The Last Yankee (Plays, Penguin) [Paperback]

Arthur Miller (Author)

Book Description

Series: Plays, Penguin | Publication Date: April 1, 1994

"The greatest American dramatist of our age" (Evening Standard) In the waiting room of a State mental institution sit two men, there to visit their wives who are both suffering from depression. Frick, a no-nonsense successful businessman is shocked to find that the younger man, Leroy Hamliton, though descended from one of the Founding Fathers of the USA is, by profession a carpenter and a fairly contented one to boot. As we meet their respective wives, the play opens up some of the psycho-moral paradoxes haunting contemporary life."The Last Yankee reasserts Miller's unquestionable dominance of American drama it has the same brooding, powerful quality as all his work: it is a hard, dark elegy of American life, a pensive diagnosis, a requiem with a fugitive bass-note of hope." (John Peter, The Sunday Times)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140481516
• ISBN-13: 978-0140481518
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,718,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was born in New York City in 1915 and studied at the University of Michigan. He was awarded the Avery Hopwood Award for Playwrighting at University of Michigan in 1936. He twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, received two Emmy awards and three Tony Awards for his plays, as well as a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also won an Obie award, a BBC Best Play Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, a Gold Medal for Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library, the John F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Algur Meadows Award. He received honorary degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University and was awarded the Prix Moliere of the French theatre, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pulitzer Prize, as well as numerous other awards. He was named the Jefferson Lecturer for the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2001. He was awarded the 2002 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters and the 2003 Jerusalem Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Money, September 24, 2005

By 

JMack (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Yankee. (Paperback)

While this is a very slight work by Miller, it has two themes that polarize our society. Money is the theme that draws two women away from their husbands and into a mental health facility. One of the women feels that her husband does not provide enough. The other woman recieves everything but her husband's time. The other factor is the idea of victimization. The feeling that a certain people are frowned upon because they are considered foreigners in America. In this work, the comparison is between a Swedish and Yankee family.

While Miller leads the reader to believe that one of the women is a great deal sicker than the other, Miller includes a moral in the play. The woman that wanted more realizes all that she has and feels better. This woman leaves the health facility. The other woman who we are led to believe is the least ill despite having everything she could want finds she can not have what she really wants. Her husband has no time for her. She stays at the health facility depsite our earlier impression that she would be the one leaving.

This work is far from special and lacks much of the depth of Miller's other works. That being said, fans of Miller will probably still enjoy it.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Last yankee, October 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Yankee (Plays, Penguin) (Paperback)

It is never revealed but this play is written about a real person whom Miller had intimate knowledge of. Although disguised somewhat, it is a second hand description of my mothers psychiatric hospitalization in 1968. Much of the the dialogue were exact quotes from my father(Hamilton in the story).
It documents an outsiders view of a deeply traumatic, turbulent time in my family, that only skims the surface of one of the characters(Hamilton). It was so much more than that.