The American Dream In Arthur Miller's All My Sons

Americans are just recovering from the affects of the great depression and the Second World War. Everyone is gripped with the desire to lead a comfortable and urban life. Joe Keller is one such pioneer. He is sixty-one years old and heads a business, which supplies engine parts to the military planes. His love for his family and the need to be prosperous makes him sacrifice his image and reputation. He knowingly supplies faulty engine parts to the military planes against the advice of his company manager, Steve Deever. Of the planes fitted with these faulty parts, twenty-one of them crash killing pilots. Joe’s own son, Larry, a military pilot, dies en route to China in a related crash. This sets Joe on a collision path with his Family who associates Larry’s death to his actions. After investigations on the genesis of the plane crashes, Joe and Steve are arrested and convicted. Joe, however, finds his way out of jail by framing Steve and claiming innocence on the whole incident. This paper examines the relationship between family members, and each person’s devotion to leaving the American dream, marred by secrets and the unwillingness to reckon the responsibility.
In Miller’s All My Sons, money and responsibility play a huge role as themes, as does loyalty. However, it is an obsession with the American Dream which not only drives the plot but also drives the characters. In a new, better educated America, the main character, Joe Keller, struggles to accept that his hard work and dedication to his business is not enough. Desperate to hand the business down to his son, Keller has committed awful sins against his nearest and dearest in order to keep it alive. His son, meanwhile, has dreams and desires of his own, ones which are perhaps not quite in keeping with those of his family. It is a combination of this rebellion and his father’s obsession that make this play so absorbing and fascinating. Perhaps the most interesting character in All My Sons is