Arthur Miller's Drama, All My Sons

Arthur Miller, in his play All My Sons, sets forth dramatic arguments about the negative impact immoral behavior has on people. This study will examine the behavior and attitudes of the characters in moral terms and the inevitable harm that such behavior has on the people in their lives as well as on people they will never even meet. Although some of Miller's arguments are social, political and economic, at heart all of those arguments are moral.

Early in the play, the discussion among the characters revolves around whether or not it is right for Chris, one of the Keller sons, to ask Annie to marry him. Annie has been the girl of another Keller son, Larry, who has apparently died. The characters do not know it at this point, but Larry has died not in action in the war, as the reader is led to believe, but by suicide. Larry killed himself because he could not bear the thought that his father Joe was responsible for deaths caused by faulty airplane parts he knowingly sold to airplane manufacturers.

In other words, Joe chose to cut corners to make money, and the result were deaths of strangers as well as the death of his own son. And now his other son Chris is torn by the morality of a decision--should he ask Annie to marry him, or should he not follow his heart and instead wait to see if Larry by some slim chance is still alive. Son Chris already at his young age shows that he has a much more active moral barometer than does his father:

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n after his immoral decision and action have been exposed, even after the terrible results of that decision and action have been revealed, he still is making excuses for himself, as if the fact that others have done the same or worse excuses what he himself has done. To Joe, apparently, money, and whatever security and possessions it can give him and his family, is what excuses all behavior. His son Chris is considering whether or not to try to have Joe sent to jail for his crimes, and Joe responds in a way which makes all too clear his self-justification: Jail? You want me to go to jail? Is that where I belong?--then tell me so! What's the matter, what can't you tell me? . . . I'll tell you why you can't say it. Because you know I don't belong there. Because you know! Who worked for nothin' in that war? When they work for nothin', I'll work for nothin'. Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? Is that clean? It's dollars and cents, nickels and dimes; war and peace, it's nickels and dimes, what's clean? Half the Goddamn country is gotta go if I go! That's why you can't tell me (Miller All 67). Joe is approaching the situation as he would approach any situation in which he had to convince him

Category: Literature - A