Oral Report ALL MY SONS (BY) ARTHUR MILLER

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19 July 2007

Arthur Miller 's "All My Sons

With his 1947 play "All My Sons " Arthur Miller writes an American tragedy dealing with the American dream of material wealth leading to happiness . Miller explores the American dream notion that hard work will result in material wealth that will lead to happiness . Miller finds this idea lacking and potentially damaging . Instead , Miller shows that pursuit of wealth without regard to moral behavior leads to eventual unhappiness or even death . Such

emphasis on material wealth leads to the breakdown of family harmony and integrity . Finally Miller suggests restitution for gains gotten by immoral means must be paid before true growth and happiness are possible

Miller sketches the inadequacy of material wealth by telling the story of the Keller family . To all appearances Joe Keller has achieved the American Dream . Keller is a self-made man , starting as a blue-collar worker and working his way up the ladder until he became a partner in his own manufacturing company . He owns and lives in a comfortable home in typical American town , and has a family . However Miller reveals flaws in Keller 's life by revealing the family 's history . Latent tension exists among members of the Keller family , as well as increasing conflict between the Kellers and the family of his former partner , the Deevers . Before the play 's opening scene Joe Keller and Steve Deever had been partners in a manufacturing company that made airplane parts for the military during World War II . However their livelihoods are threatened when Miller reveals they had knowingly shipped damaged cylinder heads . Because of the damage twenty-one P-40 airplanes crashed and the pilots killed . Authorities arrested both Keller and Deever During the trial Joe Keller claimed he had been sick the day the parts shipped and knew nothing about the damaged parts . The court declared Keller not guilty , but found Steve Deever guilty . Deever went to prison and Keller returned home to assume control of the company (Miller 26 Later in the play Miller revealed that Keller lied when claiming illness . He felt the company could not afford the expense of scrapping the one hundred cylinder heads . So he told Deever by telephone to weld the cylinder heads to hide the defects and ship the parts (Miller 51 62 . Clearly Miller believes Joe Keller 's material greed led to the death of the pilots and his later behavior that caused blame to fall on Steve Deever

Miller describes the breakdown of the family by using the symbol of the Keller 's apple tree that represents the Keller Family Tree . The night before the play opens , an apple tree in the Kellers ' yard broke in a storm suggesting the Keller family had broken as well . Originally the Kellers planted the tree as a memorial to Larry Keller , elder son of Joe and Kate Keller . Keller went missing while serving as a fighter pilot during World War II . Members of...