This article explores Arthur Miller’s less studied play, Incident at Vichy, from the perspective of human rights literature. The play is set in 1942 in Vichy, France, when Jewish residents began to be arrested and deported. Miller depicts the coming horror of the Holocaust by centering on the characters’ struggle to grasp why they have been detained. While the Holocaust has been central in the development of human rights literature, few scholars have examined Incident at Vichy within this framework. This article argues that Incident at Vichy is a work of human rights literature developed through Miller’s consistent attention to human rights violations across the personal, journalistic, and theatrical realms. While composed as a realist drama, Incident at Vichy avoids portraying outright brutality on stage. Instead, the play is grounded in the anxious tension of characters who do not know the coming tragedy, which contrasts with the audience’s own knowledge about the Holocaust. Using the disparity between the characters and the audience, the dramatic form promotes the need to reckon with the past.
Eonjoo Park (Sat,) studied this question.