universal feature.
The universality of hermeneutics arises from the fact that "the quest for understanding and
language is not merely a methodological problem but a fundamental characteristic of human
facticity" (121). Thus, Gadamer's hermeneutics is designed to "demonstrate the universally
and specifically hermeneutical character of our experience of the world" (115). Gadamer
concludes that language is the medium of hermeneutical experience. Everything in life is
hermeneutical; "no assertation is possible that cannot be understood as an answer to question"
(Thisleton, 218). According to Gadamer's hermeneutic phenomenon, there is nothing in the
world that cannot be understood as the answer of a question; "and can only be understood
thus" (Grondin, 119).
Gadamer's philosophy is factually grounded "in his practice of appreciating works of
art, doing history and interpreting texts" (Dostal, 179). “As a part of the tradition in which we
stand, historical texts have an authority that precedes our own. Yet, this authority is kept alive
only to the extent that is recognized by the present” (Bjorn). In describing the significance of
literary texts for hermeneutics, Gadamer introduces the notion of "play". Surprisingly, the
reader turns into a player, and the literary work becomes the sphere of this game! The "play
fulfils its purpose only if the player loses himself in the game" (Gadamer, 102). The rules of
the game exist regardless of whoever takes the game. Although, players have to identify
themselves with the act of playing, yet they have to abide by the regulations of the "play".
These conventions determine how the participants "act and the world in which they live"
(103). And just because individuals understand differently, they also get to "play"
distinctively; the outcome is a wide range of interpretations or "presentations". (Thisleton,
213). Even though,
each presentation or performance may vary from the previous one, but the
presentations are united in the nature of the game or the work of art…The
actual reality of the play or of a work of art cannot be detached from its
presentation. (213)
Gadamer's hermeneutics call for a dialogue between the text and the interpreter. Humans
perceive differently; every time an individual understands, he brings a new truth to the world.
After all, hermeneutics is concerned with the general relationship of man to the world.

18. 18
In 1987, Arthur Miller published his masterpiece, Danger. Memory. The volume is
comprised of two brilliant plays; I Can't Remember Anything and Clara. I Can't remember
Anything is about Leo, an ageing man and his female friend, Leonora, who meet in the living
room - kitchen of a country house which itself shows signs of decay and decline. The one act
performance "explores the uses to which we put the past, the sometimes fluid, sometimes
occluded nature of memory", it is all about "trying to not to remember. Memory is the
danger" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 360). Striving to reach an
understanding of their selves as well others, Leo and Leonora appear to be two sides of the
same personality. With her name representing the female version of his name, they are both
icons of similarity and semblance. Thrust into a ruthless lonesome present, Leo and Leonora
endeavor to make sense of their painful lengthy days. "Leonora appears perky but is angry
and frightened because everything that has made life meaningful has slipped out of
reach…Her Alzheimer-like memory lapses have even robbed her ability to relive the past"
(http://www.curtain up.com/yankeehtml).
In the initial line of the performance, Miller specifies that "the time is now".
Interestingly, the plot time runs parallel with the present and performance times. Yet, every
single element in the opening set up of the play is a referent of history. The "repaired" chairs
with "needle and thread" and "the well-worn modern chair" are symbols of a decent past life
that was once vivid with verve and excitement (I Can't Remember Anything, 3). Conversely,
the term 'modern' is a signified of the present time, demanding an urgent telepathy with the
past. The couple of "fine dusty landscapes on one wall as well as tacked up photos and a few
drunken line drawings of dead friends "continue to act as signifiers of a time that has already
gone by (3). As Leo sits at the table reading the newspaper, he is portrayed by Miller as a
worn-out man, in an old tattered outfit; "there are a few patches on his denim shirt and his
pants are nothing but patches" (3). Bitterly, the recurrence of 'patches' acts as a metaphor
which highlights the present and future of those two folks. Discarding their past, Leo's and
Leonora's existence is nothing but a piece of old ragged cloth. As Leonora joins Leo, the
reader learns that she "has a New England speech overlaid with European aristocratic
coloration of which, however, she is not aware" (3). Astonishingly, this is a woman who "is
not aware" of her own reality; she signifies a grave state of self denial. Hence, from now on,
Leonora will have to struggle for her Self - realization."Any act of understanding is itself
historical, and all our interpretations are themselves part of the stream of history itself"
(Jasper, 106). "For her part, she refuses to recall the past, a happiness which only serves to
render her present absurd. Her forgetfulness is part real, part willed" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur
Miller: A Critical Study).
Failing to reach at an understanding of her own situation and being, Leonora has lost
the will to survive; "I don't care, everything tastes the same to me" (I Can't Remember
Anything, 4). She cannot grasp why she is still alive; "I can't for life in me figure out why I
haven't died" (7). Shockingly, death is the savior Leonora longs for. Subconsciously, she
believes she ought not to be alive, while her beloved husband had passed away. As opposed
to Leonora, Leo endeavors to hit upon relief through caring for others; and locating a noble
purpose for his existence.

19. 19
Leo: By the way, if you come in here one night and I'm dead, I want you to call
Yale New Haven Hospital and not this … whatever you call him … mortician
what's his name in town.
Leonora: What good is a hospital if you're dead, for God's sake?
Leo: I just finished making arrangements for them to take my organs.
Leonora: Really! (5 – 6)
Thinking beyond mortality, Leo is trying to make his continuation effective. By donating his
organs to science, he can help reduce the anguish and affliction of Other people. At this point,
Leo is able to reach at a rational understanding of his own self and situation. He has attained
Gadamer's goal of hermeneutical understanding, which is the "discovery of the original
intentions behind the events" (Warnke, 24). As a rational experienced individual; Leo is
characterized by "his openness to new experiences" (171).
Leo, once a teacher, maintains a purchase on life, seeking no transcendent
purpose beyond existence itself, aware of his friend's pain but not capitulating to
it, indeed quietly offering such consolation as he can. He arranges to leave his
organs to the local hospital, allowing himself to think beyond the fact of his death,
which he refuses to see as an absolute ending breeding nothing but absurdity.
(Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 361)
He is constantly reading the newspapers to maintain a connection with the world and the
present – day. "Leonora: There is nothing in the paper, is there? Leo: Yes, a few things.
Leonora: Well don't tell it to me, it's all too horrible" (I Can't Remember Anything, 6).
Leonora utilizes the term 'horrible' as a signifier of her hideous and shocking subsistence; one
that lacks any sort of "purpose" or "belief" (7). Leonora has got to regain faith; "Gadamer
returns us to the question of the hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion, and
he suggests that, ultimately, in our reading we have to decide between one and the other"
(Jasper, 106). Failing to grasp her history, herself or her relation to others, Leonora moans:
I used to believe as a girl; I mean – we were taught to believe – that everything

20. 20
has its purpose. You know what I'm referring to … Well in New England you
tended to believe those things! But what purpose have I got? I am totally useless
to myself, my children, my grandchildren and the one or two people I suppose I
can call my friends who aren't dead. (7)
Leonora's rejection of the present is born out of the burial of a once joyful past. She "feels
stranded, with no future to look at and no past that she cares to recall, since to do so would be
to remind herself of the irony of her life" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study,
361). Her total existence turns out to be 'useless'; she is 'useless' to herself, and 'useless' to all
others whom she loves!
Dumping her history in a tormented subconscious, Leonora is unsuccessful at
attaining any sort of truth. “For Gadamer, the past has a truly pervasive power in the
phenomenon of understanding” (E. Linge). Leonora is tormented by her lack of
understanding; Gadamer argues that all humans " understand and strive for truth because we
are led on by expectations of meaning" (Grondin, 111). Occasionally, she is even unable to
distinguish between what is real and what is not; "sometimes … I think I remember
something, but then I wonder if I just imagined it. My whole life often seems imaginary. It's
very strange" (I Can't Remember Anything, 8). Leonora experiences a paralysis of memory;
her existence is one of inability and uncertainty. The expressions 'think' and 'wonder' are
referents of doubt and disbelief, whereas 'imagined' and 'imaginary' are signifiers of a bogus
understanding of herself as well as others. Hence, Leonora is totally incapable of
"overcoming the complete alienation "of her own experience (Warnke, 10). In an attempt to
offer Leonora a genuine stimulation for living, Leo suggests that she makes herself busy with
a noble cause; "why don't you try to get people to donate their organs to Yale New Haven?
You can just sit at home with the phone book and make calls" (I Can't Remember Anything,
8). Still, Leonora is obstinate and chooses to subsist in a state of denial of her Self and the
Other. She protests, "you mean I'm to telephone perfect strangers and ask them for their
organs?" (8). At this point, the Other for Leonora is a total 'stranger'. She is unable to
accomplish Gadamer's "mark of an experienced person", she cannot attain "openness to new
experiences" (Warnke, 171). As the couple sit at the table for dinner, Leonora announces that
she "simply cannot remember anything at all" (I Can't Remember Anything, 9). She merely
"can't keep anything straight" (11). While being trapped in a malicious circle of negations,
like 'can't' and 'anything', Leonora's past has become a total 'stranger' to her. She 'can't' recall
any of the awesome dinners which she and her husband used to invite their friends to. She
forgot all the remarkable times they used to spend together:
Leo: On gigot. You had a wonderful touch with any kind of lamb, you always had
it nice and pink, with just enough well – done at the ends; and the best bread I

21. 21
think I ever ate.
Leonora: Really!
Leo: You don't remember Frederick holding the bread to his chest, and that way
he had of pulling the knife across it?
Slight pause.
Leonora: Well, what difference does it make?
Leo: I don't know, it's just a damn shame to forget all that. (11)
For Leonora remembrance and forgetfulness bear no difference; understanding shall
inevitably end up with a major 'nothing'. She is "a typical Beckettian figure who has
wandered in a Miller play" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 361). She
announces; "look at those millions of people starving to death all over the place, does anyone
remember them? Why should I remember myself more than I remember them?" (I Can't
remember Anything, 11). Hence to 'remember' is to endure the pain of the Self and the Other.
Memory connotes human mortality and frailty; it turns out to be an icon of agony and
tenderness. Thus, for a weak - willed person like Leonora, lack of memory can be an eluding
easy solution. Her desperation reaches its peak when she shamefully wonders that; "when I
do think of anything like that – it is like some page in a book I once read. Don't you often
forget what you've read in a book? What earthly difference does it make? "(11). Leonora
draws a simile to account for her own existence. Her precedent life is no more than a book
she had read long ago, of which she cannot recollect anything. With a blank history, Leonora
reaches the point where nothing makes a 'difference'.
As Leonora attempts to "look out of the window" (12), the reader can identify her
symbolic attempt to grasp some sort of reality and sense; above all hermeneutics seeks "for
meaning" (Jasper, 13). Throughout the performance, Miller establishes a connection between
the endeavour to perceive an understanding and the characters peeping through the window.
The window is a metaphor of life. For a while, she can finally recall something; she can
remember the record her only son once sent her from India. For the first time, the reader can
perceive Leonora trying to fight back her uncertainty and forgetfulness.
Leo: Another record? Oh Christ.
Leonora (uncertain): He never sent me a record before.
Leo: Sure he did, about three years ago, that goddam Indian music, it was
horrible.

22. 22
Leonora: Yes, I remember now … It was wonderful for a certain mood. (
12)
The adverb 'uncertain' is a signifier of a state of severe loss which Leonora is attempting to
strive. On the other hand, the usage of the antonym 'sure' points to an entirely opponent
approach of being. Leo can grasp history; he can perfectly recall his past as well as Leonora's.
In fact, his positivism can sometimes push Leonora to remember something. However, the
deictic 'now' establishes a temporary type of conception; unfortunately, it is only for 'now'
and not for long. As she reads another recent letter from her son Lawrence, Leonora fails at
identifying his wife.
Leonora: Moira? Who is Moira? (She stares ahead tensely, struggling to
remember).
Leo: Sounds like somebody he married.
He hands back the note. Her eyes moisten with tears which she blinks away,
looking at the record. (12)
At this point, Miller confirms that Leonora's absentmindedness seizes to bring her relief. Her
sense of distress is intensified through the use of the referents 'tensely' and 'struggling'. As
'her eyes moisten with tears', Leonora makes an effort to conceal the pain she senses from her
partner by 'blinking away and looking at the record'. Hence, failure at an understanding of
one's own situation and history shall inevitably bring forth immense suffering and agony.
"Our historical situatedness does not only limit what we know with certainty; it can also teach
us how to remember and integrate what we must not forget" (Warnke, 174).
Different as they are, Leo and Leonora "have more in common than at first appears"
(Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 362). Brought down by age and frailty, Leo
also yearns for his former youthful days. Checking out some of his friend's calculations that
he made for the new bridge in town; he announces to Leonora:
Leo: But everything keeps slipping out of my head. I could do this stuff in
twenty minutes and now I can't calculate worth a damn.
Leonora: Well now you know what I mean.
Leo: That was one thing I admired about Frederick, he never once slowed down

23. 23
mentally.
Leonora: Didn't he?
Leo: For Christ's sake, you remember whether he slowed down mentally, don't
you?
Leonora: Well I'm sorry if it irritates you!
Leo: It doesn't 'irritate' me, I just don't think you ought to be forgetting that, that's
all – the man was sharp as a tack to his last minute. (I Can't Remember
Anything, 13)
They are both tormented by death of loved ones and the incapacity brought about by days.
Significantly, the human mind is compared to a vast container that empties its contents with
time. Leo understands and acknowledges human imperfection. As opposed to Leonora he
accepts it, and attempts to survive it. Hermeneutics advocates that like the limited human
mind the quest for sense shall always be left incomplete; "history can never represent a whole
for a historical consciousness and such consciousness will therefore always be limited"
(Warnke, 19). Symbolically, Leo participating in the building of a new bridge is a sign of
major tolerance and understanding. The bridge can transcend the gaps between the past and
the present, and eventually lead to a better future. Hence, the 'bridge' is a symbol of
continuity and permanence. Whilst Leo admires Leonora's late husband's mental capacities,
he is struck with her not recalling any of those traits. At this point, he feels truly irritated and
rebuked; his use of subsequent negations like 'doesn't' and 'don't think' signify his
denunciation of Leonora's approach to life. He believes that she can't continue to overlook all
the momentous happenings of her past. The verb 'ought' brings about a sense of urgency and
insistence. Leonora has to recall her history as soon as she can.
Leo's vast tolerance and forbearance of the defective Other is intensified through
Leonora's criticism of the dentist he recommended for her.
Leonora: What gets into you? You are forever sending me to doctors and
dentists who are completely incompetent. That man nearly killed me with his
drill. Why do you do that?
Leo: I don't know, he seemed ok for a while there.
Leonora: It was the same thing with awful plumber. And that idiotic man who
fixed the roof and let me in a downpour. I think there is something the matter

24. 24
with you; you get these infatuations with an individual and just when you get
everybody going to them you stop going.
Leo: He seemed like a nice guy, I don't know. (14)
Open minded as he is, Leo never fails to give the Other a chance. His judgment of other folks
is only a matter of a first impression; for people always 'seem ok' to him. However, as
Leonora pinpoints, there is something 'wrong' with that; for it entails some sort of naivety and
lack of sophistication. As a rational individual, he has to discern between what is genuine and
what is not. Depth is an essential exponent of understanding, for "hermeneutics explores the
conditions and criteria that operate to try to ensure responsible, valid, fruitful or appropriate
interpretation" (Thistleton, 4). After all, Leo is human and there are times when he finds
himself incapable of reaching a conventional perception.
Hence, as they go on with their conversation, the reader can sense that Leo and
Leonora are making an effort to perceive one another. They are "two characters who are
accustomed to one another, to their vulnerabilities, their incapacities and their habits"
(Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 361).
(She drinks. He does his puzzle).
Leo: You know it's Fredrick's birthday tomorrow.
Leonora: (With a faint guilt in her eye). Tomorrow?
He gives her an impatient nearly angry look.
Why do you look at me like that? I simply didn't think of it. (With defiance.) I
never think of anything. I just drive around the country side and look at the
trees; they are strong and proud and they live a long time, and I love them very
much. (She is filling up, takes a breath to suppress her feeling.) Everything is
so awful, Leo; really and truly this is not the same country. (I Can't Remember
Anything, 15)
By seeking comfort in the bottle, Leonora tries to wash away memories of her past life with
her husband instead of cherishing their years together. As she drinks to forget, Leo works on
stimulating his mental abilities through fitting together a puzzle. Hence, doing a puzzle
connotes to Gadamer's question and answer as a form of understanding; "successful
understanding can be described as the effective historical concretion of the dialectic of
question and answer" (Grondin, 117). Their practices reveal diverse methodologies of being.

25. 25
However, Leonora's poor memory is never free of self blame. With 'guilt' in her eyes, she
secretly reproaches herself for not remembering Frederick's birthday. As she repeats
'tomorrow' in a questioning manner, Leo gets really enraged. The effect of her speech on him
is intensified through the usage of the perlocutionary adjectives 'impatient' and 'angry'.
Witnessing his rage, Leonora attempts at justifying her bizarre attitude to Leo as well as to
herself. She is just extremely exhausted trying to perceive her lonesome existence;
eventually, she decides not to think at all. She confesses that she 'simply didn't think of it', for
she 'never thinks of anything'. For the first time, the reader can scope the real reason of
Leonora's torment; she is unable to recover the death of her husband. In fact, she cannot
acknowledge mortality as a logical end of all human experiences. Leonora drives around the
'countryside', trying to hit upon forms of the existence she had always dreamt of. She
condemns her human vulnerability and yearns for a soul that is as 'strong' and 'proud' as trees.
In short, Leonora wishes she was ruthless, for the pain she has to endure is far beyond her
capacity. Hence, the referent 'awful' signifies a brutal hideous existence, that lacks any
understanding of the Self or the Other.
Taking Leo's advice to keep herself busy with some gracious cause, Leonora thinks
that maybe she can multiply her donations to charity organizations. Helping out others and
reducing their sufferings can be a source of contentment and recompense; "Leonora: But
there are so many of those children. Would five thousand seem too much? I'd like it to
matter" (15). Although she wished she was heartless, Leonora's heart still beats with mercy
and secret consideration for the Other. She aspires to make a difference in this oppressed
universe. Leo remembers its Leonora's birthday as well.
He works his crossword puzzle. She sips, stares out of the window.
Leo: It's your birthday too, of course.
She glances at him, he returns to his puzzle.
Happy birthday.
She stares front, a certain distress in her eyes.
I think there is no reason not to tell you…I still miss him. He was the greatest
man I ever met in my life.
Leonora: Was he? (17)
As Leonora stares out of the window', the reader can identify a metaphoric attempt for
understanding. She is tired of forgetfulness and ignorance; and aspires a genuine truth.
Semiotically, Leonora's birthday is an index of rebirth and a new start. It is about time that
she wakes up from her extended sleep and proceeds with her life. Leo tries to convince her

26. 26
that grief can never be separated from existence. He too longs for his friend; he remembers
him every single day, yet he accepts his death and muddles through it. The use of deictic 'still'
points to the persistence of ache; it is something that never fades away with time! Moreover,
Leo wishing Leonora a 'happy birthday' mirrors genuine sympathy for her; it is an auspicious
moment of caring for the Other. Leonora continues to unveil the cause of her torture and
denial;
Leonora: (after a long sip and an inhale). He shouldn't have died first Leo.
Leo: I know. (pause). Just in case you come in here some night and find me dead; I
think he would have wanted you to … live. I'm sure of that, Kiddo.
Leonora: We were married just a month over forty – five years; that's a very long
time Leo.
Leo: But even so… (17)
Her sorrow reaches its peak as she proclaims that Frederick 'shouldn't have died first'.
Consequently, Leonora's distorted understanding is born out of an intolerance of death. As
she lets out the most intimate heartfelt sentiments, Leonora starts to summon up certain
features of her past. Married for over 'forty five years', she fails to 'live' after her husband.
She dumps their history together; and pretends not to care about anything in the world.
However, her trusted friend, Leo, never seizes to be her inner voice of truth. 'But even so', she
has to let go and 'live'. The imperative 'live' carries a sense of urgency and determination with
it. It is a signifier of hope and continuity. He insists on awakening a sense of 'life' in her;
"you're twelve years older than me and you have got more life in me than I have. Chrissake
you hardly look sixty five…You might have ten years to go yet…" (18). Leonora has to
acknowledge her past losses if she is to arrive at any present perception.
Trying to take in the reality of the Other, Leonora is mystified at Leo's insistence on
reading the papers. "Leonora: I mean you go on and on reading that stupid newspaper with
the same vileness every day, the same brutality, the same lies…? Leo: Well, I like to know
what is happening" (18). She wonders at his positivism; when everything they are part of is
getting more 'vile' and 'brutal'. How come he can 'go on and on' and possess such a sense of
continuity? Amazingly, Leo's answer can be redeemed a faultless definition of hermeneutics;
he 'likes to know what is happening'. Leo is after a genuine truth of living, one that he, as
well as others can learn from. After all, "it is through experience and time that we come to
recognize what is appropriate and what is not", (Dostal, 45). Striving at a deeper knowledge
of the Other, Leonora calls out to Leo; "Leonora: Because after thirty or forty or whatever
goddamned awful number it is, you are still a sort of strangeness to me. I ought to know you
by now, oughtn't I? Well I don't. I don't know you Leo" (I Can't Remember Anything, 20).

27. 27
Leonora demands some familiarity to help her out of the 'strangeness' she has become part of.
The perseverance reflected in 'ought' signifies a genuine will for amendment. Moreover, the
verb 'know' is a metonymy of knowledge and understanding. The deictic 'now' highlights the
urgency of change; referring to the present time, it juxtaposes the long suppressed past in '
thirty or forty…number it is'. And since hermeneutics is all about "the never ending story of
interpretation" (Jasper, 23); Leonora is finally after affirmations, for she is fed up with fluid
negations. She has to 'know'. On the perlocutionary level of speech, Leo is "mystified but
impressed with the depth of her feeling" (20). As he hits the highest point of tolerance of the
Other, Leo is exceedingly touched by the intensity of Leonora's feelings. He is 'impressed'
with her authentic will to alter fate. Furthermore, he attempts to place her on the right track of
acceptance and acquiescence; "so if you are wondering why you are alive … maybe it is
because you are, that's all, and that is the whole goddamn reason. Maybe you are so nervous
because you keep looking for some other reason and there isn't any" (21). It is quite pointless
regretting the fact that she is 'alive', she has to accept and go on living.
With the play approaching its end, the couple decide to play the record sent by
Leonora's son, Lawrence.
Music: a Samba beat but with wild, lacy arpeggios and a driving underbeat.
They both listen for a moment.
Leo: (he is pleasantly surprised). Chrissake that's nothing but a Samba.
She listens.
Isn't it? (He moves his shoulders to the beat). It's just a plain old fashion
Samba, for Christ's sake.
She begins to move to it. She is remarkably nimble, taking little expert steps …
and her sensuality provokes and embarrasses him, making him laugh tightly.
You dancing, for Christ' sake? (22)
As the music plays; "they move back into the past from which she has been so intent on
distancing herself and in that past they are fully alive again" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A
Critical Study, 361). The act of 'listening' to the 'old' Samba tune connotes the voice of
former days stepping back to the foreground. Starting to 'move to it', Leonora reclaims her
memory back. Suddenly, she is vivid with life; she is 'wild' and 'sensual' as she has always
been in her good 'old' days.
She lets herself into the dance fully now, and he lets his laughter flower, and

28. 28
laughing he struggles to his feet and unable to move more than an inch at a
time, he swings his shoulders instead, clapping his gnarled hands. And she
faces him tauntingly, reddening with shyness and her flaunting emotions; one
moment bent over and backing nearly into him, the next thumbing her nose at
him, and as the music explodes to its crescendo she falls into a chair,
breathless and he collapses into another and they both sit there laughing,
trying to breathe. The music ends. (I Can't Remember Anything, 22)
As Leonora lets herself 'dance fully now', she attains harmony and bliss. At last, she can
enjoy something. The repeated 'laughter' and 'laughing' are signifiers of inner peace and
contentment. Restoring her history, Leonora is able to achieve self – realization; she is herself
once again. Moreover, 'facing' each other 'tauntingly', Leo and Leonora accomplish an
unspoiled knowledge of the Other.
For all her seeming misanthropy, they generate meaning out of one another's
presence, offering consolation even in their arguments, watching over one
another. If there is an elegiac tone it is because beneath the confusions, the
willful refusals to recall, the apparent loss of coherence, dignity and purpose,
is a resilience that recalls a time before decay and decline came to seem the
determining qualities of experience. (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical
Study, 362)
Ironically, the past becomes a reminder of human futility as well as that of life. It represents a
state of happiness and acceptance which Leonora fails to attain the present. As she "starts for
the door", Leonora thanks Leo for "remembering our birthday" (I Can't Remember
Anything, 23). The deictic 'our' points to an ultimate concurrence of her losses.
Leo: Leonora?
She halts.
We could have a lot more interesting conversations if you'd stop saying you

29. 29
can't remember anything.
Leonora: Or if you could occasionally learn to accept bad news?
Leo: (Waving her off, going toward his bedroom). Call me when you get
Home. (24)
Hence, I Can't Remember Anything closes where the characters finally accomplish an
understanding of the Self and the Other. The one act performance is a request for a
hermeneutical perception, that is to be attained through tolerance as well as recognition of
public and personal history.
Clara portrays the massive shock of Albert Kroll; whose only daughter, Clara, has
been discovered dead in her apartment. Brutally murdered, the slayer of Clara Kroll is still
anonymous. As the play sets off, the reader is introduced to detective Fine as the officer in
charge of the case. In a state of utter disbelief, Kroll is "unable to comprehend what has
happened and is resistant to thinking of his daughter as in the past tense or even
acknowledging her death" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 362). However, as
he is being questioned by lieutenant Fine, Albert Kroll recalls seemingly irrelevant facts
about his own life. Forcing himself to summon up the glorious as well as the dishonorable
instances of his past; Kroll eventually manages to accept his painful present loss.
Consequently, Clara tackles the heartbreaking process through which Kroll attains a
realization of his self as well as his present situation. "It is a play in which time becomes
plastic, in which the past explodes into the present with such force that it leaves Kroll numb,
unable fully to articulate, face to face with his own former self as with the daughter he has
loved and lost" (363).
The performance takes place at Clara's apartment; the "living room of Clara Kroll's
apartment – office. All the action is confined to a small lighted area downstage. Beyond it are
suggestions of the room which in a few feet are swiftly lost in the surrounding darkness"
(Clara, 27). As the play commences, the reader is encountered with a description which
evokes a gist of darkness and lack of vision. The living room of Clara Kroll is 'small lighted';
whereas everything else in the house is 'lost' in 'darkness'. Hence, the dark gloomy ambience
is a signifier of Kroll's blocked memory and perplexed self. Unable to comprehend his
current condition, Kroll throws out his past as it only yields a sense of guilt and self –
reproach. However, "the reflection of a camera flash illuminates the darkness for a second"
(27). The 'flash' of the 'camera' that only lasts for a 'second' is a symbol of truth and self –
realization; an imperative task that has to be attained by the protagonist.
Throughout the drama, Miller refers to Clara Kroll as an icon of tolerance and
favorable reception of the Other. She was able to understand herself as well as others around
her; "understanding is no method but rather a form of community among those who
understand each other" (Grondin, x). As Kroll remembers his daughter during the
investigation, he can only bring forth images of an amiable person who did nothing but care

30. 30
for others. Detective Fine wonders how Clara came to live in an exceedingly precarious
neighborhood.
Kroll: Oh, it goes back a long way with her; she was hardly fifteen, sixteen
when she got this job going in Poughkeepsie all hours of the night; teaching
these women how to take care of children, nutrition, so on. Just never knew
what fear was.
Fine: I notice there is only one lock on the door.
Kroll: I'm surprised there's that one! (32)
Since she was fifteen, Clara has lived her life for others. She would stay 'all hours of the
night' instructing folks how to love and watch over one another. As an epitome of ardor and
genuine devotion, Clara never distrusted any of her neighbors. The negation in 'never knew
what fear was' is an affirmation of Clara's inner peace and reconciliation. With her
indisputable affection for people, Clara was the bravest of them all.
Kroll: Even as a child, this great big dog came charging down the street,
snarling, snapping, people running into their houses, they thought he was
rabid maybe, and there is Clara playing in the front yard with her doll and just
holds out her hand… (He holds out his hand.) and that dog stopped in his
tracks, quieted right and just sat. (32)
The grieving Kroll resumes recalling past episodes that reflect his daughter's devoted nature.
The dog incident portrays Clara as a fearless child. If all 'people' were 'running', with fear,
'into their houses', young Clara was the only one to stay. 'Holding out her hand' is a metaphor
of support and assistance offered to the Other. Hence, Clara's fearlessness and tender courage
has 'quieted' the 'snarling' and 'snapping' beast; it has brought about the best of the Other. As
Kroll 'holds out his hand', the reader can perceive the pungent longing for a lost child.
Miller's genius is magnified as the dead Clara shows up on stage. In an instance
where the past is woven into the present; "Clara is entering with the bird cage, waggling her
finger at the bird" (38). Amazingly, the thoughts of Albert Kroll are represented in
performance. The man's yearning and sense of loss are so intense that they become almost

31. 31
real! Hence, the traditional dramatic technique of past reporting has been converted into a
live event. Clara holding the 'bird cage' is a recurrent symbol of worshipping the Other. She is
perpetually seen reaching out for other creatures, once it was a dog, then it is a bird, and
eventually it is her Hispanic lover .Consequently, Clara has existed only to make things
better. Miller resumes to force the past into the present. Kroll has to acknowledge his history
and accept his deformed Self, there is no other way he could ever perceive the present.
Kroll: What's the use? She would always give you the same answer … 'If
my work requires me to be in a place … '
He continues mouthing the words as:
Clara: ' … people somehow know it and they never hassle me.'
Kroll (simultaneously): 'Never hassle me.'
She moves into darkness. Now he sits staring into the air; fine keeps going
through the file. (38)
As Kroll recalls how he used to be concerned about Clara; their voices merge into one and
the deceased daughter is brought about to speak. Clara had a never – ending trust of the
Other, she never expected anyone to 'hassle' her. The repetition of the verb 'hassle' evokes the
violence and aggression awaiting Clara. Brutality is not that far from her as she had thought.
As Clara 'moves into darkness', Kroll is seen disoriented; 'staring into the air'. The violence
"he has witnessed in his society has disrupted his former faith and idealism" (Bigsby, 2005,
Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 364). Hence, Miller's actualization of Clara on stage is
intended to achieve a bond between her and the reader. With so many heartrending instances
of Clara's dedication to the Other, the audience is to perceive the significance of tolerance
and forbearance.
As the play progresses, it becomes quite evident that Clara's Hispanic boyfriend is
the assassin. Miller makes use of the flashback technique to sketch the fateful instant of Clara
introducing her lover to the family. Kroll is shocked to learn that the Latin spouse had been
previously imprisoned for murdering a woman.
Fine goes motionless and light dulls on him. Clara moves now.
Clara: He has two things that are a lot like you, Daddy. He's soft and he's
strong. And he's overcome so much that we can't even imagine. But it has
made him deeper, you see? It's made him love life more…

32. 32
Kroll: I don't understand enough about the mind, darling. How can a man
ever kill a woman?
Clara: But you've killed.
Kroll: In a war. That's a different thing.
Clara: But you understand rage. You weren't firing from a distance or
dropping bombs from a plane… (44-45)
Again the meeting is represented live on stage. Clara declares that her lover is similar to Kroll
in so many various ways. The contradiction between 'soft' and 'strong' points to the non-static
nature of Kroll; with a series
of contradicting selves which has the appearance of order and coherence but
is, in truth fragmented. The many denials which sustain that coherence
break down under the influence of his daughter's violent death. His idealism
is suddenly juxtaposed with a pragmatism that has darkened towards
criminality. He has betrayed more than a daughter. He has betrayed
his own youthful self. The echo of that self remains, in a reluctant
liberalism, but it co-exists with actions which, if confronted, would threaten
his own carefully sustained self – image. (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A
Critical Study, 363)
Miller tackles the vague concept of murder. 'Killing' another human being in a war is one
form of homicide, even if people attempt to make of it a heroic act. Murder is never
'different'; it will always continue to be the worst of all human vices. Hence, slaughter and
'rage' are absolutely inseparable. Violence is in the vicinity when there is no 'understanding';
for 'rage' is the result of the intolerance of the Other. Kroll's failure to reach at a perception of
his present state of affairs is elaborated in his declaration; 'I don't understand'. Furthermore,
the repetition of the verb 'understand' is a reminder of the worth of coming to terms with the
Self and the Other.
Clara is about the expedition of Albert Kroll from self-denial to erudition and
forbearance. And since hermeneutics advocates that a literary "text can offer us more than

33. 33
literal, historical or scientific truth" (Jasper, 13), the play raises the question of 'how to
sustain values in the face of accumulating evidence of their betrayal" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur
Miller: A Critical Study, 364). Paradoxically, it is through Clara's death that Kroll is,
eventually, able to reconcile with his former self! After suffering from a severe state of
memory failure, Kroll gradually sets off to regain his past. As he strives to confront his
history and personal frailties, he can ultimately tolerate his present demise. Hence, Clara
elaborates the protagonist's "reversal of consciousness" (Warnke, 26); it undertakes the
inauspicious moment when he comes to discern the falsehood of all his former beliefs. In
effect, the performance uncovers how Kroll comes to attain Gadamer's self – understanding
by means of self – encounter. For years, Albert Kroll has worked as the Chairman of the
Zoning Board. He has always supported the building of cheap houses which will allow the
influx of the poor and the black; those in fact who are believed to bring about the virus of
violence to the neighborhood.
It is plainly his daughter's Puerto Rican lover who killed her, though it
takes the whole of the play for Kroll to bring his name to mind. He
cannot, at first, accept it because his whole life seems to have laid the
foundation for the murder. It is his own name he protects, rather than that
of the killer. In effect, Clara's life has been sacrificed to uphold views he
no longer holds and a self that is no longer what he has represented it to
be. (362)
At first, the reader can perceive Kroll as reluctant to admitting his daughter's existence
in the past tense. He can scarcely make anything out of the situation he discovers himself in.
Fine: How old was Clara, by the way?
Kroll: She's ... let's see …
Fine: Was.
Kroll: What?
Fine: She was.
Kroll: Oh. Yes. God. (Slight pause.) Twenty eight last July. (Clara,
33)

34. 34
Trying to impel Kroll to put up with his present reality, Fine reiterates that Clara 'was', and
not 'is'. The repetition of 'was' is an acknowledgment of death in all its ugliness and
bitterness. In effect, the recalling of what 'was' is a necessity to accept what 'is'.
That detective, meanwhile, offers a disturbing and curious parallel to
Kroll. He is Jewish and has had to struggle with the same racism that
Kroll has engaged. His son is dead, 'shot dead by propaganda that he had
some kind of debt to pay', a propaganda that he had himself failed to
deny. He understands Kroll not because he is so much different
from him, but because he is so much the same. (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur
Miller, A Critical Study, 363)
It is about time that Kroll grasps his present through accommodating to the past. He has to
survive the relentless sense of guilt, if he is to attain Gadamer's self – realization.
Kroll:…I don't know, I guess I am just talking, it's that you just can't ever
let yourself rely on anything staying the way it is.
He suddenly cries out in paroxysms of horror and clamps his hands over
eyes, and continues crying out with great heaves of breath. Fine does not
move, watching him as gradually his cries weaken and he goes silent.
Fine: It's up to you, but in my experience it's generally better to talk
about it. What you can't chase you'd better face or it will start chasing
you, know what I mean? I'd appreciate if we could talk right now,
because whoever did this has a big headstart on me and I would like very
much to catch up with him. (Clara, 30-31)

35. 35
Kroll's upheaval reaches its peak as he cries out that he does not 'know'. Hence, lack of
knowledge turns out to be the most horrible of all human torments. As he speaks, Kroll fails
to locate any solid ground that he can 'rely' on. With no self – support whatsoever, Kroll
experiences a severe panic attack. As he blocks his memory and past, he is brushed off by the
enormous tide of change; for nothing ever 'stays the way it is'. The deictic 'suddenly' points to
the protagonist's loss of control; with a denied self – realization, Kroll shall never have a hold
over his own life. The word 'horror' is a signifier of tremendous terror and fright. As he
'clamps his hands over eyes', the reader can discern a massive reluctance to perceive the truth.
In effect, the act the character performs is an index of what he cannot articulate. Furthermore,
the repetition of 'cries' is a connotation of Kroll's distress and restlessness. As a foil to Kroll,
detective Fine is a denotative tool, connoting the concurrence of truth, no matter how hideous
it is. Sited in a situation that is no different from Kroll's, Fine bears an opposite approach to
being. For him, 'it is better to talk about it'; humans have to be vigorous enough to 'face' their
frailties and malfunctions. In a splendid metaphor, Miller compares the past to a beast that
continues to 'chase' humans all through the way. Hence, individuals have to 'face 'and tolerate
their history if they are ever to attain serenity and settlement. Fine has the discernment to
grasp the gravity of their present state; he urges Kroll to remember 'now' or the murderer will
never be caught. With a spirit that is addicted to comprehension, the detective has to 'catch
up' with everything.
Investigated by the lieutenant, Kroll cannot recall the name of Clara's lover. The
reader can grip the sense of disgrace and regret that forbids Kroll to remember!
Fine: Did you ever meet any of her friends, or associates, anybody she
knew?
Kroll (Frightened now): Well, let me think.
Fine: This is what I am referring to Albert … do you really have to cloud
up like that before you answer that question? Did you ever meet any of
her friends?
Kroll: Well I'm trying to remember!
Fine: Okay, okay.
Albert reacts.
But I said 'any'! Just in general … a friend.
Kroll: Well yes, of course.
Fine: Albert, it's this simple, you are all I've got. If you are not going to

36. 36
level with me I am out of business. What is it, you afraid of something
embarrassing?
Kroll: No – no. I … just … (He breaks off) (36)
This is one instance when Kroll attempts to recall; however the disinclination he reveals is an
implication of something appalling that he is trying to block out. Over again, Miller utilizes
the adjective 'afraid' as a signifier of horror and inner turbulence, born out of self – ignorance
and denial. By now, it is quite evident that there is one 'embarrassing' moment in Kroll's past
which he chooses to dump. Once he uncovers and acknowledges this fateful flash, Kroll can
irrevocably move on towards self – salvation. As Kroll 'breaks off', the audience can discern
an underlying will to remember and to divulge the deep - rooted sense of guilt. Perceptive as
he is, Fine can faultlessly figure out the Other. He is capable of seeing through Kroll's
forgetfulness; for he later announces that individuals tend to "block things" they are
"ashamed to remember", things that "make' them "feel guilty" (40). Fine rebukes Albert's
failure of memory; "but I'm pulling one tooth after another; why string this out?" (41).
Surprisingly, deriving the truth out of Kroll is equated to the aching process of pulling
defective teeth from a patient to cure him. Though severely throbbing at the beginning, yet it
brings about relief with time. In a rare moment of self – awareness, Kroll reveals his guilt
complex, he addresses Fine: "You are right, though; I am a little ashamed of one thing. I
didn't tell Clara how strongly I felt about this man" (46). As a father, he should have warned
his daughter from getting involved with a former murderer. An individual who was once
ruled by 'rage' can indisputably waste the life of another at any moment. However, Kroll had
his reasons not to reprove Clara. To the shock of the audience, the doomed father discloses
that he had once glimpsed his girl kissing a female friend of hers. Kroll's dilemma is almost
complete.
Fine: They kissed?
Kroll: Yes.
Fine: What you are telling me, Albert, is that it was such a relief to see
her involved with a man, even a Porto Rican murderer wearing a
mackinaw, that you ...
Kroll: I think so…
Fine: That's perfectly understandable. You wouldn't recall this woman's
name.
Kroll: Her name?

37. 37
'Eleanor Ballen' flashes overhead.
Eleanor Ballen.
Fine: Now we are moving!
Kroll: I can't understand why I am seeing it like on a screen … (48)
Kroll has made the wrong decision; dreading his daughter would turn into a pervert
dishonorable young woman; he accepted her relationship with a murderer. The unlucky father
said yes, when he should have said no. At last, Albert Kroll's situation is 'perfectly
understandable'. As a typical human being, Kroll has committed a justified mistake; however,
the price is irrecoverable, his daughter is lost forever. At the time he is able to 'recall' the
details of this shameful instant, Kroll starts 'moving' towards rescue and revelation. Hence, to
'recall' becomes an icon of hermeneutical understanding. In an exceptional metaphor, Miller
compares perception to a 'moving' vehicle, with the past operating as its foremost wheels! As
Kroll 'recalls' his history, he can set eyes on the truth; he wonders 'why I am seeing it like on
a screen'. Finally, the realities of his self and present state of affairs are so unmistakable; they
are as clear as a full - size 'screen'. Tragically, Kroll is the incentive of his daughter's
misfortune. With a bunch of idealistic convictions that do not fit into the realistic world, Kroll
has sent Clara to her grave.
However, Miller insists that Clara ends "in affirmation" (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur
Miller: A Critical Study, 363). It is in his daughter's catastrophe, that Kroll has "rediscovered
himself and glimpsed the tragic collapse of values that he cannot bring himself to renounce",
(363). Miller insists that his protagonist "inadvertently taught his daughter to be a heroine.
Inadvertently, he reached his apotheosis through her" (364). Kroll is ultimately capable of
accomplishing self – revelation through an encounter with the Other. As the hero recalls the
experience with the black soldiers, the reader gets the impression that he is retrieving to a
moment which he wishes to be the defining instance of his life. Miller does not fall short at
elaborately representing the imperative flash live on stage.
Kroll is listening, staring front. Clara enters a very young girl now,
ribbon in her hair. After a moment:
Clara: Mama said to ask you.
Kroll: No – no, it's nothing for you to hear, maybe when you are older.
Clara: But I want to. Please tell. Daddy? Please! (Clara, 53-54)

38. 38
Once more, the departed Clara is brought about as a child; asking her dad to report to her the
glorious tale of the black soldiers he had bailed out at the time of the war. Miller exhibits to
the reader how Clara came to shape her conventions and beliefs. As a little girl, with 'ribbons
in her hair', Clara was accustomed to hearing stories about tolerance and sacrifice for the
Other. Kroll relates how he came to be in charge of a group of black officers;
Kroll: (His eyes begin to see, his smile goes) .The army was still
completely segregated then, and one day the Colonel, who was from
Alabama, I think, comes into the mess and asks for a volunteer to take
command of a black company in a new transport battalion, you know truck
drivers and laborers. And, of course, nobody wanted a black company. But
Grandpa'd always had Negro people working in the nursery and, you
know, I'd been around them all my life and always got along with them,
and I thought maybe with them I'd have somebody to talk to, so I raised
my hand. (His breathing begins to deepen, his voice on the record strong
and young, singing through the air) (54)
As Kroll evokes the most glorious moment of his past, his 'eyes begin to see' the truth of his
own present. Miller employs the literal act of 'seeing' to connote to the knowledge of the Self
and the Other. Hence, the following passage characterizes the author's critique of the
American society that is short of the honorable respect of the Other. Treated like second –
class citizens; 'nobody' would ever 'want a black company'. Mostly working as 'drivers' and
'laborers', those black folks are a living witness of a community that is deficient in social
justice and equality. The referent 'Negro' is a shocking racist description of the Other. As he
'raises his hand' volunteering to be in charge of the black troop of soldiers, Kroll defies a
culture that is built on the degradation of the Other. In effect, the illocutionary act Kroll
performs in 'raising his hand' is redeemed a Kinesic sign of protest, as well as an invitation of
acceptance and tolerance. Kroll possesses the gift of 'getting along with' a wide variety of
individuals; mingling with the Other and 'talking to' him can open endless channels of
communication and empathy. As he regains his memory, the hero recovers his youth and
potency. For the first time in the performance, the reader can glimpse the former young Kroll,
full of verve and potential. Kroll resumes how he managed to rescue the team of fighters,
who were almost hanged for no compelling reason.

39. 39
Kroll: Seems two of them had stopped at a store and seen these great big
ladies' hats in the window, and started laughing. Never seen hats like that
and it was funny to them so they fell over themselves and just then these
two women came out of the store and thought they were laughing at
them. And that's how it all started. (55 – 56)
With the real grounds behind this tragedy unveiled, the audience is struck with an intensified
instance of intolerance and unjustified oppression for the Other. The poor black soldiers were
totally misunderstood by the oppressive Other; if it was not for Kroll, those people would
have been executed because they laughed at hats. Lives of humans become so cheap that they
are forsaken because of a mere 'thought'. As Miller employs the referent 'thought', the reader
can perceive a deceptive sort of truth that is derived out of sheer assumptions; for a 'thought'
is not always a fact. Furthermore, the negation in 'never seen' points to the cultural and social
gap that exists between people of the same country. There is an irrecoverable failure of
understanding the Other. Kroll continues;
Kroll: So I jumped up onto the hood of the Jeep and took out my 45 and
fired it into the air. And they turned around looking up at me, and I … I
… I didn't know what I was doing by that time, it was like some dream
… and I yell out (He roars:) 'I am an officer of the United States Army!
Now you untie my men and hand them over to me right now!' (He
glances about before him, almost panting for breath) (55)
With a valiant courage, Kroll managed to rescue his men. The glorious moment was so
sacred that it almost felt like a 'dream'. Short and brief as it is, this is an instant that shaped
the entire subsistence of Clara. The imperatives 'untie' and 'roar' are signs of the vigor and
potency that an individual can come across while offering relief and cultural support to the
Other. Listening to her father's tale, Clara is graciously inspired; "oh my dear papa …!" (56),
she exclaims. Young Clara, then, "moves backwards towards the darkness", and the old Kroll
"tries to follow" (56). As the innocent child dissolves in the 'darkness' of mortality, Kroll
finally recalls the name of the boyfriend; he cries out "Luiz Hernandez. Worked at Kennedy.
For Pan American" (56). In the end, Kroll is capable of attaining self – realization, his
memory is fully regained, and his regrets are acknowledged and overcome. He has managed
to attain Gadamer's hermeneutic understanding of the self and the Other.

40. 40
The answer, tentative, though it is, lies in part in the past, in a confrontation
of the denials and betrayals that had come to seem the necessary price for
continuance … However, he is left bereft, staring into space, proud of his
daughter's convictions but aware of the price she paid for the beliefs he had
himself betrayed. (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study, 363-364)
Mr. Peters' Connections is a representation of "that suspended state of consciousness
which can take upon a man taking a nap, when the mind, still close to consciousness and self-
awareness is freed to roam from real memories to conjectures, from trivialities to tragic
insights, from terror of death to glorying in one's being alive" (Mr. Peters' Connections,
preface written by Miller, v). In short, the play takes place inside the mind of Mr. Peters. It is
a magnification of the protagonist's fears that "he has not found the secret, the pulsing center
of energy – what he calls the subject – that will make his life cohere" (preface, VI). Mr.
Peters, his wife, and his daughter, Rose, are still alive. Adele, the big black lady "is neither
dead nor alive, but simply Peters' construct, the to - him incomprehensible black presence on
the dim borders of the city" (preface, v). Cathy May is Peters' first love, though she has been
dead a long time before; however, Miller announces that "the dead in memory do not quiet
die and often live more vividly than in life" (preface, v). The husband of Cathy May, Larry, is
the portrayal of Peters' imagination, given her nature and aspirations as he knew them when
they were lovers. Finally, the reader discovers that the dead Calvin, is Mr. Peters' brother.
Though he passed away years before, yet "the competition between them is very much alive
in Peters' mind along with its fraternal absurdities" (preface, v). Hence, the signifier
'connections'
refers not only to his links with other people, particularly those once closest to
him, but also to his desire to discover the relationship between past and present,
simple event and the meaning of that event, act and consequence, between what
he was and what he has become. In other words, he is in search of a coherence
that will justify life to itself. (Bigsby, 2005, Arthur Miller: A Critical Study,
407)
Asking incessantly about the 'subject' of his protagonist's persistence, Miller highlights
Gadamer's interpretation of understanding as a consistent dialogue between questions and
answers. "The dialectic of question and answer…now permits us to state more exactly what

41. 41
kind of consciousness historically effected consciousness is. For the dialectic of question and
answer that we demonstrated makes understanding appear to be a reciprocal relationship of
the same kind as conversation" (Gadamer, 377). Hence, understanding "is here defined as a
relationship and more exactly as a dialogue" (Grondin, 117).
Mr. Peters' Connections signifies Peters' prolonged journey towards a hermeneutic
understanding of the Self and the Other. Starting off with a state of utter oblivion, the man
finally manages to make sense out of his own existence. With the curtain unveiling the stage,
Peters undrapes his strife for perception:
Peters (undirected to anyone): To be moved. Yes. Even once more to feel
that thunder, yes. Just once! (Slight Pause). Lust aside, what can hit me?
Novels, model airplanes, movies, cooking, the garden? (shakes his head, dry
grief.) And yet, deep down … deep down I always seem on the verge of
weeping. God knows why when I have everything. (Slight pause; he peers
ahead.) What is the subject? (1)
Although Miller exclaims that Peters' speech is 'undirected to anyone', yet the reader can
sense the state of universality underlying within. The negation in 'undirected' works as an
affirmation of the fact that Peters' quest for understanding is an issue for all individuals. Like
in all the rest of Miller's works, ignorance is equated to grief and lack of coherence. Hence,
the verb 'weeping', a kinesic sign, is utilized to express the most horrible torment ever.
Connoting silent unexpressed lamentation, the non-verbal sign entails deeper pain than in
crying or shouting. Only comprehension can impart life and vividness to one's existence; for
humans can 'feel', and start 'moving' with their lives, merely when they get to understand. In
an outstanding metaphor, Miller compares the 'subject' of being to that striking 'thunder' that
'hits' individuals to revolutionize their awareness forever. Living for so long with no
perception attained, Peters is unable to make sense of the cause behind his extended
existence.
Calvin: You've been around.
Peters: And around again, yes – Pan Am captain twenty-six years. I'm really
much older than I look. If you planted an apple tree when I was born you'd
be cutting it down for firewood by now.
Calvin: I was going to say you don’t look all that old.