BEGE - 142

Understanding Drama
Indira Gandhi
National Open University
School of Humanities

Block

2
ARTHUR MILLER: ALL MY SONS
Block Introduction 57
UNIT 1
American Drama: An Introduction 59
UNIT 2
All My Sons: Reading the Text 71
UNIT 3
Thematic Concerns of All My Sons 80
UNIT 4
Characterisation in All My Sons 90
BLOCK INTRODUCTION
Block 2: Arthur Miller: All My Sons
In this Block we shall discuss Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons. This play is a
well-known American play performed on Broadway in America in 1947 and ran
for 328 performances. This play is very interesting as one can relate to the theme
of the play.
In Unit 1, we shall briefly discuss the growth and development of American
Drama from its beginning in the 17th century till the 1940s, around the time
modern drama was emerging and realistic plays were written. We will also
introduce you to the playwright Arthur Miller and his major plays.
In Unit 2, we shall examine various aspects of the text such as the plot in it’s the
plots of the play All My sons and ramifications and important situations.
In Unit 3, we will discuss in detail the themes in All My Sons.
In Unit 4, we will discuss the standpoint and significance of the characters in the
play.
Arthur Miller: All My Sons

58
 American Drama:
UNIT 1 AMERICAN DRAMA: AN An Introduction

INTRODUCTION
Structure

1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 American Drama around Arthur Miller
1.3 Arthur Miller: Life and Works
1.4 Miller’s Major Plays
1.5 Let Us Sum up
1.6 Questions
1.7 Suggested Readings

1.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit will examine the growth of American Drama from its beginning in the
1700 Century till the 1940’s, the era when the modern America drama emerged.
American Drama achieved recognition with the realism of plays by Eugene O’
Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennesse Williams.

1.1 INTRODUCTION
American Drama began in the American colonies in the 17th Century and has
continued developing to the present. The American Drama of the 18th and 19th
centuries mostly had British influence on it. In fact until 1910 the New York city
theatre season presented more British plays than American plays. The common
language and the ready availability of British plays and British actors was the
reason for their domination. American Drama began to diverge from British Drama
around the 1830’s. Despite this growing divergence most American plays continue
to copy British model till the early 20th century. For this reason critics claim that
American Drama was born only at the end of the World War I with Eugene O’
Niell in the 1920’s. By the end of 19th century American Drama had moved
towards realism. Realism dominated both comedies and tragedies even in the
20th century and as the century advanced, American Drama took up broader issues
of race, gender, sexuality and death.

1.2 AMERICAN DRAMA AROUND ARTHUR

MILLER
Beginnings of American Drama: 1600s and 1700s
Little theatrical activity took place before the mid-18th century because the early
settlers of American colonies faced harsh living conditions after migrating to
this alien land. Their belief in hard work, frugality and piety also disallowed
them from indulging in theatrical activity so much so, that the play Ye Bare and 59
Arthur Miller: All My Sons Ye Cubb produced in 1665 and probably the first theatrical performance in America
led to the trial of actors. In the 18th century many colonies in America enacted
laws forbidding the performance of plays, because of the puritan belief that the
seventh of the ten commandments in the bible did not allow dancing and enacting
plays. However, opposition to theatre did not last long. Aware of the new cultural
beginnings, the colonies wanted to brush up their intellectual and oratorical skills
by theatrical activities. The 17th century colleges in several colonies allowed
theatrical activity after much hesitation which they thought could benefit students
to utilize their speech skills in their careers such as business and law. To meet
this requirement, the first play Androboros (1774) written by Robert Hunter, an
English Governer, came as an attack on his political enemies, despite New York’s
Antitheatre Law. This play established the tradition of political satire charting
out the course that American Drama was to follow for the next two centuries.
Several popular plays of this period were The Paxton Boys (1732), The Trial of
Atticus (1771) whose authorship is not known and Robert Munford’s The
Candidates of the Humours of a Virginia Election (1770).
Before more plays appeared, a group of British professional actors formed a
touring circuit in the 1750s and this group in the early 1760s was known as The
American Company. In 1767 they staged a play The Prince of Parthia, a tragedy
by Thomas Godfrey, the first professional production of a play written in America.
During the American Revolution, many professional actors moved to Jamaica.
During the period of American Revolution (1775-1783) satirical plays were
written either supporting British control of the colonies or attacking it. The Battle
of Brooklyn which was pro-British and written anonymously satirized leaders
like George Washington. Mercy Otis Warren, the strongest American dramatic
voice of the revolution presented the revolutionary cause in her plays The
Adulateur (1772) The Defeat (1773), The Group (1776) and The Blackheads
(1776). A play by Robert Munford The Patriots (1779) attained true dramatic
character by taking a neutral stance and attacking both sides for their intolerance.
The professional actors who had moved to Jamaica during the American
Revolution were touring America again in mid 1780s. America became a nation
in 1783 through a victory against the British colonial power. Robert Taylor was
the first playwright of the nation to write the finest American play of the 18th
Century, The Contrast (1787). This five-act comedy that satirises the customs of
the upper classes is written in the format of British Comedy owing much to
Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777).
American Drama: 1800s
William Dunlop introduced melodrama in his plays, the most prevalent dramatic
form in the 19 th century. The credit for giving drama its most important
characteristic, dramatic conflict also goes to him. Most of his plays were
adaptations or translations from the French and German. The Protagonist Major
John Andre in Dunlop’s play Andre (1798) shows admirable qualities by saving
a young American Captain despite George Washington’s unqualified antagonism
towards him for conspiring to destroy an American garrison.
Majority of the plays written in America in the 19th century were largely produced
for commercial purposes to benefit the heterogeneous public residing all over
America whose primary interest was seeing the shows and their favourite actors
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performing in these plays. Most of the plays were not published but were meant American Drama:
An Introduction
only to be seen and not to be read; as a result they are now irrevocably lost.
One of Dunlop’s contemporaries James Nelson Barker produced some of the
best-known works Marmion (1812) and Superstition (1824). The latter a romantic
tragedy based on specific American situations, was set in New England and
explored the themes of isolationism, bigotry and intolerance. The Indian Princess
(1808) written by him was the first play to explore native American themes and
characters. It told the story of Pocahontas, a native American woman who married
an English man. The most well-known of such drama was Metamora (1828) by
John Augustus Stone. The popularity of the Indian plays that began in 1820’s
continued through the 1840s.
In the early 19th century in American Drama, there is a shift in focus from a
nationalistic cause to the aesthetic values of romanticism. Edwin Forrest, an
immensely popular actor encouraged the writing of American romantic plays.
The best American play of the time was Francesca da Rimini (1855), a romantic
verse tragedy by George Henry Boker. Brutus: The Fall of Taraquin (1819) by
John Howard Payne and The Gladiator (1831) by Robert Montogomery Bird
were other American Romantic tragedies that merely promoted the aesthetic
values of romanticism without furthering the cause of the American Drama.
In 1828 Edwin Forrest began to offer annual awards for new plays with American
themes, the first to receive the award was Metamora. No one kind of drama
appealed the play-going masses of America; play-goers were ready to welcome
any new type of play that the actors could perform well. The lampooning of the
Indian plays signalled their waning interests and by mid-century they started
fading. Racial, social and economic tensions in America that brought about the
civil war are well represented in Harriet Beecher Stone’s novel Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. The adaptation of the novel for the stage by G. L. Aiken was a great
success that was staged all over America and survived well into the twentieth
century.
American Drama in the Nineteenth Century
In the 19th century the most pervasive dramatic genre was Melodrama. Similar to
what we see in Hindi cinema where a heartless villain troubles the heroine who
is finally rescued by a strong hero in the nick of time after fighting insurmountable
odds. Melodrama addresses to issues of family, social position and wealth, a
preoccupation of every individual. ‘Its appeal to the general public lay in its
stereotyped, easily identifiable character types and in simple, formulaic plots
that could be easily adapted to any setting, character or event desired.’ (American
Popular Culture Through History: The Civil War and Reconstruction, Browne
and Kreiser)
The great flexibility of these plays made them easily adaptable to any type of
audience, allowing actors to use their talents freely, taking advantage to present
a wide range of materials. The popular plays in this genre are Boucicault’s The
Poor of the New York (1857), Daly’s Under the Gaslight (1857), and Belasco’s
The Girl of the Golden West and The Heart of Maryland (1857). The popularity
of melodramatic form that had begun in the 18th Century continued through the
19th Century.
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Arthur Miller: All My Sons Realism in American Drama
Drama after the Civil war was marked by a steady shift towards realism
illuminating the scene of humble life, criticizing social conditions and creating
believable characters. Concerned with a faithful representation of life the
playwright concentrated on middle-class life and preoccupations, avoiding larger
and more dramatic issues. The scenes had three dimensional settings and the
actors spoke authentic sounding dialogue. While the melodramatic plots
prevailed, the playwrights gradually moved towards psychological realism,
influenced by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright.
The late 19th Century works, Bronson Howard’s Shenandoah (1874), Steele
Mackaye’s Hazel Kirke (1880) and William Dean Howell’s Mouse Trap (1889)
are notable realistic plays. Bronson Howard was more concerned with morals
than morality. Realism reached new levels in the last decades of the 19th century
and the first decades of the 20th century, concerned with the social issues of the
time. Benson Howard’s A Texas Steer (1896), The Banker’s Daughter (1873)
and Henrietta (1887), A Trip to China Town (1891) Edward Harringan’s Dan’s
Tribulations (1884) and Benman Thomson’s The Old Homestead (1886), A.
Herne’s Margaret Fleming (1890), Shore Acres (1892) and Griffith Davenport
(1899). A. Herne known for powerful acting and excellent stage management
wrote Margaret Fleming (1890) his greatest achievement. ‘He created an
Ibsenesque heroine who was not merely capable by challenging convention but
who deftly asserted her autonomy with marriage’. (A Critical Introduction to
Twentieth Century American Drama C. W. E Bigsby) His plays had clarity and
simplicity.
Among the late nineteenth-century dramatists David Belasco, Steele Mackaye
and William Gillete were closely associated with the theatre business, Belasco
one of the most well known producer also directed his own play. His play The
Girl of the Golden West (1905) deals with rural California in the mid-19th century
Gold Rush Days. Mackaye mostly wrote romantic melodramas, among them the
most powerful was Hazel Kirke (1880), a melodrama without heroes or villains.
The play’s theme was familial misunderstanding. The play was also notable for
its more natural dialogue. Realistic portrayals of sensational subjects were
commonly used in the plays of this period.
Clyde Fitch in the early 1900’s wrote The City (1909), an entertaining satire
using natural dialogues that delved into the evils of shady business and drug
addiction. Fitch was also the first American playwright to write a subtle kind of
satire. Social tensions in America began to be explored by playwrights leading
up to the First World War (1914-1918). William Vaughn Moody’s The Great
Divide (1906), Rachel Crothers’ A Man’s World (1909) and Langdon Mitchell’s
The New York Idea (1906) addressed social issues meaningfully while managing
to entertain the audience. The American family, its development and disintegration
that dominated the plays of this period also became a recurring theme of
playwrights of the 20th Century.
In the early part of the 20th Century there was a new artistic awakening with a
host of American playwrights forming an amateur group, the ‘Province Town
Players’, for promoting American Drama and producing new plays exclusively
by American playwrights. The efforts of this amateur group set a new course for
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American theatre in the modern period, while also launching careers of Eugene American Drama:
An Introduction
O’ Neill and Susan Glaspell. Based on a journalistic investigation, Susan
Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles (1916) was among its first productions. The play’s
uniqueness comes out with the main character, the wife who is never present on
stage. Eugene O’ Neill’s play The Hairy Ape (1922) was the first to introduce
expressionism in American Drama. Developed in Germany in the early 20 th
Century, expressionism was a movement in the visual, literary and performing
arts that expressed subjective feelings and emotions rather than depicting reality
objectively. In expressionism the artist is not concerned with reality as it appears
but presents the inner nature with the emotions aroused by the subject. Concerned
with the nature of man and the forces that move him, Eugene O’ Niell’s plays
involved characters on the fringes of society while including speeches in
American vernacular for the first time. The other prominent playwrights were
John Reed, Louise Bryant, Max Eastman and Ida Ruah, and Edna St. Vincent
Millay.
In the 1920’s the most important plays were professionally produced in New
York City stage. The plays of the 1920s and early 1930s were incisive and exciting
such as Laurence Stalling and Maxwell Anderson’s What Price Glory (1924).
Some remarkably fine plays were produced such as Eugene O’ Neill Strange
Interlude (1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), lightly satirical play in
such as Philip Barry’s Holiday (1928) and S. N. Behrman’s End of Summer (1936)
were produced. Paul Green’s Abraham’s Bosom included African American
Characters in his plays. Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and composer Jerome
Kern’s Show Boat (1927), a musical production was adapted from a novel of the
same name by author Edna Ferber, the first American musical to fully integrate
music with meaningful and consistent dialogue.
The economic collapse of the great Depression of the 1930’s led to the permanent
closure of many theatres in America. The new sound technology in America
gave voice to the motion pictures. As a result, the number of theatergoers declined
severely in the 1930s. A new wave was seen in the drama of the 1930s that
tackled economic suffering, left wing political ideologies and fears of another
world war. Clifford Odet’s Waiting for Lefty (1935) debated the pros and cons of
capitalism while Awake and Sing! (1935) dealt with the 1930s anxieties. Lillian
Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour (1934) displayed social conscience.
In the mid-40s the most striking new writings for theatre emerged in the works
of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. The latter contributed many
psychological plays of disillusion such as A Street Car Named Desire (1947),
Cat on a Hot tin Roof (1955) and The Glass Menagerie (1944). Arthur Miller’s
modern tragedies All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949) combined
realistic characters and social issues. During the 1950’s Miller’s chief
contributions were The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (1955),
while Tennessee Williams play Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956) received
the Pulitzer Prize posthumously. Most famous among new playwrights, William
Inge wrote Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), a realistic play. Late 1950’s also
saw new African American playwriting with Lorraine Hansberry’s well- acclaimed
play Raisin in the Sun (1959). A major dramatist of the 1960’s Edward Albee
wrote absurdist plays such as Zoo Story (1959) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf (1962) that examined unsympathetically the modern conditions influenced
by European playwrights Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. 63
Arthur Miller: All My Sons The 1990s saw the exciting return of two notable playwrights who, thought critics,
had finished their careers. Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass (1944) and Edward
Albee’s Three Tall Women (1944) received widespread acclaim with Albee’s
work winning the Pulitzer Prize while Miller’s last play Finishing the Picture
was produced in 2004. Albee continues to give biting satirical commentaries on
modern society in new works such as The Goat or Who is Sylvia (2002).
Realism continued to be the primary form of dramatic expression in the 20th
century and as the century progressed many talented new dramatists came to the
fore with broad issues such as civil rights and the devastation wrought by the
AID’s epidemic. In the mid-1990s and beginning of 21st Century, block buster
musicals eliminated new commercial theatre in the Unites States targeting the
younger audience who were attracted more by films, television and computer
entertainment. Economic difficulties resulted in plays with single setting and
lesser characters that would make them less expressive but also less ambitious.
Many playwrights started writing plays with film and television adaptation in
mind to reach geographically diverse audience, making the American theatre
specialized in its alternative productions.

1.3 ARTHUR MILLER: LIFE AND WORKS

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller

In 1920 when the World War I had come to an end, it was time in America of the
great depression that had deeply wounded the American economy and also its
psyche. The U.S. prosperity in the 1920s had faced a steep though short decline.
Throughout the decade around 600 banks failed along with 20,000 business
concerns. Mining, farming and textile industry were on the decline. As a result
there was unemployment. It was during this interesting period of history of
America that Arthur Miller was born.
Arthur Miller (1915-2005) an American playwright, essayist and author was
born of moderately affluent Jewish American parents Isadore and Augusta Miller
on October 17, 1915 in Manhattan in New York City. His father was an illiterate
immigrant from Poland but came to own a coat manufacturing business employing
a thousand workers, which was ruined with the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Thereafter,
the family moved to a smaller house in Brooklyn. The sudden change in fortune
had a strong impact on Miller. Miller was fortunate enough to withdraw his
entire savings of twelve dollars a day to buy himself a bicycle before the United
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States Bank closed down. Miller, though, was not very lucky as his bicycle was American Drama:
An Introduction
stolen the same week and he realized that no one was immune from the disaster
of Depression.
Because of the effects of Depression, Miller’s condition was financially unsound
and he could not attend the university in 1932 after graduating from high school.
After taking admission at the University of Michigan in 1934, Miller took up a
succession of small jobs such as delivery boy, dishwasher, waiter, warehouse
clerk, singer in a local radio station, mice attendant in a laboratory, truck driver,
tanker, seaman, factory labour, and shop fitter’s helper to pay for his tuition.
Miller studied journalism from the University of Michigan where he ran a student
newspaper with a group of others and became its reporter as well as night editor
of the Michigan Daily that helped him earn money. Arthur Miller was greatly
influenced by his critic and teacher Kenneth E. Rowe, of the University of
Michigan Drama Department and after reading his book Write That Play! there
was no looking back for Miller. He wrote one play after another and for two
years he succeeded in winning the Avery Hopwood Award given yearly at
Michigan for the best original play.
During one of the vacations he went to Chicago and saw the performance of
Clifford Odet’s play ‘Awake and Sing’. The play’s message ‘Life should have
some dignity’ had a deep and lasting impact on him. Miller wrote his first work
No Villain for which he won the Avery Hopwood Award. This play is about a
small garment manufacturer and his University educated son, Arnold Simon,
based on young Arthur. In 1937 Miller wrote another play Honours at Dawn
which also won the Avery Hopwood Award. This play is about the Depression
era, dealing with the hopes and heartbreaks of the Zabriski family. He won several
other awards for play writing and with his record of prizes, he had little trouble
joining Federal Theater Project, a nation-wide organization established to provide
jobs in the theatre to unemployed writers, actors, directors and designers for a
salary of $ 22.77 a week. He had to report at the Federal Theater Project Office
everyday and at night he continued writing plays on his own. He completed his
play called Montezuma that concerned the conquest of Mexico. However the
project had to close in 1940 as the congress worried about possible communist
infiltration. Miller started working in Brooklyn Navy Yard. He also continued
writing radio plays some of which were broadcast on CBS (Columbia Workshop).
On August 5, 1940 Miller married his college friend Mary Slattery, the daughter
of an insurance salesman. The couple had two children Jane and Robert. Robert
later became director, writer and producer of the 1996 movie version of The
Crucible. Miller’s injury in the left kneecap while playing football in high school
exempted him from military service during World War II.
In 1944, Miller wrote The Man Who had All the Luck that was produced in New
York. It won the Theater guild’s National Award. Despite it being awarded, the
play closed after only six performances. The next few years were a difficult time
for Miller. He published his first novel Focus but the novel was little known.
George Abbott’s and John C. Holm’s Three Man on a Horse was adapted by him
for radio.
During wartime Miller wrote a play All My Sons that was produced at the Coronet
Theater in 1947. It was an immediate success and ran for three hundred and 65
Arthur Miller: All My Sons twenty-eight performances. Despite receiving criticism for being unpatriotic,
All My Sons won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and two Tony Awards
in the year 1947. This play is about a factory owner who sells faulty aircraft parts
during World War II.
In 1948 Miller built a small shed in Roxbury, Connecticut, in which he wrote
Death of a Salesman within six weeks. The play was premiered on Broadway
on February 10, 1949, at the Morocco Theatre New York City. The Death of a
Salesman became his best known work winning Tony Award for best play, New
York Drama Critics Award and Pulitzer Prize. Death of a Salesman ran for
seven hundred and forty-two performances.
Miller responded to the growing anti-communist hysteria of the early fifties by
writing an adaptation of Henrick Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and The Crucible,
set during 1692 Salem witch trials. In the play Miller likened the situation with
the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), (a committee of the
House of Representatives which set itself to identify present and former
communists and so-called fellow travelers in all branches of American life) to
the witch hunt in Salem. Though The Crucible was unsuccessful at the time of
its initial release, running for mere one hundred and ninety seven performances,
today it is one of Miller’s most frequently produced plays.
In the early fifties Miller joined a group of writers, publishers and journalists
whose objective was to write articles attacking the Senator Joseph MacCarthy.
No newspaper was willing to publish their articles. The FBI infiltrated their group
as a result of which the group broke up. Miller was called before the HUAC in
1956 to identify those who attended the meetings which he refused and as a
punishment he was fined and sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress and
denied passport to attend the Belgium opening of The Crucible in 1954. In 1958
the court of appeal overturned his conviction, ruling that the chairman of HUAC
had misled about Miller.
His last play of the 1950s A View from the Bridge opened in Broadway in 1955 in
a joint bill with one of his lesser known plays, A Memory of Two Mondays. The
following year Miller revised this one act version play and changed it into a two-
act version which Peter Brock produced in London.
In June 1956 Miller divorced his wife Mary Slattery and later that month, married
Marilyn Monroe. Miller had met Monroe for the first time in 1951 after which
they had a brief affair and kept in touch with each other since then. After his
conviction was overturned, Miller started work with his film Misfits in which his
wife Monroe acted. He wrote this film as a gift for Marilyn Monroe who lost a
child in pregnancy. Shortly before the film’s premiere the two had already
divorced. A year later Marilyn Monroe died of overdose of drugs and on February
1962, Miller was married for the third time, to an Austrian photographer Inge
Morath. Their first child Rebecca was born in September the same year followed
by their second child Daniel in November, 1966.
In 1964 Miller’s next play After the Fall was released several years later after his
last work. A strongly autobiographical work, it was based on his personal views
of his own experiences during his marriage to Monroe. After the Fall was
premiered at the Anta Theatre in Washington Square Park amidst outrage at putting
66 a Monroe character, called Maggie, on stage. In the same year Miller produced
another play Incident at Vichy which ran for ninety-nine performances. Miller American Drama:
An Introduction
was politically active throughout his life. In 1965, he was elected International
Pen’s president, an international writers’ organization that spoke in defense of
imprisoned writers.
The Price was his most successful play that appeared in 1968 since Death of a
Salesman. This play was published in a year that was characterized by trauma in
Vietnam and assassinations at home. The Price is based on two brothers who
meet one another after years of hostility and separation.
In 1980 Miller returned to his past by writing a play The American Clock that is
set during the depression years. In the 1990s Miller wrote plays such as The
Ride Down Mount Morgan that was produced in 1993 and The Last Yankee
produced in 1993. In 1994 he wrote another play Broken Glass set in 1938 set in
the times of Nazi persecution of the Jews, but relates to a moral and political
paralysis recreated in contemporary Europe. In 2002 Miller was the first U.S.
recipient to be honoured with Spain’s prestigious Principe de Asturias Prize for
Literature. Miller’s last play, Finishing the Picture was produced in 2004 and
depicted the making of Misfits.
After Inge Morath’s death in 2002 the eighty-nine year old Miller was in love
with Agnes Barley, a thirty-four year old artist and intended to marry her after
living with her at his Connecticut farm for two years. Miller died of heart failure
at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on February 10, 2005 at the age of 89. At
the time of his death Arthur Miller was considered one of the greatest American
playwrights. Throughout his life Miller remained socially active and wrote with
conscience, clarity and compassion. His work is infused with his sense of
responsibility to humanity and to his audience.

1.4 MILLER’S MAJOR PLAYS

Death of a Salesman was published in 1949 and is considered a classic of
American theatre. This play was a caustic attack on the American Dream of
achieving wealth and success without regard for principle. Enthusiastic reviews
were written on this play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win three
major awards. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, Tony Award for
best play as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play.
Death of a Salesman helped Miller to become an internationally known
playwright.
Death of a Salesman finds the main character Willy Loman in his sixties struggling
to come to grips with the fact that his American Dream is unattainable. Willy
places great importance on supposed native charm, and ability to make friends,
stating that once he was known throughout New England, driving long hours but
making unparalleled sales. His sons Biff and Happy were the pride and joy of
the neighborhood, and his wife Linda was smiling throughout the day. Willy
Loman might have been a superb craftsman, but he is forced by the demands of
a mechanized world to run in search of financial wealth.
Willy is a traveling salesman for Wagner Company for thirty four years. But as
time passes, life for him seems to be slipping out of his control. He has worked
hard his entire life and likes to think that he is indispensable to the company in 67
Arthur Miller: All My Sons the New England territory. He closes deals with contractors on the phone —
since increasing episodes of anxiety and depression are impairing his ability to
drive. Soon all of his aspirations fail and he is thrown out of his job as the owner
of the firm that did not pay enough for his survival and told him that he could no
longer represent the firm in New England because he was doing harm to the
company. Loman’s fortunes change drastically, he has to depend on loans from
his friend Charley to make ends meet. His thirty-four year old son Biff is unable
to settle down. The younger son is also on the lookout for some job in order to
settle in life. Charley on the other hand becomes a successful businessman.
Bernard becomes an excellent lawyer.
Witnessing his failure, Willy clings to his sons hoping that they might succeed.
Loman cannot accept that his life has been a failure and that Biff is not interested
in big business. He decides to commit suicide in the hope that at least the insurance
business will help Biff become successful. The play ends with his family and
only friend Charley grieving by his grave side.
The play resembles a stream of consciousness account and Miller uses this device
to contrast Willy’s dreams and the reality of his life. It also helps to contrast the
characters in sympathetic as well as villainous light while it unfolds the story.
Miller does not allow the audience to be the permanent judge. Their opinions
keep shifting about each of the characters.
The Crucible written in 1952 was first performed on Broadway on January 1953.
The play is set during the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials of Salem, Massachusetts.
Reverend Paris, a despised local preacher discovers that some young girls were
performing a sinful dance with the slave Tituba in the woods. One of the girls
was Paris’s daughter, Betty who becomes unconscious on being discovered by
her father.
The villagers are in panic when they come to know that witchcraft is being
practised. Reverend John Hale, an authority on witchcraft is sent for investigation.
Abigail Williams the unofficial leader of the group of girls is questioned regarding
the incident that took place in the forest. Abigail denies that there was any kind
of witchcraft involved, and says that she and the girls were only performing
dance. The girls actually lied following Abigail’s instructions. Abigail and John
Proctor were former lovers while she was working in his house and still she was
obsessed with him.
The witch trial begins and Abigail and other girls lie and accuse others of
witchcraft. Many villagers are found guilty of denial of witchcraft and are
executed. Many women are brought to trial as well including John Proctor’s
wife. Judge John Proctor has to confess his adulterous relationship in order to
save his wife from being hanged based upon the accusations brought by his own
former lover. The Proctor’s wife lies about the adultery in order to save her
husband’s name and the Judges believe her. Proctor is given chance to save his
life on condition that he names people who practice witchcraft. Proctor chooses
to die than to betray his friends and neighbours. The play ends with Proctor
being led for execution.
A View from the Bridge is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1955 and was produced
68 as a one act verse drama on Broadway in 1955. In this play Miller takes the
subject of illegal immigrants smuggled into the Brooklyn water front from Sicily American Drama:
An Introduction
by the Mafia through friends and relatives familiarly called ‘Submarines’ The
protagonist of the play is Eddie Carbone who, in a passion of jealousy informs
on his wife’s relatives. He is an Italian American longshoreman who lives with
his wife Beatrice and orphaned niece Catherine but as the play moves ahead his
feelings for Catherine develops into an unwitting sexual attraction. Beatrice’s
two cousins Marco and Rodolfo enter America illegally from Italy in the hope of
a better life here, away from hunger and unemployment. For Eddie ‘It’s an honour’
to give the man refuge, after which Catherine instantly falls for the young and
charming Rodolfo.
Eddie Carbone gets jealous and takes out faults with Rodolfo, accusing him of
not being right (homosexual). He backs up his argument by using Rodolfo’s
effeminate qualities such as dress-making, cooking and singing.
When Catherine wants to marry Rodolfo, Eddie in his desperation to split them
reveals to the Immigration Bureau that he is giving refuge to two illegal
immigrants. Eddie is no longer respected by his friends and family for betraying
the men. The elder brother vows revenge on Eddie once he is out on bail. Out on
bail, Marco comes to Eddie who draws a knife in order to avenge him.
The play comes to a climax with the fight between Eddie and Marco. Eddie
attacks Marco with a knife but stronger Macro turns the blade into Eddie killing
him and Eddie dies in Beatrice’s arms at the end of the play.
All My Sons opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre on January 29, 1947
and ran for 328 performances. The theme of the play is that of moral responsibility
in the family, linked to the inner struggle of men in authority during the war. The
play begins with a relaxed atmosphere in an American household of Joe Keller’s
backyard where neighbours gather on a summer’s evening. Ann Deever is
supposed to come from New York to visit Chris, Joe Keller’s thirty-two years
old son. She was previously engaged to Larry, brother of Chris and a pilot by
profession. He lost his life in an air crash in the Second World War. Kate Keller
his mother refuses to accept that he is no more. Moreover, Ann is Joe Keller’s
business partner Steve Deever’s daughter whose father is jailed for supplying
damaged engines to P-40 fighter planes, killing twenty-one pilots. Keller was
the one to have instructed Steve Deever to provide damaged engines after repair
to the Air Force. On discovering the truth, George her brother comes to take
away Ann from the Kellers. Despite knowing the truth Ann still wants to marry
Chris. She has a letter that she shows to Kate Keller and Chris that reveals that
Larry’s death was a suicide. Ashamed of his father’s criminal acts, Larry
deliberately air crashed his plane and died. Chris had a vague idea about his
father’s crime in the beginning but once it is confirmed, it horrifies him and he
wants to send his father to prison so that he realizes that he is responsible not
only for his family but to the society at large. Realising his guilt Joe Keller
shoots himself. In this play Miller deals with the consequences of man’s
dereliction.

1.5 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have tried to sum up American Drama from the time immigrant
settlers occupied American colonies from the 17th century to the 1940s around 69
Arthur Miller: All My Sons the period when renowned dramatists, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and
Arthur Miller reached profound levels of psychological realism.

1.6 QUESTIONS
1. Name the major plays of Arthur Miller.
2. Name the first theatrical performance of America that led to the trial of actors.
3. Examine the growth of American drama during the seventeen, eighteen and
nineteenth centuries.
4. How did Henrik Ibsen contribute to the growth of Modern American Drama?

1.7 SUGGESTED READINGS

Bigsby, Christopher, The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. Cambridge
University Press, United Kingdom. 1997.
Gould, Jean, Modern American Playwrights. Popular Books, Bombay. 1969.
Martin, Robert, A. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. The Viking Press, New
York. 1978.
Welland, Dennis. Arthur Miller, Oliver and Boyel, London. 1961.

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 American Drama:
UNIT 2 ALL MY SONS : READING THE TEXT An Introduction

Structure

2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Plot of All My Sons
2.3 Arthur Miller on Drama as Tragedy
2.4 All My Sons: A View of the Text
2.5 Let Us Sum Up
2.6 Questions
2.7 Suggested Readings

2.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit explains:
 The structure and plot of the play All My Sons;
 Miller’s perspective about tragedy;
 The play All My Sons as a tragedy.

2.1 INTRODUCTION
All My Sons opened at Coronet Theater in January, 1947 and ran for 328
performances. Four years earlier Arthur Miller had read the account of the Truman
Committee investigation into allegedly faulty airplane parts manufactured in Ohio.
The actual idea of the play came to his mind when he got to know about a family
where a daughter had taken her father to the authorities for selling faulty machinery
to the army. Miller decided to write the play ‘so that even the actual criminal, on
reading it, would have to say that it was true and sensible and as real as his life,’
(Arthur Miller, 1957). Collected Plays, Vol-I New York: Viking) All My Sons
was extremely popular among the audiences. The success of the play earned
great reputation for the author and secured his financial position.

2.2 THE PLOT OF ALL MY SONS

All My Sons is a well constructed and realistic play. It is conventional realism,
Ibsenite only in that Miller - as Ibsen so often does – starts in the middle of
things and spends most of the play uncovering the facts of the past so that the
audience can see the last act consequences in the present.’ (Daniel Hoffman
Harvard Guide to American Drama Gerald Weales 1979. (OUP). The work of
Ibsen influenced All My Sons structurally as well, for Ibsen had liberally applied
the principle of Greek Theatre that stresses the influence of the past on the present.
The play is carefully constructed and well knit. It follows the pattern in which
there is an appropriate link between previous actions and present consequences.
Miller skillfully observes all the three dramatic unities of time, place and action 71
Arthur Miller: All My Sons mentioned by Aristotle in his Poetics. The unity of time limits the action to take
place in roughly a single day; unity of place limits it to one general location and
the unity of action limits it to a single set of incidents which are related as cause
and effect, “having a beginning, middle and an end. The play does not cross the
time limit of twenty-four hours; thus the unity of time is observed by Miller. The
play maintains the unity of place with the entire action taking place in the Keller
home in the American town of Detroit. The unity of place and action is also
observed in the play. The action happens in the backyard of the Keller household.
This unity owes a great deal to the conduct of a single character, Joe Keller.
The setting of All My Sons is designed to suit Keller’s ‘myopic world view’ of
not thinking beyond his family interests. (‘All My Sons’ Steven R. Centola in
The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller edited by Christopher Bigsby.) The
backyard of the Keller home in the outskirts of an American town……The stage
is hedged on right and left by tall, closely planted poplars which lend the yard a
secluded atmosphere…….. At the right, beside the house, the entrance of the
driveway can be seen, but the poplars cut off view of its continuation downstage.
(pg-1 All My Sons) The scenic image successfully hides Keller’s secrets, but
gradually discloses them as the play proceeds.
The play All My Sons is divided into three acts that roughly cover eighteen hours
from Sunday morning to the early hours of Monday. The entire action takes
place in the backyard of the house of Joe Keller, a rich industrialist. The Keller
home includes his wife Kate in her early fifties and their thirty two year old son
Chris. Their neighbours who are also their family friends comprise forty year-
old Dr. Jim Bayliss, his wife Sue around forty, their eight year-old son Bert,
thirty two year old Frank Lubey and his twenty seven year-old wife Lydia.
Miller has skillfully worked on the exposition of the plot that gradually increases
dramatic tension as we move ahead in the play. In the first act, Miller gives
background information revealing certain facts about the past taking his own
time, as the playwright Ibsen did. In act I the play opens with Joe Keller reading
the Sunday newspaper, while involved in trivial talks with his neighbour Dr. Jim
Bayliss, later joined by another neighbour Frank Lubey. The fallen apple-tree
snapped under the wind’s fury catches their attention. This scene is significant as
it acquaints us with the background of the play, giving a flashback about Larry.
The apple-tree was planted to keep Joe Keller’s son Larry’s memory alive who
had been reported missing during the war while flying a mission off the coast of
China and had been presumed to be dead. Larry’s mother does not believe that
Larry is dead and is hopeful that one day he would come back safe. This belief of
hers plays a major role in the development of the plot.
A young woman Ann has come to visit the Kellers on Chris’ invitation. Ann and
Chris are in love and after writing letters to each other for two years, Chris has
now invited her in order to propose to her. Chris discloses to his father about his
intention of marrying Ann. Keller discourages him to marry Ann, because in the
opinion of Chris’ mother Kate, Ann is Larry’s fiancée. Kate believes that Larry
is alive and would turn up any day.
Ann is the daughter of Steve Deever, business partner of Joe Keller who owns a
factory manufacturing cylinder heads. An urgent contract comes from the army
to supply cylinder heads for aircrafts to be used in war. But it so happens that the
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whole batch of cylinder heads, produced by the manufacturing firm has developed All My Sons:
Reading the Text
cracks. Keller calls up Steve Deever asking him to weld the cracks on the cylinder
heads and ship them off to the army. The damaged cylinder heads were passed
by the factory and shipped out to the army resulting in the death of twenty one
pilots. There was a court case against both Joe Keller and Steve Deever. However,
during the trial, Joe Keller denied his responsibility for the damaged cylinder
heads. The court acquitted him while Steve Deever was sent to jail where he is
at the time the play opens.
Frank Lubey, one of Keller’s neighbours wants to know about Ann’s father and
enquires about his release on parole. Ann wants to avoid such a question, since
she is critical of her father after he was found guilty of fraud. Ann recollects that
the neighbourhood had described her father and her family members as murderers
after her father was found guilty of causing death of several aircraft pilots in the
war on account of defective cylinder heads supplied by him to the army. Even
though Keller was acquitted by a higher court, the people of his locality still
believed that Keller had got himself acquitted through underhand means.
Keller is of the opinion that Ann should write to her father explaining to him that
during the war the conditions were difficult and no one knew what was actually
happening. Ann and her brother George are no longer in touch with their father
Steve Deever out of disgust and shame that he was involved in such a dreadful
crime.
Ann is surprised at the concern Joe Keller still has for her father and her family.
She was under the impression that Keller would have a feeling of revenge and
hatred towards her father. Her father had charged Keller of being involved in the
supply of the defective cylinder heads. Keller says that he had forgiven her
father and had no grievances against him.
Ann is of the opinion that Larry died as a consequence of her father supplying
defective cylinder heads to the army. Joe Keller disagrees with her and says that
Deever was not responsible for Larry’s death. The Aeroplane that Larry was
flying had not used those cylinder heads; such cylinder heads were used
exclusively for P-40 aeroplanes. Giving an account of how the defective parts
were supplied, Keller explains that urgent orders had come for supplying cylinder
heads to the army. The trucks were already rushing to army Depots with cylinders
but more orders were pouring in. Steve Deever came across a batch of cylinders
that had tiny cracks. Without thinking of the damage these cylinders could cause,
he covered the cracks with his tools so that they would be accepted for use.
Defending himself, Keller says that though Deever was his partner in the firm,
he was not told about the cracks in the cylinder heads or else he could have
saved such a disaster from happening by advising Deever to withdraw that batch
of cylinders. He defends Steve saying that he cannot be held guilty of murder
because he had no intention of murdering anyone.
Joe Keller informs Ann that her brother George had called up from Columbus
and wished to speak to her. George’s trip to Columbus surprises Ann as he had
never gone there all these years to meet his father. Keller is suspicious of George’s
visit to his father Steve, and Ann’s visit to their home. He tells Chris that Ann’s
father had been blaming him for the supply of defective cylinder heads to the
army during the war and then George suddenly went to Columbus to visit his
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Arthur Miller: All My Sons father in jail. Keller is of the opinion that George must be wanting to reopen the
whole case about the supply of defective cylinder heads so as to harm the Kellers.
Both Joe Keller and Kate get worried and nervous about George’s visit to the
Keller household in order to meet Ann. Kate reminds Keller that George had
become a lawyer and must have gone to meet his father in connection with the
defective cylinder heads case. She warns him of George’s visit and asks him to
be alert and get ready for the worst situation he might have to face. This scene
arouses suspicion in our minds that Keller has manipulated certain facts. Act I
ends with the audience anticipating that some hidden secrets would be revealed
with the arrival of George in Act II.
In Act II the truth about Keller’s role in the crime is finally revealed increasing
dramatic tension. Act-II begins in the evening of the same day with Chris sawing
the broken off apple tree and the family getting ready to go out for dinner. Kate
fears that Steve Deever who had alleged in the court till the last day of the trial
that Keller had forced him to despatch the defective cylinder heads to the army
might get the case reopened with George’s help, thus putting them into trouble.
Kate then urges Chris that he should help them if any difficulty arose.
Sue enters the scene asking Ann the reason why George was coming to the Keller
household. She guesses that his visit was to get Ann married off with Chris. Ann
herself has no idea why her brother was coming. Accusing Keller of being guilty
like his partner Deever, Sue says that Keller being smart got himself exonerated
in the case by some trick. Ann objects to what Sue says because she believes
that her father alone is guilty in the defective arms case. To this Sue replies that
Keller is smart enough to make the people of the neighbourhood believe that he
is innocent. Ann asks Chris whether his father Joe Keller is guilty to which
Chris replies that his father is completely innocent and has been falsely accused
in the case.
The arrival of Ann’s brother George helps in the further development of the plot
and causes conflict between Joe Keller and his son Chris. George reveals the
truth about Joe Keller, accusing him of befooling and exploiting his father. Steve
Deever was languishing in jail because of Joe Keller. According to George,
Steve Deever was informed by the foreman in his factory that the cylinder heads
produced had some manufacturing defect. Steve Deever called up Keller to
come to the factory immediately. Meanwhile a large number of orders were
coming from army authorities on an urgent basis. Instead of coming to the factory
Joe Keller asked him to weld the cylinder heads and ship them to the army.
Keller said he had flu and was unable to come to the factory but would take full
responsibility for the supply of airplane parts. However, during the trial Joe
Keller denied his responsibility for the damaged cylinder heads. The court knew
that Joe Keller was telling a lie but in the appeal they believed Keller’s story,
acquitting him while sending Steve Deever to jail.
George then accuses the Kellers to have taken away everything belonging to the
Deevers. He says that he will not allow Chris to marry Ann and asks Ann to
leave the place with him. After listening to George, Chris confronts his father to
know whether he is the culprit. To justify his actions,Keller says that there were
a hundred and twenty defective cylinder heads in the factory which he could not
discard or he would have got bankrupt. He did not disclose to the army officials
that he had in the store damaged cylinder heads. This would make him lose the
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contract and his business that had taken forty years to build. To avoid such a All My Sons:
Reading the Text
situation he supplied the defective cylinder heads to the army, confident that the
army officials would check the engines before installing them to the aircraft.
Keller further says that he was sure that the army authorities would send him a
report after checking the engines. By the time he decided to inform them about
the cracks in the cylinder heads the damage had already been done. The newspaper
headlines read that twenty-one aeroplanes had crashed and the pilots had been
killed. The military officers came to his factory to arrest him and he denied the
charges keeping in mind his son Chris’ future. Keller says if he had let his
business to collapse, he would not have been in a position to set up another
business at the age of sixty one.
Chris gets furious at this. He accuses Keller of killing his own countrymen. He
was worse than an animal, ‘no animal kills his own’ (pg-76 All My Sons). Chris
says that he does not know how to punish Joe. He cries out ‘What must I do,
Jesus God, What must I do?’(pg-76 All My Sons) and Keller says, ‘Chris…….
My Chris…...’ Both of them seem to be helpless and feel miserable.
The play reaches its climax in Act III with dramatic tension building up again.
Act III opens with Kate rocking impatiently in her chair waiting for Chris to
return home after he disappeared from the house. Kate wants Keller to apprise
Chris of the whole situation admitting his mistake once he came back. Kate
suggests to him to tell Chris that he is ready to go to prison so that Chris felt
happy that his father was willing to repent. According to Kate, Chris would not
let Joe go to prison but would rather forgive him. Keller does not agree with her
as he feels he had done everything for his family’s sake. Kate says that for Chris
there is something bigger than one’s family and that Keller had broken Chris’
heart.
Kate wants Ann to leave the very next morning without Chris and is firm on her
belief that her son Larry is still alive. Ann tries hard to make Kate believe that
Larry was dead and speaks about Larry’s aeroplane crash on the coast of China
on the 25th of November. Ann points out that his plane had not crashed due to
engine failure. Kate refuses to believe her. Their future union in marriage is
threatened by Kate and in order to save their marriage Ann takes out a letter from
her pocket which she had brought as proof of Larry’s death and shows it to Kate.
After reading the letter that explains the motive of Larry’s suicide Kate is not
shocked for ‘she has always known, while constantly denying, that Larry had
died in the war.’ (‘P.56 Steve R. Centola’s, ‘All My Sons’ in C. Bigsby’s The
Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller). Unable to accept the death of her son
she has lived in self deception that he was still alive and would come back home
some day. Chris who had gone out, comes back after driving around. Chris informs
his mother that he is leaving home alone for good and that he is going to Cleveland
where he hopes to get a job in a private firm.
Ann wants to leave with Chris but he refuses to take her along. Meanwhile
Keller appears on the scene to talk to Chris. Now it has become clear to him that
both his wife and his son want him to go to jail. Keller asks Chris if he wanted
him to be jailed. He further says that during war time everybody sold their
manufactured goods to the government against money. Defending himself he
says that everyone tries to make money by all possible methods. Chris says that
he had idolised his father but the latter proved himself to be unworthy. 75
Arthur Miller: All My Sons In order to show the letter to Chris, Ann snatches the letter from Kate, giving it to
Chris to read. Chris reads the contents of the letter and tells his father that Larry
had deliberately killed himself in a crash. He further says that Larry was very
upset about his father’s involvement in the death of his fellow pilots. Larry
intentionally crashed his aeroplane when it became unbearable for him to live
with this shame. He had further written that if he had been there at the time of his
father’s conviction in court, he would have killed him.
After reading the letter Chris tells his father that he should know what is to be
done. Keller asks Chris to get the car ready and drive him to the police where he
will surrender himself. Kate prevents him from surrendering to the police saying
that Larry would not have wanted him to surrender. Keller says that in Larry’s
opinion the other pilots were also like his sons and so he has to pay the penalty.
Kate pleads with Chris not to take his father to jail as she fears that he will die in
prison. She reminds Chris that the war is over and the letter has no meaning
anymore. Chris disagrees with her.
Keller goes inside the house and a shot is heard from inside the house. Chris
enters the house and has no idea that his father has shot himself. Chris comes out
inconsolable after seeing his father dead. Kate knows very well that her husband
had committed suicide to pay the penalty for his crime. She tells Chris not to feel
guilty for his father’s suicide but to forget the past and live a new life. The play
ends with a tragic scene, Ann running to look for Dr. Bayliss while Chris and
Kate are left alone grieving for Joe Keller.
‘The play ends with Chris facing with horror his own complicity in his father’s
self-destruction, and with Keller’s death the play forcefully repudiates anti-social
behaviour that derives from the myth of privatism in American Society’. Steven
R. Centola’s (‘All My Sons’ in The Cambridge Companion To Arthur Miller
edited by Christopher Bigsby).
The minor characters in the play such as Dr. Jim Bayliss, his wife Sue, Bert,
Frank Lubey and Lydia contribute to the unity of the plot with their dialogues
enhancing the play’s realism. Their dialogues contribute to the routine activities
of daily life such as the damage caused to the trees that were snapped by the
fierce wind, the weather forecast in the newspaper, the poor remuneration which
the doctor gets as compared to a film star, a toaster that is out of order, and has to
be repaired. The banalities of conversation bring interest to the plot giving it a
realistic effect without disturbing the progress of the main plot.

2.3 ARTHUR MILLER ON DRAMA AS TRAGEDY

In his essay, ‘Tragedy and Common Man’ Miller says that there were very few
modern tragedies written because people thought that they were ‘fit only for the
very highly placed, the kings or the kingly’ (‘Tragedy and the Common Man’ in
Arthur Miller’s The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller and with an Introduction by
Robert A. Martin The Viking Press 1978 New York) as Aristotle believed. For
Aristotle, in a tragic play the protagonist should be a king or someone of high
class so that his change in fortune from good to bad can be presented on a big
scale Arthur Miller challenged the belief previously accepted about tragic plays,
saying that tragic consciousness existed even in the ordinary people. For him
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‘the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who All My Sons:
Reading the Text
is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing, his sense of personal
dignity’ (‘Tragedy and the Common Man’ in Arthur Miller’s The Theatre Essays
of Arthur Miller and with an Introduction by Robert A. Martin the Viking Press
1978 New York). Arthur Miller believed ‘that the common man is as apt a subject
for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were’ (Tragedy and the Common Man’
in Arthur Miller’s The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller and with an Introduction
by Robert A. Martin The Viking Press 1978 New York). Miller emphasized that
main characters in a tragedy should be ordinary people in domestic surroundings
to whom the audience will readily relate. The audience’s understanding of a
tragic play becomes easy with ordinary people playing the main role. A play
having a great person as protagonist would involve elevated language, understood
only by the upper-class people while the common man would be unable to
comprehend the meaning of the play. According to Miller, ‘Tragedy is the
consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly. The ‘tragic
flaw’ is not exclusively in grand or elevated characters,’ it is also present in
ordinary people. ‘The flaw or crack in the character ….. is ‘his unwillingness to
remain passive of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of
his rightful status.’(‘Tragedy and the Common Man’ in Arthur Miller’s The
Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller and with an Introduction by Robert A. Martin
The Viking Press 1978 New York)
Arthur Miller wrote tragic plays such as The Crucible, All My Sons and Death of
a Salesman. In fact All My Sons was Miller’s first attempt to write such a tragedy
of the common man. His tragedies were associated with the American’s belief of
a certain form of idealism, that man is the captain of his fate. One such tragedy
was ‘All My Sons’ which was about the high significance of Joe Keller and the
resulting actions and consequences. His actions lead to his downfall, making
him a tragic character and the play a modern tragedy.

2.4 ALL MY SONS : A VIEW OF THE TEXT

The play ‘All My Sons’ deals with the fate of Joe Keller. Though uneducated and
a self-made man Keller has committed an atrocious act during World War II. Joe
Keller and Steve Deever are partners of a factory that manufactures cylinder
heads for aircrafts. During the war they get a contract from the army for supplying
to them cylinder heads on an urgent basis. Steve Deever is informed by the
foreman in his factory that the cylinder heads that were produced had hairline
cracks in them. Steve Deever calls up Keller to come to the factory immediately.
Keller says that he would be unable to go to the factory as he was down with flu.
Asking him to weld the cylinder heads, he assures Deever that he would take full
responsibility for the damaged cylinder heads. These damaged cylinder heads
cause twenty-one planes to crash, killing their pilots. Both Deever and Keller are
arrested and convicted but at the trial Joe Keller denies responsibility and is
exonerated as the blame shifts to Steve Deever who is imprisoned. The main
action in the play revolves around this tragic incident.
The ostensible harmony of the house is disturbed three years later with Ann’s
arrival to the Keller household in order to marry Chris Keller. Situation in the
Keller home worsens with the arrival of George, Steve Deever’s son and Ann’s
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Arthur Miller: All My Sons brother who comes to prevent Ann’s marriage with Chris. Kate believes Larry
to be still alive though he had gone missing in action during the war. It is this
belief of hers that enables her for three years to support her husband Joe Keller
and be partner in his crime by concealing her knowledge of the case. George
reveals the truth that Keller was the main culprit, responsible for the death of
twenty-one pilots and because of him his father is in jail. When confronted by
Chris to know whether his father was guilty, Keller justifies his action saying
that he took the decision to ship faulty cylinder heads to the army to preserve his
business and for the welfare of his family. Joe Keller pursues the American Dream
of owning materialistic wealth — a nice home, good job, financial security,
car — all are done for the sake for the family. Keller says,
‘Chris….Chris, I did it for you, it was chance and I took it for you. I’m sixty-
one years old, when would I have another chance to make something for
you? Sixty-one years old you don’t get another chance, do ya? (All My Sons
P.75)
Kate Keller supports her husband’s guilt by concealing her knowledge of the
terrible crime he had committed fearing that it might break the family unit. It is
also ironic that Keller’s decision to act for his son and his family is the cause of
estrangement between him and Chris. Keller’s myopic world - view disallows
him to see beyond his family. His claim that there is nothing bigger than his
family cuts him off from any kind of relationship with society which is wrong.
The views on morality of both Chris and Larry Keller are a contrast to those of
his parents. Chris is disgusted when his father tries to justify his act, saying:
‘For me! I was dying everyday and you were killing my boys and you did it
for me? What the hell do you think I was thinking of, the god dam business?
……… Don’t you have a country? Don’t you live in the world? ….. You’re
not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what are you?...’(P.75,76 All
My Sons)
Larry’s letter to Ann reveals that shamed by his father’s involvement in fraud
and profiteering Larry is compelled to destroy himself deliberately. It is a
devastating irony that Joe’s attempt to work for the interests of the family results
in fraud and the deaths of twenty one pilots. The clash between the ideals of
father and his sons finally results in the suicide of Joe Keller.
Denial on the part of most of the characters of the play also contributes towards
making the play a tragedy. Joe Keller the chief character himself lied to everybody
including his family that he was not involved in supplying defective cylinder
heads. His denial in the court despite the assurance given by him to his partner
Steve Deever at the time of the shipment landed Deever in jail. To save her
husband from going to jail Kate herself lives in denial and self deception. She
firmly believes that Larry is alive despite the knowledge of his death because
she knows that Larry’s suicide is the result of her husband’s crime of killing the
pilots. Her belief that Larry is alive is beneficial for the peace and harmony in
the family. Chris has a vague idea of his father’s crime but is unable to accept
him as a criminal as he had always looked up to his father and idolised him.
Ann herself chose to deny the truth the truth for three years only to save her
relationship with Chris. The facts of the case that Keller had manipulated to
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prove himself clean was also known to the neighbours but they pretended that he All My Sons:
Reading the Text
was honest ‘and they accepted him back into their social life’. (P.167 ‘Arthur
Miller’ A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama C.W. E
Bigsby)
In spite of being uneducated, Joe Keller is a hardworking person and a successful
business man. An honest worker and a friendly and polite person he likes to
socialise with everyone. But he has a flaw or weakness. This in turn causes him
to act wrongly. His tragic decision to ship defective cylinder heads that killed
twenty-one pilots changes him into a despised character. His love for his family
and his unwillingness to become bankrupt forces him to ship the faulty cylinder
heads to the army. His wrong decision was due to a ‘tragic flaw’ in his character
that led Larry to commit suicide which in turn caused him to take his own life.
Realising his guilt that the pilots were all his sons, Keller shoots himself towards
the end of the play, creating for him sympathy in the audience.
Keller’s act of suicide at the end of the play is tragic in a number of senses: he is
unable to cope with the estrangement between him and his son; at the same time
his death is designed to spare Chris any further embarrassment at what his father
has done, etc. The conflict between morality, denial of the characters, the guilt
of killing pilots who were all his sons and finally Joe Keller’s realisation that
there can be no real forgiveness for his actions point towards the state of affairs
in the modern world.
All My Sons is considered a modern tragedy because of the creation of the chief
character as tragic and how his actions lead to several tragic consequences.

2.5 LET US SUM UP

In the first section of this unit we have discussed the structure and plot of All My
Sons while in the second section we get to know Miller’s views on tragedy and
why the play All My Sons is primarily called a tragedy.

2.6 QUESTIONS
1. How does George’s arrival to the Keller household help in the development
of the plot in Act II?
2. How is Larry’s letter instrumental in forcing Keller to realise his guilt?
3. Does Kate know about Keller’s guilt? If yes, why does she conceal the facts
from others?
4. What is Miller’s view on tragedy?
5. Why is All My Sons considered a tragedy?

2.7 SUGGESTED READINGS

Hayman Ronald, Contemporary Playwrights: Arthur Miller. Heinemann, London.
1973.
Gould, Jean. Modern American Playwrights. Bombay Popular Prakashan. 1966. 79
Arthur Miller: All My Sons
UNIT 3 THEMATIC CONCERNS IN ALL
MY SONS
Structure

3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 Theme of Social Responsibility
3.1.2 Problem of Chris’s Marriage as Theme
3.1.3 Idealism as Theme
3.1.4 Father-Son Relationship as Theme
3.1.5 Actions and its Consequences as Theme
3.1.6 Mother-Son Relationship as Theme
3.2 Let Us Sum Up
3.3 Questions
3.4 Suggested Readings

3.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit discusses in detail various themes in the play All My Sons such as
social responsibility, marriage, idealism, father-son relationship, actions and their
consequences and mother-son relationship.

3.1 INTRODUCTION
In All My Sons we come across several themes, the theme of social responsibility
is the single major theme while there are several other themes juxtaposed with
the major one. The relatively minor themes are interwoven in such a way with
the major theme that they have become an integral part of the play.

3.1.1 Theme of Social Responsibility

The play All My Sons has a single major theme — the theme of social
responsibility. It emphasizes the importance of a man’s duty towards society and
his country before his duty to his family. The play brings out the tragic
consequences of a man’s mistake of becoming rich and providing comfortable
and luxurious life to his family at the cost of society. Joe Keller wants to fulfill
the American Dream that goes back to the early puritan settlers in America who
came with the aim to establish New Jerusalem, that practically meant establishing
an economic civilization in the wilderness of American continent. In due course
of time however the achievement of success was through manipulation and
disregard for moral values. Keller merely believes in the economic interpretation
of the American Dream where values and morality take the back seat. Joe Keller’s
dream is confined to his family; his ultimate goal being to look after the comforts
of his family. This obsession makes him dupe his own friend and partner Steve
Deever. He is inspired by the myopic vision of the ‘American Dream’ This
80 meant to become successful by manipulation and duplicity. He believes that to
survive in this world of competition one has to be successful alone. The fear of Thematic Concerns of
All My Sons
failure leads him to betray not only his friend but also his own country.
Joe Keller, a manufacturer of aircraft engines had received an urgent contract
from the army to supply cylinder heads for aircrafts to be used in war. But it so
happened that the whole batch of cylinder heads produced by the manufacturing
unit had developed cracks. On the day the urgent order came Joe Keller was at
home, while his business partner Steve Deever was in the manufacturing unit.
Steve Deever called up Joe Keller to inform him about the hairline cracks in the
cylinder heads discovered by him in the factory. Joe Keller could have asked
Steve Deever to withhold the supply of these defective cylinder heads, but he
felt that putting a halt to the supply of the damaged cylinder heads would lead to
a huge financial loss. A hundred and twenty defective cylinder heads that the
factory had manufactured were damaged and discarding them and making new
ones would lead to a lot of delay as also to the termination of their contract.
Moreover they would not be able to meet the demands of the army who needed
the cylinder heads immediately for the ongoing war.
Owing to the financial pressure and the obsession of becoming rich, Keller risked
shipping the faulty parts of the cylinder heads. Keller could not bear to see his
business collapse that had taken forty years of struggle to build it. Keeping his
personal and family interests in mind he called up Steve Deever asking him to
weld the cracks on the cylinders and ship it out to the army. Keller told him that
he was down with flu and would not be coming to the factory, but would take full
responsibility for supplying the damaged cylinders. Later defending his action,
Keller tells his son that he thought that the authorities would send him a report of
the damaged cylinder heads after they themselves had tested them. Twenty one
pilots were dead in consequence as their aircrafts crashed. Both Steve Deever
and Joe Keller knew that the defective cylinder heads would put the lives of the
pilots in danger but they wanted to make profit without bothering about the
consequences. Keller disregards his social responsibilities and seeks his own
material interests at the cost of other people’s lives. For Joe Keller the duty
towards his family is his priority; he makes a wrong choice and the result is
disastrous. Keller insists that his own values are those of the American capitalist
society that emphasises achieving success by economic gain in this land of
opportunity. As he asks, ‘Who worked for nothing in that war? When they work
for nothing, I’ll work for nothing. Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit
before they got their price? Is that clear? It’s dollars and cents, nickels and
dimes; war and peace, it’s nickels and dimes, what’s clear? Half the goddamn
country is gotta go if I go.’ (All My Sons, p- 87) Joe Keller places his commitment
to his immediate family above his wider responsibility to the society at large.

3.1.2 Problem of Chris’s Marriage as Theme

One of the minor themes of the play is the problem of Chris’s marriage. Kate
Keller is of the view that her son Larry would return some day from the war that
had ended three years ago. Larry went to the war as a fighter pilot and had been
reported missing. For all practical purposes he was presumed to be dead. Steve
Deever’s daughter Ann had been in love with Larry and was engaged to him
before he went to fight in the war. But after the news of Larry going missing,
Ann had accepted the fact that he was no more. Larry’s brother Chris is in love
81
Arthur Miller: All My Sons with Ann. After his brother was reported to be killed in the war, Chris desires to
marry Ann. He keeps in touch with her through letters and later invites her to his
house in order to propose to her. Ann comes to the Keller household in response
to Chris’s invitation and agrees to marry him.Their idyllic set up gets disturbed
with Chris’ invitation to Ann to visit the Keller household. The arrival of Ann to
the Keller household opens up several questions that had been left unanswered
for three years, leading to the downfall of Keller and the collapse of the Keller
family. Her arrival after a long interval connects the present with the past and
actions with consequences.
While everyone in the Keller household believes that Larry is dead, Kate persists
in believing that Larry is alive and would come home one day. Joe Keller knows
Chris’s intention of inviting Ann home but he tells Chris that his mother would
not agree to this marriage because she believes that her son Larry is still alive
and Ann is Larry’s fiancée. Kate is already suspicious of Ann’s arrival to her
house and when she learns that Chris wants to marry Ann she does not approve
of it, as for her to agree for their marriage would mean the confirmation of Larry’
death which in turn would prove her husband’s complicity in the crime of killing
twenty-one pilots. However, Ann is willing to marry Chris as she is convinced
that Larry is dead. The Apple tree that had fallen down by the fierce wind on the
day of Ann’s arrival reinforces her belief that the coincidence has some hidden
meaning. Kate refuses to agree with both Chris and Ann’s firm view that Larry is
dead.
The arrival of George in the Keller household further complicates the situation.
George had come to the Keller household to prevent his sister’s marriage to
Chris after he learnt about certain facts about the case in which his father had
been convicted and Keller had been exonerated after meeting his father in prison
in Columbus.On arrival at the Keller household, George takes up the matter in
order to expose Keller’s complicity in the case. He tells his sister Ann that he
would not allow her to marry Chris, the son of a man who ruined their father’s
life.
Kate wants Ann to leave with George because she still believes that Larry is
alive and Ann should wait for Larry’s return. Chris makes it clear that Ann
would not leave the house and that he would marry Ann because Larry is dead.
Kate says that Larry is alive and if everyone believes he is dead then he has been
killed by his father. She says that a father never kills his son, so Larry must be
alive. Despite of knowing that Larry is dead, Kate lives in self-deception that
Larry will return. “To justify her conviction, she adopts a blind faith in religion
and obstinately argues that ‘God does not let a son be killed by his father”
(Collected Plays P-114). In order to justify that he has not killed Larry, Keller
says that Larry could not have been killed by engine failure because he was not
flying P-40 but some other airplane. Chris is suspicious about his father’s role in
the supply of damaged cylinder heads and asks him whether he was responsible
for the death of the other pilots. Keller tries to hide the fact from his son Chris
but reveals the truth when Chris threatens to tear him to pieces.
Keller admits his guilt saying that if the cylinder heads had not been shipped out
to the army he would have become bankrupt. To save his factory from ruin he
had no choice but to supply the defective cylinder heads to the army. He says
that he had visualized the repercussions but he thought that the army would
82
check before bringing them into use and report to him about the their malfunctions Thematic Concerns of
All My Sons
if any. Shocked with his father’s arguments to defend himself, Chris shouts at
him for having endangered the lives of twenty-one pilots. Chris feels miserable
and helpless at the crime his father has committed.
Chris wants to move out to earn his own living away from his parents. He refuses
to be a part of the fraud by living on the profits of his father’s business made by
wrong means. Ann offers to accompany Chris, but he refuses to take her along
because Kate has made Chris feel guilty of marrying Ann. Kate objects to Ann’s
marriage with Chris saying that he will have to wait for Larry to return and if
Chris married Ann he would always be unhappy because he would be feeling
guilty all the time that he had married a girl belonging to Larry.
Ann emphatically says that Larry died after his aeroplane crashed off the coast
of China on the 25th of November which was not due to engine failure. Refusing
to believe her, Kate accuses Ann of lying. In order to save her relationship with
Chris, Ann shows Kate the letter from Larry, a proof of his death that he had
written to her on the last day of his life. Kate was not shocked by the letter for
she already knew the truth. Chris also had a vague idea about his father’s crime.
Kate on one hand could not accept the death of her son Larry, as this would lead
her husband’s guilt to be proved. Chris on the other hand did not want to accept
his father’s crime as he had idolized and respected him. In the letter Larry had
written to Ann that he had come to know through the newspaper of his father
being convicted for supplying defective cylinder heads that had killed a large
number of pilots. Ashamed of his father’s crime, he was ending his life by letting
his aircraft to crash. Ann Deever also had been living in denial after she received
Larry’s letter. She knew about Keller’s guilt but does not reveal to anyone until
she is compelled to do so to save her relationship with Chris.

3.1.3 Idealism as Theme

Another minor theme juxtaposed with the main theme in the play All My Sons is
the theme of idealism. Chris has an idealistic bent of mind. He feels guilty in
even wanting to marry Ann and settling down to lead a blissful and comfortable
life while all the men under his command have been killed in the course of the
war. These soldiers had repeatedly proved by their actions that they were real
human beings. Chris feels guilty of having survived the war while the other
soldiers died. He tries to console himself by thinking that the soldiers under his
command were sacrificing their lives for a noble cause. In his opinion, by giving
up their lives these soldiers were helping in changing the world into a better
place. But when the war ended and he came back home he saw to his shock that
nothing had changed in the world around him. He found the same kind of
selfishness, competition to make money and the desire to fulfil the ‘American
Dream’ as he had observed before the war. The existing situation makes Chris
feel guilty for the people who had given their lives in vain as nothing had changed
in the world. Chris felt ashamed of everything around him. He was ashamed of
looking at his cheque-book, or driving his new car or looking at the new fridge
that was bought for the house. He feels awkward to use these comforts and is
also hesitant to marry Ann. In the war he had seen men bonding with each other
while here people were driven by their selfish motives.
83
Arthur Miller: All My Sons Chris’s idealistic personality influences Jim Bayliss to such an extent that he
wants to give up his medical practice for medical research. The idea of medical
research upsets his wife Sue who accuses Chris of misleading her husband and
filling his mind with wrong notions. Medical research had given immense
satisfaction to Jim making that particular period of his life much happier. But he
had to discontinue with his research to please his wife Sue for whom materialistic
comforts mattered more.
Chris says, ‘The business! The business doesn’t inspire me’. (All My Sons Pg-
15) It is against his ideology to enter his father’s business that had been built by
fraudulent means. He fears that he might also follow the success-code of society.
Chris’s idealistic qualities even compel his father to realize the enormity of his
crime of killing twenty-one pilots. Joe Keller is forced by Chris’s idealism to
realize his social responsibilities. As a result he kills himself as a punishment for
his crime of being involved in killing twenty one pilots.

3.1.4 Father-Son Relationship as Theme

Another minor theme interwoven with the main theme in the play All My Sons is
father-son relationship. Keller says, ‘there’s nothing he could do that I wouldn’t
forgive. Because he’s my son. Because I’m his father and he’s my son……Nothing
bigger than that……… I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s something
bigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head!’ (All My Sons P-81).
Chris has a high opinion of his father Joe Keller. He considers him as an infallible
father figure. He is very close to him and has complete trust in him. Keller is the
first person in whom Chris confides his marriage plans with Ann. Chris convinces
his father to support him in the fight that involves Kate who still thinks of Ann as
Larry’s fiancée. Joe Keller does not want to interfere in the complex matter; he
thinks that Chris’ marriage is his own affair and he is also worried that his wife
Kate would not like the idea of Chris marrying Larry’s fiancée. Keller is a friend
more than a father to Chris. Giving him friendly advice Keller says that Chris
should first take Ann’s opinion in planning his marriage. Confiding with him
Chris says that from the letters he had been receiving from Ann he is of the
opinion that she has forgotten Larry completely. Chris expects him to take his
side if his mother refuses to allow the marriage, threatening to leave the house
and live somewhere else. Keller is shocked to hear his decision of quit the home.
He is worried about their family business that he had built for Chris. Chris
blackmails his father saying that he would stay back to take charge of the family
business only if he is allowed to marry Ann.
Chris refuses to believe that his father is guilty when Ann tells Chris that she
heard from Sue that the neighbours think that Joe Keller has manipulated in the
case of supplying defective cylinder heads to the army. Defending his father he
says he would never have forgiven his father if his father had been found guilty
of fraud. Chris trusts his father and tells Ann that he is innocent in the case but
has been falsely accused.
The arrival of Ann’s brother George gives rise to conflict between Chris and
Keller. Revealing the truth George says that Keller is the main culprit in the
damaged cylinder head case and had deceived Steve Deever. Chris objects
strongly to George’s accusations of his father having duped his partner Steve
84
Deever. George says that the court had passed the judgment without knowing Thematic Concerns of
All My Sons
the cunningness of Joe Keller but Chris defends him saying he knows his father
very well and that Joe Keller was not guilty of supplying defective cylinder
heads to the army. Chris again blatantly denies George’s accusations of his father
being responsible for supplying defective cylinder heads. When George asks for
Chris’ permission to talk to Keller, Chris asserts that his father has done nothing
wrong, and he knows what reply his father would give to his questions. Coming
under pressure from George, Chris breaks the semblance for family harmony
maintained all this while, questioning his father Keller about his role in the sordid
business transaction. Justifying himself Keller says that financial pressure and
his duty towards his family compelled him to supply the damaged cylinder parts.
The relation between father and son collapses with the clash of their principles.
Joe Keller believes that nothing is bigger in the world than one’s family and
nothing is more important than a son’s relationship with the father. Justifying his
actions Keller tries to convince Chris saying, ‘Chris…..Chris, I did it for you, it
was a chance and I took it for you. I’m sixty-one years old, when would I have
another chance to make something for you? Sixty-one years old you don’t get
another chance do you? (All My Sons P-75) Chris has a different set of ideals. In
his view there is a larger world outside his family and one has a certain
responsibility beyond one’s family. In Chris’ opinion all the pilots killed in the
war were also his sons. Defending himself of his actions Keller says that he has
supplied the defective cylinder heads to the army to save himself from bankruptcy.
He did not want to be out of his business which had taken him forty years to
build; he was already sixty-one and was in no position to build up another business
if he allowed his business to collapse. He says he did all this for Chris’ sake, to
protect his future interests and to ensure his family’s survival. Further defending
his actions Joe Keller says that there was no harm in making money and that
everyone else earned money by all possible methods during the war. Chris’
character is contrary to his father’s character. The conflict between Chris and
Joe Keller arises from Chris’ consciousness towards social responsibility while
Keller is insensibly following the American Dream. Chris is ashamed to know of
his father’s principles and says that he had always put his father on a high pedestal
but now he had fallen in his estimation.
Chris says that he had judged Keller not as a man but as his father. Chris is
furious to hear from his father that he had put the pilots’ life at stake for his
family’s sake. Chris had been risking his life daily while fighting in the war and
had seen soldiers under his command at the war perishing daily while Keller
had ignored the interests of the country and worked for his selfish motives. He
lashes at him furiously, …. ‘What the hell do you mean, you did it for me? Don’t
you have a country? You’re not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what
are you?’…….. (All My Sons p.76) Chris does not know how to punish Joe. He
feels helpless and miserable.
Larry’s letter finally makes Keller realize that there is something bigger than the
family. The letter reads that Larry could not live with the shame of his father
being involved in the death of the pilots. Keller says, ‘sure, he was my son but I
think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were…
(All My Sons p-89)’. Keller punishes himself by shooting himself on realizing
that he was wrong in seeing only his family while both his sons Chris and Larry
85
Arthur Miller: All My Sons are right in seeing the larger family. Chris holds himself responsible for his father’s
self-destruction.
Keller wants to rename the business for Chris from ‘J.O. Keller incorporated’ to
‘J.O. Keller and Son’, but Chris is uneasy with the proposition. Keller suspects
that Chris is ashamed of their money and he tries to convince him that he has
earned them morally.
Unlike Chris-Keller relationship, George’s relation with his father improves from
callousness to that of a dutiful son as the play proceeds. George disowns his
father Steve Deever thinking him to be the main culprit in the defective cylinder
case. He snaps his relationship with his father as he himself is an idealist like
Chris who cannot tolerate his father’s involvement in the crime of killing twenty-
one pilots while working on his personal profit and looking after the welfare of
his family. George comes to know about the truth after his meeting with his
father in the prison when he went to inform him of Chris’ marriage with Ann.
Convinced by his father’s version of the case he visits the Keller household to
expose Keller’s crime and prevent Ann’s marriage with Chris. George’s
accusations against Keller are rejected by the Keller family and also by Ann.
Though George does not succeed in convincing them, the sincere efforts of a
dutiful son do bring disturbance to the peaceful existence of the Keller family.

3.1.5 Actions and their Consequences as Theme

Another theme that in integrated with the main theme is actions and their
consequences. Joe Keller, manufacturer aircraft cylinder heads had been charged
with the supply of defective equipments that led to the death of twenty-one pilots.
It was his decision to ship the faulty cylinder heads to the army, yet he denies his
responsibility for his actions at the trial and the blame shifts to Steve Deever his
partner. While his partner is convicted, he is exonerated, thus re-establishing his
business successfully and winning back the respect of his neighbours. Despite
suspicions that he is guilty, they apparently accept him back in their social life.
But relief at his acquittal lasts only for three years. At the time the play begins,
Ann, the daughter of Steve Deever arrives at the Keller household to get married
to Chris Keller. Kate refuses to allow the marriage between Chris and Ann as
agreeing to their marriage would mean that she has accepted the death of her
son Larry with whom Ann was engaged. Acceptance of her son’s death would
also mean linking Larry’s death with her husband’s guilt. Keller is nervous and
frightened once he gets to know that George who is a lawyer was on his way to
the Keller household after visiting his father Steve Deever in Jail. George’s arrival
to the Kellers further complicates matters as he comes to the Kellers to know the
truth of the defective cylinder case from Joe Keller. After visiting his father in
jail, George now believes that Joe Keller is equally responsible for the death of
the pilots. He wants Ann to break off the engagement with Chris and return with
him to New York. Though he fails to get the facts out of Keller, Kate Keller
accidentally lets out the secret by the slip of her tongue that Joe ‘hasn’t been laid
up in fifteen years’. In order to protect her husband from being proved guilty she
reiterates her faith in the theory of Larry being alive because if he’s dead Joe
Keller has killed him and God does not let a son to be killed by his father. Chris
angrily confronts his father, who tries hard to defend his actions as ‘business’.
Justifying his acts Keller explains that one works for forty years and in one
86
moment with one failed shipment, the contracts get cancelled and one loses Thematic Concerns of
All My Sons
everything. He had thought that the army would check the engine heads before
bringing them into use, and he would send him their reports. He would then
warn them. But it was too late and the disaster had already taken place. Chris is
flabbergasted that his father knowingly put the lives of pilots at stake. But his
father says that he had done for Chris, for his family and his business. Keller had
acted within the profit orientation of capitalism. Wartime profiteering and the
pursuit of business profit beyond humanity was part of the American capitalist
system. And Keller was one of thousands of men caught up in the existing situation
making a choice according his own values. Keller works for the interests of the
family, otherwise he would have lost his business and his family would have
landed in poverty. Chris is disgusted and ashamed of his father’s choice, ignoring
the larger social and cultural values. Larry’s letter that is revealed by Ann after
she fears that her relation with Chris is threatened brings out Larry’s intention of
committing suicide because of her father’s actions. Stunned by the consequences
of his actions that have led his son Larry to commit suicide and the guilt of
killing the pilots and finally understanding that in the eyes of Larry and in a
symbolic moral sense all the dead pilots were ‘all his sons’, he shoots himself to
pay the penalty for his actions. Keller’s decision to commit suicide at the end of
the play comes as a direct response to his realization that the pilots who died as
a consequence of his actions were ‘all his sons’

3.1.6 Mother-Son Relationship as Theme

One of the minor themes again juxtaposed with the main theme is the mother-
son relationship. Kate is a dominant figure in the Kate-Chris relationship. Chris’s
closeness to his dad is more evident in the play All My Sons than with his mother
Kate though he cares for his mother and she is a loving mother to him. Ann’s
visit to the Keller household makes Kate suspicious that she might have come to
marry Chris. Kate believes that Larry is alive and will return someday and marry
Ann. Both Ann and Chris try to explain to Kate that it is ridiculous to wait for a
man who had been missing for three years. Kate had known that her husband
was guilty of shipping the defective cylinder heads but had kept the secret to
herself. She lives in an illusion that Larry is alive and will return someday. Her
son Larry is very close to her heart, she cannot come to terms with his loss. Her
irrational belief is beneficial for the family unit and her false hope of his return
strengthens her. Kate disagrees for the marriage of Chris and Ann because giving
her consent to their marriage would mean that she would have to accept Larry’s
death which in turn would lead to the revelation of her husband’s crime of killing
twenty-one pilots, hence she still waits for Larry’s return. Chris finds it ridiculous
to wait for someone who has been missing in action for three years. Chris is of
the opinion that his mother is simply harboring a wrong notion. In his opinion
she is the only woman in America who is still waiting for her son to return.
Being aware of her husband’s guilt in the case of supplying defective cylinder
heads, a worried Kate asks Chris to protect both her husband and herself. She
fears that Steve and George might re-open the case because on the last days of
the trial, Steve Deever persisted in alleging in the court that Keller had forced
him to dispatch the defective cylinder heads to the army.
Both Chris and Kate are living in a state of denial of Keller’s guilt; as a result
their viewpoints are different on many issues. Chris disagrees with Kate’s view 87
Arthur Miller: All My Sons of Ann being inwardly hostile to the Keller family because of her father. While
Kate insists that Ann is still waiting for Larry’s return, Chris disagrees with her
as he knows very well that Ann is in love with him. Kate does not like the idea of
Ann staying with them while her brother George leaves. She wants that both
George and Ann should leave together. Chris makes it clear to Kate that Ann was
not going anywhere. Chris calls Frank insane for believing in astrology and being
certain that Larry was alive while Kate trusts Frank and disagrees with Chris.
Both Chris and Kate knew about the defective cylinder case but kept it to
themselves trying to hide the fact from each other so that the family could function
in harmony. Chris is suspicious of his mother’s knowledge about the truth of the
defective cylinder heads case when George accuses Kate of telling lies that her
husband Keller had not suffered from illness in the last fifteen years and later his
father modifies her statement saying that he had suffered from flu. Kate says that
it had slipped her mind.
Chris is furious to hear from his mother that she has packed Ann’s bag so that she
leaves with her brother George. Chris makes it clear to his mother that Ann
would not be leaving and that if Ann did not have any place in this house, he
would go away from his house as well. Chris emphatically says that Larry is
dead so he would marry Ann. Chris wants to go ahead with his marriage plans
despite of his mother telling him that she would not allow the marriage to take
place and that everybody in the house must wait for Larry’s return. Hinting that
Keller is responsible for Larry’s death, she says that Larry is alive and that if
Larry is dead, then Larry has been killed by Joe Keller. And a father never kills
his son, therefore, Larry must be alive. Taking cue from her statement Chris
asks his father about the case and Keller is forced to come out with the truth of
the case.
Kate’s concern for her son is obvious in her restlessness following Chris’
disappearance after Keller’s acceptance of his guilt in the case. Advising her
husband Joe, she asks him to tell Chris that he is ready to go to prison in order to
pay for his guilt in the case. She is sure that it would satisfy Chris and he would
forgive his father. Here Kate judges him wrongly.
Kate acts as a mediator between Keller and her son after Chris refuses to talk to
his father once he comes to know about Keller’s fraud. Joe asks Kate to convey
to Chris that he had spoilt Chris and that he should have let him earn his own
livelihood from the time he was ten years old, to make him realise that it was not
easy to make money in this world. He further says that he would not ask Chris’
forgiveness because he had committed the crime for the interests of his family.
Talking about Chris’ ideals, Kate says that for Chris the interests of the nation
were bigger than the family.
Kate makes Chris feel guilty of his decision to marry Ann by reiterating that
Larry was alive and that Chris would never have a happy marital life if he married
Larry’s fiancée Ann. Kate’s disapproval of their marriage compels Ann to show
Larry’s letter written to her on the last day of his life. The contents of the letter
do not shock Kate as she has been aware of her husband’s complicity in the
damaged cylinder heads case. Ann has to snatch the letter from her in order to
show it to Chris as Kate tries to prevent Chris from reading the letter. Chris reads
Larry’s letter that is the proof of the circumstances in which Larry had killed
88
himself. Joe Keller asks Chris to drive him to the authorities so that he can Thematic Concerns of
All My Sons
surrender himself. Pleading with Chris not to hand him to the authorities, she
says that if Chris would take Keller to jail, he would be killing Joe. Trying to
save her husband from going to jail, she conveniently tells Chris that Larry’s
letter had no meaning as the war was over. Chris then asks his mother if Larry
was not important to her any more. He makes both Joe and Kate realize that it is
not enough to feel sorry, they should have a certain responsibility towards society
and the nation. Kate had all this while kept repeating that Larry is alive in order
to conceal her husband’s guilt. And once Larry’s letter comes out with the truth,
she begins pleading with Chris not to take her husband away because he would
not live long.
After her husband shoots himself inside the house, Kate consoles Chris like a
loving mother telling him not to take the blame on himself. She asks him to be
strong, to forget the past and to look forward to the future.

3.2 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have discussed the themes in All My Sons in detail. After reading
this unit we are clear about the main issues that Arthur Miller conveys to us
through this play.

3.3 QUESTIONS
1. What is the major theme of the play All My Sons?
2. Write a short note on the theme of actions and their consequences.
3. How is the character of Chris contrary to that of his father?
4. Briefly discuss the various themes of the play All My Sons?

3.4 SUGGESTED READINGS

Bloom, Clive. American Drama. Macmillan Press Limited, London. 1995.
Welland, Dennis. Miller: A Study of his Plays. Eya Methuen, London. 1979.

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Arthur Miller: All My Sons
UNIT 4 CHARACTERISATION IN ALL
MY SONS
Structure

4.0 Objectives
4.1 Major Characters
4.1.1 Joe Keller
4.1.2 Chris Keller
4.1.3 Kate Keller
4.1.4 Ann Deever
4.1.5 George Deever
4.2 Minor Characters
4.2.1 Jim Bayliss
4.2.2 Sue Bayliss
4.2.3 Frank Lubey
4.2.4 Lydia Lubey
4.2.5 Bert
4.3 Let Us Sum up
4.4 Questions
4.5 Suggested Readings

4.0 OBJECTIVES
In this unit we will be discussing:
 the development and significance of all the major characters,
 the development and significance of the minor characters.

4.1 MAJOR CHARACTERS

The Play All My Sons has major characters such as Joe Keller, Chris Keller,
Kate Keller, Ann Deever and George Deever being central to the action of the
play.

4.1.1 Joe Keller

Critic Paul Blumberg in his article ‘Work as Alienation in the Plays of Arthur
Miller’ in Arthur Miller: New Perspectives edited by Robert A. Martin says ‘Joe
Keller, manufacturer, and central figure in All My Sons, has a moral perspective
no larger than the fence that surrounds his factory or the grass growing evenly
around his own house. Joe Keller is not a selfish, disagreeable or greedy
industrialist; he is, an ignorant, good-natured and kindly fool, whose love for his
wife and family is genuine and unselfish’.
Joe Keller the chief character of the play in his sixties is an amicable, warm
90 person who loves social life. A self-made man with no education to fall back
upon, he still manages to set up a successful business after forty years of hard Characterisation in
All My Sons
work. He had struggled to earn his livelihood from the age of ten and as a result
knows the value of money. A man with little intellect, he lacks common sense.
Every simple thing makes him wonder. He has values that are old-fashioned and
judgments based on his experiences. A loving father to his sons, Keller feels
honoured to have sons, but having lost one of them in the war, he wishes he had
no sons so that he would not have to send them to fight in the war. War has
changed his opinion and ideas. Keller is fun-loving, jovial and becomes a child
while interacting with children. He makes friends with eight year-old Bert, the
son of Frank and Lydia who equally like him.
A family man, Keller has great concern and affection for his wife. It disturbs
him whenever Kate is upset. Keller is solicitous for his wife having to work in
the kitchen whenever the maid servant is absent. He is anxious about his wife’s
belief that Larry is alive and would be back one day. Keller does not want to
interfere much in Chris’ choice of his bride for he believes that marriage is entirely
one’s own affair; however he is concerned that Kate would not like the idea of
Chris marrying Larry’s fiancee who still believes that Larry would return someday.
Concerned about his wife’s sentiments, Keller does not want his son to get married
to Ann as Kate would not approve of it. After knowing Chris’ decision to quit
home if Kate disapproves his marriage with Ann, Keller is worried about the
future of his business that had taken him his whole life to establish it.
Despite of the geniality and warmth, the tragic flaw in Keller’s character allows
him to betray his partner Steve Deever. His neighbours know about his
manipulation of his acquittal but have apparently included him in their social
circle. Keller is proud of the fact that his self-confidence, guts and the proof
document of his innocence have gradually allowed them to forgive him. His son
Chris is proud of his father who has faced the difficult times with courage so
much so that Chris wants his name to be changed as Joe McGuts, for he is a
tough man who has shown guts. Keller is glad that he had won confidence of the
local people, Chris, Kate and Ann and does not let anyone have an inkling that
he was involved in the supply of defective cylinder heads as much as Steve
Deever.
After having wronged Steve Deever, Keller still shows his concern for him, asking
George about his father’s health and whether he still has the old-heart trouble.
Keller sympathizes with Steve saying ‘A little man makes a mistake and they
hang him by the thumbs; the big one become ambassadors’. (All My Sons p.-
67)To Ann’s question whether he has any grievance against her father for dragging
him in the defective cylinder heads case, Keller replies that he believes in the
policy of forgiving and forgetting and had no grievances against him. In order to
reduce his guilt, Keller wants to help Deever re-establish himself once he is out
of jail.
Confronted by Chris, Keller is compelled to reveal the truth of the case. Keller
gives account of the entire incident of the supply of defective cylinder heads to
the army, implicating Steve Deever as the main accused. To justify his acts, Joe
says that he had supplied the defective cylinders to save himself and the family
from those of bankruptcy; otherwise, he would have to discard the defective
cylinder heads and as a result his business that took him forty years to build
would collapse in seconds. Being ignorant, he had never thought that the engine 91
Arthur Miller: All My Sons heads would be fixed in the aircrafts without being checked and before a report
sent to him about the status of the engines. Keller is no ‘cynical profiteer,
deliberately reducing the margin of safety in order to increase the margin of
profit. Miller sees him as the simple man who has got on by energy and will
power but who is hardly clever enough to know how he has done it.’ (P.-26
‘Three Yearly Plays’ in Miller: A study of his Plays Dennis Welland, Eyre Methuen
London.1979) ‘As with most of Miller’s characters, there is no vice in him, only
littleness and his form of myopia. He is genuinely unable to visualise the public
consequences of what was for him a private act.’ (Pg-26 ‘Three Yearly Plays’ in
Dennis Welland, Eyre Methuen’s Miller: A Study of his Plays. London 1979.)
Trying to fulfill the roles of a father and husband, Joe Keller sees an obligation
towards his family and a father’s duty towards his son to work for their future
interests. Keller believes that there is nothing bigger than one’s family and for
him father-son relationship is above all relationships. Like all men, he too has
his own material interests and strives to work for the monetary gains of his family.
Like other people he is not bothered about the damage to society that he brings
while ensuring economic stability to his family. Keller’s values are no different
from those of any ordinary man living in the American capitalist society where
there was a maddening competition in business. Being a practical man, Keller is
unable to live up to the expectations of his son Chris, an idealist.
The letter written by Larry reveals that he committed suicide by allowing his
plane to crash, shamed by his father’s involvement in fraud and profiteering.
Keller finally understands the disastrous implications of his actions. He realises
in the end the responsibility he had to all twenty-one pilots who lost their lives
and that there is no real forgiveness for his act. For him his suicide is the only
way he can repay for his crime and escape from guilt. It would also save his son
Chris from further humiliation. Joe Keller has a tragic end after he makes a
wrong choice between the interests of the family and those of the nation. He is a
flawed character who cannot be considered a ruthless and harsh character but
someone with whom the audience can empathize and whom they can forgive.

4.1.2 Chris Keller

Chris Keller, the son of Joe Keller is a thirty-two year old well-built man who
loves to keep himself informed of the latest publications of books and never
misses to read the book section of the newspaper though he never buys those
books. In the battlefront, Chris was called Mother McKeller in his battalion
because he cared for everyone and was kind and sympathetic towards all of
them. Returning from the war as a hero, Chris works for his father.
Chris is not fond of the company of women and does not mix with them except
Ann, his only woman friend who had lived as a neighbour during childhood.
After receiving several letters from Ann, he is convinced that she desires to marry
him and has forgotten Larry completely. He still wants to clear his doubts by
discussing with Ann and thereafter wants to convey his plans to his mother. A
straightforward guy, Chris decides to quit his house and family if he is not given
consent by his mother to marry Ann. He is willing to stay with his parents and
take charge of the business, if only his father supports him to marry Ann.
Chris knows to deal with his mother with patience in order to please her to agree
92 for his marriage with Ann. Kate does not give up her hope of Larry’s return
which is the biggest obstacle for Chris marriage. Chris has a selfish motive in Characterisation in
All My Sons
pursuing his mother to accept Larry’s death. ‘……..he does so for his own
selfish reasons and not because he thinks it is in her best interest to be able to
face reality. (‘All My Sons’ Steven R. Centola in The Cambridge Companion to
Arthur Miller edited by Christopher Bigsby). Chris’ sincere love for Ann makes
him protective towards her forcing him to argue with his mother several times
whenever Kate tries to discourage their marriage.
An idealist Chris feels guilty of surviving the war when many of his friends died
sacrificing their lives in the war for some noble cause. On his return home after
the war, he saw that nothing had changed. Chris is amazed to see the way people
carry on with the banalities of life. He feels ashamed seeing selfish people
struggling for monetary gains. For Chris, the soldier’s lives were laid down in
vain because it did not change the world. He was hesitant to use the amenities
and comforts that he had and was guilty even to marry Ann.
Chris’ influence on her husband Jim Bayliss upsets Sue because he tries to
encourage Jim Bayliss to give up medical practice in order to pursue a higher
calling in medical research. Accusing Chris of being a hypocrite Sue is of the
opinion that Chris wants people to sacrifice their comforts for the sake of principles
while Chris himself takes money from his father’s business that is established by
dishonest means.
Out of love for his parents he assures them of his protection if a difficult situation
came up on George’s arrival to the Keller household. The immense faith Chris
had on his father does not allow him to accept his father’s guilt despite having a
vague idea about the fraud committed by him. Chris believes that his father is
innocent and that he is being falsely accused by the neighbours. Believing that
Steve Deever had wrongly implicated his father, he does not want Keller to show
so much concern for him, afraid that people of the locality might misunderstand
him if he accommodated him in his factory. Chris is sure that a timid man like
Steve Deever would not only supply defective cylinder heads but also put the
blame on somebody else. In Chris opinion, Steve conveniently puts the blame
for his misdeeds on Keller but his plans failed. He says that only George who is
a fool believes his story. Chris does not believe in astrology. He refuses to agree
with Kate and questions her view on how stars determine human destiny.
Chris who loves his parents, trusts his father and is shattered when his father
acknowledges his guilt. Chris considers him as an infallible father figure and is
ashamed by the arguments given by his father in order to justify his actions.
‘Chris is his father’s perfect opposite. While Joe cannot see beyond his family’s
dining room table, Chris feels a sense of unity with the world.’ (Paul Blumberg
in his article ‘Work as Alienation’ in The Plays of Arthur Miller: New Perspectives
Edited by Robert A. Martin). Chris is profoundly hurt that Keller has deceived
his partner Steve Deever and his own country. Chris sees a wider responsibility
beyond that of a family; a human commitment. He is ashamed of his father being
involved in such a criminal act while he was fighting in the war and risking his
life daily and the men under his command were dying daily in the war. He says
that the selflessness of his fellow soldiers has counted for nothing. He accuses
his father of making money out of a business, which does not value the man on
whose labour it relies. Joe is also accused of ignoring the interests of his country
and deliberately endangering the lives of the countrymen. 93
Arthur Miller: All My Sons After his father’s guilt is revealed, Chris sees no other option but to put his father
in jail. Keller on the other hand tries to escape from his guilt, and to save his son
from further humiliation, he shoots himself. Chris blames himself for his father’s
self-destruction.

4.1.3 Kate Keller

Joe Keller’s wife Kate Keller is kind, affectionate and motherly. Like her husband
Keller, Kate is jovial, warm and a friendly neighbour welcoming everyone home.
She is a woman of enormous maternal love extending her affection beyond her
two children to George and Ann. She has firm belief that Larry who was reported
missing in World War II has survived the war and would eventually return home.
Kate does not approve the marriage of Chris with Ann as this would mean that
she has accepted Larry’s death; this in turn would prove her husband’s guilt. Her
love for Larry does not allow her to accept the fact that he has died and she is
hopeful for his return, living in ‘denial’ and resorting to ‘lies and self-deception
as a means of contending with her sorrow and anguish’.(Steven R. Centola’s
‘All My Sons’ in The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller by Christopher
Bigsby) Her belief in astrology keeps her hopes of Larry’s survival alive with
Frank’s insistence that Larry’s horoscope indicated: the day Larry had died was
his favourable day.
By her resort to superstition, Kate wants to persuade others to agree with her, in
her belief that Larry was alive. Kate links Ann’s arrival to the Keller home with
the storm that had snapped the apple tree planted in Larry’s memory thinking it
was a sign of something significant. She connects both these incidents with Larry’s
gloves that she had unexpectedly seen for the first time after Larry had left. The
day Larry was leaving for the battle she got up early even though she did not
know that Larry had to leave for the war. An instinct within her indicated that
something dreadful was going to happen. Later, she got the news that Larry was
missing in action. Now she believes that Larry is still alive which she feels is a
right notion.
Kate is impressed by Ann’s devotion to Larry’s memory. She is of the opinion
that Ann was different from other fickle-minded girls who would have changed
loyalties after their lover’s death. Kate thinks that had she forgotten Larry or
thought he was dead, she would have somebody else in New York and would
have got married already.
Kate has several arguments with Ann and Chris trying to persuade them to believe
that Larry would return someday. Her son Chris is of the opinion that she is the
only woman in America to be still waiting for her son to come back after three
years. Kate thinks that deep down in her heart Ann must be still waiting for
Larry. Ann denies it as she already knows that Larry has committed suicide deeply
shamed and embarrassed by his father’s conviction. Unaware about Larry’s suicide
Chris supports Ann adding that she knows her mind well and is not waiting for
Larry to return.
When asked by Ann what makes her believe that Larry was still alive, Kate says
that certain things have to be, while certain things can never be. The sun has to
rise; this is something, which has to be. That is the reason why we believe in the
existence of God. If there was no God, anything could happen. But God exists
94
hence certain things can never happen. Kate says that her heart tells her what can Characterisation in
All My Sons
happen and what can never happen.
Kate was not enthusiastic about Ann’s visit to their house, the reason being the
hostility of the neighbours towards Ann’s father Steve Deever who was found
guilty. Kate stops Chris from criticizing Ann’s father while asking Ann not to
blame her father. On Ann’s questioning her why she said so, Kate says that her
father’s misdeeds had nothing to do with Larry.
Being aware of her husband’s crime Kate asks Chris to protect both Keller and
herself from any untoward incident that could arise on George’s arrival to their
house. She wants George and his sister Ann to leave the Keller household in
order to prevent them from bringing damage to the Kellers because in her opinion
both of them could destroy them out of hatred. According to her, Steve Deever
had persisted in alleging in the court till the last day of the trial that it was Keller
who had asked him to dispatch the damaged cylinder heads. In the midst of the
speculations about George’s visit, Kate’s fondness for George persists and she
does not forget to prepare his favourite grape-juice. Kate assures George that
their family still loves him with the same warmth as they had done earlier. Showing
her concern for him, she advises him to get married assuring George that Joe
would help him with his career and she would find him a girl.
Amidst their conversation Kate comes out with the truth of Keller not falling ill
during the war. Realising the revelation she has made, she corrects herself calling
it a slip of the tongue pretending that she had forgotten that Keller had fallen ill.
Instead of encouraging Keller to face his responsibilities honestly Kate supports
him in the complicity of covering-up her husband’s crime.
When Chris threatens to leave home with Ann, seeing that their marriage is
imminent ‘Chris’ mother plays her final card in order to prevent the marriage
which will signal the end of her hope.’ (A Critical Introduction to Twentieth
Century Drama C.W.E. Bigsby, Cambridge University Press 1984) She reveals
her husband’s guilt to her son saying that if Larry is dead, he has been killed by
his father Joe, ‘God does not let a son be killed by his father’ (All My Sons p-73).
Kate’s indirect accusations at Joe forces Chris to confront him, compelling him
to come out with the truth.
Out of love and concern for Chris, Kate is restless after Chris disappears from
the house after his argument with Joe. Kate feels helpless once she comes to
know that Jim Bayliss knows the secret of Keller. Worried that Keller could not
be saved anymore, she feels that there is no strength in her.
Kate wants Joe to confess his mistake and tell Chris that he is ready to pay the
penalty for his crime which she thinks would satisfy her son and he would forgive
him. Kate assures Joe that his mere willingness to go to prison would make
Chris forgive him. Replying to Keller’s justification of his act Kate says that she
wanted him to make money but not by wrong means and there is no excuse for
him to say that he made money by fraudulent for the sake of his family. Kate’s
refusal to Chris and Ann’s marriage even after several requests made by both of
them compels Ann to show her trump card in the form Larry’s letter to save her
future union with Chris. Kate is not at all disturbed by the contents of the letter
for she had known all this while that her husband was responsible for killing
95
Arthur Miller: All My Sons Larry. The letter forces Kate to accept Larry’s death and her husband’s crime of
killing twenty one pilots. Kate wants to save her husband from languishing in
jail pleading with Chris not to take him to the police saying that the war is over
and that the contents of the letter have no meaning any more as Larry is dead.
After the shot is heard from inside the house, Kate understands that Joe had
killed himself as a punishment for his crime of killing twenty-one pilots. Despite
her own grief of losing her husband, she lovingly consoles Chris telling him not
to hold himself responsible for his father’s death but to forget the past and live a
new life.

4.1.4 Ann Deever

Ann Deever the daughter of Steve Deever, business partner of Joe, surfaces in
the play in act I and is described by Jim, Frank and Keller as a beautiful and
intelligent girl. Ann Deever is twenty-one years old with gentle looks and firm
belief. She is admired for her beauty by Kate, Joe and Chris. Seeing her previous
house, Ann feels nostalgic and is reminded of her childhood days that were filled
with happiness when she had stayed with her family in the neighbourhood.
She comes to the Keller household in order to marry Chris. ‘She comes with a
purpose of rescuing Chris from the demoralized family, haunted by Larry’s ghost.’
(A. Karunakar’s ‘Arthur Miller’s All My Sons’: The End of An American Dream
in Perspective on Post-War American Drama Edited by D. Venkateswarlu, Y.
Satyanarayana, A. Karunakar). For Joe Keller she is the ghost of the past, a
threat to him, who would reveal the truth of the defective cylinder case. Ann is
not waiting for Larry to return from the war, as it has been a long time after he
went missing and she presumes that he is dead. After exchange of several letters
Ann and Chris are in love and Ann comes to the Keller household on Chris’
invitation to propose marriage to her. Ann is firm in her belief that Larry will not
come back and does not agree with Kate’s view that Larry is still alive. After
coming to the Keller home Ann is disappointed and wants to leave because Kate
does not want her to stay here any longer and Chris is uneasy with Ann’s presence
in the house. Ann feels assured after he expresses his love and proposes her to
marry him. Hearing Chris explanation that he was ashamed to love her because
of the tragedy he had seen around. Chris is hesitant to use the comforts and
amenities he had and even thought that he did not deserve her. Ann makes him
understand that he should not develop a feeling of guilt as he had the right to
make use of everything including the money that his father had saved for him.
Ann shares Chris’ idealism and righteousness and has shunned her father Steve
Deever after he was found guilty in supplying defective cylinder heads to the
army. She disowns him refusing to visit him in jail. Having no concern for her
father Ann avoids answering questions related to her father and when asked
about him she is ill at ease and says ‘I really don’t know’. She says that she had
wept on hearing about his imprisonment after he was found guilty by the court,
but when she came to know about Larry being killed by the defective cylinders,
she realized the seriousness of his crime.
Ann talks very harshly about her father saying ‘Father or no father there was
only one way of looking at him’(All My Sons p-31). Keller told Ann how her
father had cried half the night on hearing about Larry’s death. But Ann is too
96
harsh and says that her father should have cried the whole night. Ann thinks that Characterisation in
All My Sons
Chris is lucky that he can love his parents.
When George tells the facts about the case accusing Keller, Ann intervenes saying
that the court had exonerated Keller after finding him innocent. She accuses her
father of telling lies. Ann supports the Kellers, vehemently disagreeing with
George when he says that whatever Keller family owns is by dishonest means.
She is perhaps blinded by her love for Chris whom she wants to marry. Despite
knowing the real culprit in the defective cylinder case, she conceals the facts
known to her in order to avoid any kind of obstacle coming in the way of her
marriage with Chris.
Ann is quite surprised by the concern Keller shows for her father; he is ready to
help George settle in the neighbourhood with his family. Keller says that after he
completes his term in prison he would help Steve begin a new life.
Chris’ honesty and his idealistic qualities impress Ann. In Ann’s view Chris is
doing nothing wrong if he creates in Jim a desire to get better. According to Ann
if Chris spends his father’s money, he is also helping his father with his work.
Ann is embarrassed to meet Kellers’ neighbours as she remembers the neighbours
calling her father and her family ‘murderers’ and does not want to face humiliation
again. Ann trusts Keller and is not prepared to believe Sue’s words that Keller
was guilty in the defective cylinder case. She learns that everyone in the locality
believes that Keller is involved in the fraud. Ann knows that Chris would not
have forgiven his father had he been involved in the case. Ann trusts Chris as
much as Chris trusts his father.
Ann patiently tries to convince Kate to allow her to marry Chris and not to make
him feel guilty of his intentions to marry her merely because she believes that
Larry is alive. Ann requests Kate to accept the death of Larry. She tells Kate that
she wanted to show Larry’s letter to her not to hurt Kate’s feeling but only to
prove that Larry was dead. Ann had known in advance from the letter that Joe
Keller was as much guilty as her father, but was living in denial despite knowing
the fact that her former lover Larry had committed suicide shamed by his father’s
involvement in killing his fellow pilots. Her desperation to get married to Chris
did not allow her to reveal the truth about Keller’s crime. She does not want to
become a villain for the Keller family by getting Keller arrested. ‘….she refrains
from impeaching Keller until she feels compelled to do so in order to save her
relationship with Chris. Her motives are selfish, governed primarily by a
fundamental drive for self preservation.’ (Steven R. Centola’s ‘All My Sons’ in
The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller edited by C. Bigsby). Being insecure
she wants love and shelter in the Keller household. She shares with Chris that
she has nowhere to go and would accompany him wherever he wishes to go.
Ann is successful in clearing the way for their marriage without the feeling of
guilt. Assuring Chris that she would not ask him to go against his father by
handing him to the concerned authorities.

4.1.5 George Deever

Steve Deever’s son George is a lawyer by profession and a veteran of World War
II. He comes to the Keller’ home after visiting his father serving imprisonment
97
Arthur Miller: All My Sons in Columbus. Being idealistic, George disowns his father, feeling disgusted with
his father’s shameful offence. However, George gets to know about the truth of
the defective cylinder case and the cunningness of Keller. He regrets the fact that
he had lost touch with his father and had not seen him even after coming back
from the war. He arrives at the Keller’s house to prevent Ann’s marriage with
Chris and bring her back to New York.
The news of George’s meeting with his father Steve Deever brings apprehensions
to Joe Keller and his wife Kate. Joe Keller fears that George Deever might re-
open the case which would put him in prison. Accused by Steve Deever several
times during the trial of supplying defective cylinder heads to the army and now
George’s visit to his father in prison makes Joe Keller speculate about their
intentions. George is a threat to Keller, his role is that of catalyst for the truth to
emerge. Kate has her own apprehensions about George’s visit to her house making
her wonder why he went all the way from New York to Columbia to meet his
father and now was coming to visit them. It surprises her that a person who had
never written to his father for the last three years suddenly goes to visit him after
he becomes a lawyer.
George wants to know from Ann if she would still marry Chris after hearing
about the truth of Joe Keller’s slyness. George finds Keller very clever to have
told Deever on the phone that he would take full responsibility for supplying the
damaged cylinder heads and then denying during the trial knowing very well
that whatever he had said on the phone could not be proved. George alleges
Chris of pretending to be ignorant despite knowing about the fraud that his father
had committed. He accuses Kate of hiding the facts that she knew about her
husband. Accusing her father of lying at the spur of the moment, Ann is not
satisfied with George’s argument against Keller of committing fraud. Ann refuses
to accompany George to New York unless Chris would ask her to leave because
she had come to his house on Chris’s invitation. Arguing about the truth of the
case with Chris, George leaves no stone unturned to prove Keller’s involvement
in the case but fails to convince Chris.
George is tactful in dealing with Keller. Instead of showing his fury towards him
he talks to him calmly enquiring about his business. Only when Keller shows his
sympathy towards his former partner Steve Deever, George gets furious and
says that his father hates Keller’s guts. Yet George is easily disarmed by Keller’s
good humour and Kate’s kindness shown to him. He recalls how happy he was
growing up in a homely atmosphere. He recollects the good times and the
closeness the Deevers and the Kellers had shared. A pacified George even seems
ready to accept Keller’s version of the defective cylinder case but Kate
inadvertently lets out the secret, saying that ‘Joe hasn’t been laid up in fifteen
years’ (All My Sons, p.69). Thereby confirming the facts told to him by his father.
Though George is unable to get the truth out from Keller, he does build tension
in the minds of Kate, Joe, Chris and Ann.
Sue finds George blunt when she refuses to see his old home bought by them. He
bluntly comments:
George (removing his hat): You’re the people who bought our house, aren’t
you?

98 Sue: That’s right. Come and see what we did with it before you leave.
 George (walks down and away from her): I liked it the way it was. (All My Characterisation in
All My Sons
Sons, p.54)
George again replies bluntly on noticing the stump of the apple-tree.
George: …..The tree got thick, didn’t they? (Points to stump) What’s that?
Chris: Blew down last night. We had it there for Larry. You know.
George: Why, afraid you’ll forget him? (All My Sons, 55)

4.2 MINOR CHARACTERS

The minor characters such as Dr. Jim Bayliss, Sue Bayliss, Frank Lubey, Lydia
Lubey and Bert serve to further the action of the play, comment on the main
characters, add depth to the main issues and also bring humour to the otherwise
sombre play ‘All My Sons’.

4.2.1 Dr. Jim Bayliss

Dr. Jim is Sue’s husband and a close friend and neighbour of Joe Keller. He does
not want his son to become a doctor like himself because he believes that doctors
do not have a high income like film actors.
His conversation with Frank makes it clear to us about what he thinks of his
profession:
Frank: That boy’s going to be a real doctor; he is smart.
Jim: Over my dead body he’ll be a doctor. A good beginning, too.
Frank: Why, it’s an honourable profession…..you could help humanity,……
Jim: I would love to help humanity on a Warner Brothers salary. (All My
Sons, 5)
Having no belief in astrology, Jim criticises Frank saying that Frank is completely
out of his mind to believe that by reading Larry’s horoscope he could find out if
Larry was alive. According to Frank, Jim is a person who does not believe in
anything.
Being aware of his money-minded wife, Jim jokingly gives a piece of advice to
Ann saying that after she gets married she should never count her husband’s
earnings. Chris is fond of Jim and mentions about him to Ann in his letters he
wrote to her. Jim is equally fond of Chris. Jim tells Ann that Chris was nicknamed
Mother McKeller by the soldiers who found him kind and affectionate.
Although Jim suspects that Joe is as guilty as Deever, he likes the Kellers. He
even tries to protect the Kellers ‘from George Deever’s hostile accusation and
the family’s ultimate confrontation over the truth’…..Jim tries to shield the family,
particularly Chris, from the truth not only because he longs to protect them, but
also because he needs to sustain the illusion of their perfection……. Having
already watched “The star of (his) honesty…. go out.” Jim knows he is lost “in
the usual darkness”(p.118). If he no longer has the illusory image of Chris’s
perfection to drive and inspire him, he will find it impossible “to remember the
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Arthur Miller: All My Sons kind of man he wanted to be” (pg-118). Therefore, he lives in denial like the
other characters in the play.(Steven R. Centola’s ‘All My Sons’ in The Cambridge
Companion to Arthur Miller edited by Christopher Bigsby, p.58)
Seeing George in a nasty mood, a sensible Jim asks George to be seated in the
car that he deliberately parks at a distance from the house. Later he goes to
inform Chris that George is furious and would burst into rage any time. Jim does
not want George to explode in front of Kate who is unwell. Knowing his state of
mind Jim is scared of some violent incidence to take place. He tells Chris that he
can see blood in George’s eyes therefore it would not be right to bring him home.
Jim shows his concern for Kate after a disturbed Chris leaves the house assuring
her that he would come back. Jim knows Chris well. In his opinion Chris is not
the kind of person who could accept the facts about his father’s crime at once. It
will take him some time to swallow the bitter pill. He says that Chris will reconcile
to the situation slowly. Jim Bayliss has idealistic notions that is awakened by
Chris. Inspired by him he once left his wife to do medical research but eventually
had to go back home as his wife wanted him to earn money in order to live a
lavish life.

4.2.2 Sue Bayliss

Jim’s wife Sue Bayliss, a practical and jovial woman is about forty years old.
She never lets her husband go out of her sight for longer than she can help. She
had supported her husband financially while he was an intern and now she expects
more than gratitude in return. Sue knows the truth about Joe Keller and also
reveals the neighbourhood’s awareness about Keller having manipulated the
court’s acquittal, yet she along with her husband continue to share the relation of
close friends with the Kellers. ‘Sue Bayliss even expresses admiration for Keller
for pulling a fast one to get out of jail.’(Arthur Miller, All My Sons in Arthur
Miller’s Collected Plays, p.94)
A straight forward woman, Sue complains to Ann that her husband had refused
to take her to the beach saying that it was very hot. She tells her that this did not
deter him from gong to the airport to pick up Geoge. She further says that men
did anything for their neighbours but not for their wives. Inquisitive in nature,
Sue is quite eager to know whether Ann’s brother George was coming to give
away Ann in marriage. Sue thinks that Ann has chosen Chris as her husband
because he is monetarily sound. For Sue, money makes all the difference in life.
She deeply resents Chris’ friendship with her husband, a successful doctor
accusing Chris of misleading Jim by suggesting to him to do medical research.
According to Sue it is an impractical choice as it would bring a meagre income.
She is afraid that if Jim devotes time in medical research they would be denied
all the comforts of life. She says every time Jim has a session with Chris he feels
as if he is compromising by not giving up medical practice for medical research.
In Sue’s opinion everyone in the world does something wrong. Sue shares the
same belief with Keller— that of family responsibility. In her opinion Chris
wants to make people better than it is possible for them to be.
Sue thinks that Chris is a hypocrite enjoying all the comforts of life, taking money
from his father’s business regularly, despite knowing that his father had earned it
dishonestly. Sue says she does not have anything personal against Keller but if
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Chris wants people to be ideal by sacrificing their comforts, he should first give Characterisation in
All My Sons
up his comforts. Sue dislikes Chris and his father’s inflated sense of self
importance.

4.2.3 Frank Lubey

Frank Lubey is Lydia’s husband and a friend and neighbour of Joe Keller. He is
thirty-two years of age but already getting bald. A practical man like Keller,
Frank had earned a good deal of money by property transactions. Frank does not
read the newspaper because he believes that there is always bad news in the
newspaper. He believes in astrology and by insisting that Larry’s horoscope could
reveal the truth, he keeps Kate’s hopes of Larry’s survival alive. A superstitious
Frank sees certain significance in the fallen apple tree that had been snapped by
the wind in the same month in which Larry was born. Frank’s wife Lydia finds
him very useful in fixing faulty toasters and other gadgets while Sue calls him
‘Thomas Edison’.
Frank believes that a doctor’s profession is honourable as doctors can serve
humanity by researching in medicine. In Frank’s opinion, for an intelligent man
like Ann’s father in prison, there should be a law that can either you execute him
or release him with minor penalty. While George Chris and Larry were fighting
in the war, he courted Lydia and produced three children. Frank missed joining
the war because when the army had kept the maximum age limit as twenty seven,
Frank was twenty eight and when the army raised the age limit to twenty eight,
Frank had already become twenty-nine. Thereafter, he took up astrology.

4.2.4 Lydia Lubey

Lydia Lubey is a ‘robust laughing girl’, she is admired for her good looks and is
also praised for her creativity and talents. Lydia is charming, affectionate and
has great warmth. She is addressed fondly by George as ‘Laughy’. The former
girlfriend of George, Lydia married Frank when George went off to the war and
did not return home after his father’s imprisonment. When George comes to
confront the Kellers and prevents Ann’s marriage with Chris, he realises that he
had lost everything including Lydia.

4.2.5 Bert
Eight year old Bert is the son of Frank and Lydia and is quite friendly with
Keller. Keller tells him that there is a jail in the basement of his house. This
annoys Kate. They play games in which Keller pretends to be a police officer
while Bert acts as a policeman keeping watch on the objectionable elements in
their neighbourhood.

4.3 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have discussed the major and minor characters of the play All My
Sons in detail who influence the plot of the play.

4.4 QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the character of Joe Keller. 101
Arthur Miller: All My Sons 2. Evaluate the character of Chris Keller.
3. Write short notes on the minor characters in the play All My Sons.

4.5 SUGGESTED READINGS

Bigsby C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1984.
Hoffman Daniel, Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. Oxford
University Press. 1979.

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