9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
All Not in the Family, July 25, 2004
All My Sons is Arthur Miller's first work which gives hint of his future genius. While the plot is strong, it starts slowly. However, the ending makes the play worth reading.
The story tells of partners in a defective machine shop during World War II. Keller escapes punishment for the faulty parts. Herbert Deever is sent to prison. Keller's son Chris intends to marry his deceased brother's love who happens to be Herbert Deever's daughter Anne. Keller's wife Kate is in denial of their son Larry's death. This denial makes her a trademark of Miller's works, an annoying female character. She is overbearing and at times a nag. Thus, conflict is created over Chris and Anne's relationship. The story reaches its climax when the true nature of Larry's death is revealed. While the conclusion is not shocking, it is a fitting end.
Miller has written some great plays and novels. While this is certainly not as good as Death of a Salesman, it is still a solid work.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The voice of conscience, morality, and idealism, March 31, 2008
The late Lord Bertrand Russell once said, "Actions have consequences." Arthur Miller makes it clear: Bad actions have bad consequences in his early play, "All My Sons." Set not long after the end of World War II, the play concerns big issues: life and death, and the necessity of living a moral life. The conflict pits the idealistic son, Chris Keller against his pragmatist father, Joe Keller, owner of a manufacturing plant that shipped out defective airplane parts during the war. As a result, twenty-one pilots died when their planes crashed.
This early play foreshadows the disillusionment by the son of the father that plays so predominantly in "Death of a Salesman," the flagship of Miller's dramatic output. Miller also introduces the idealist's version of moral behavior. When younger son Chris discovers his father's flawed decision to continue production of cracked engine parts, he berates him for lacking the high caliber of character of which he thought his dad was made. His father sincerely asks Chris: "What could I do?" The key line and one which comes to fruition in "The Crucible" is "You could be better." Actions have consequences.
Yes, I am revealing a key secret in the play, but it is the consequences of this revelation that is really the clincher of Miller's powerful morality play. That I will not reveal. But lack of idealism, lack of moral turpitude show the inner essence of a person. Everyone is born with this pure core. Time and circumstances chip away, a day at a time, a person's idealism. Only the few survive. Joe Keller has revealed a seriously hacked core; Chris's is still intact. But at what price?
Two other stories deal with the consequences of idealism. Miller's
The Crucible (Penguin Classics) shows John who can confess to witchcraft (although not guilty) and live, or deny his involvement, be found guilty, and die. He must sign a document; in doing so, he besmirches his name. Because of his idealism: "It is my name, I have no other," he cannot sign and thus dies. In the other story,
Gone Baby Gone Casey Affleck's character believes it to be just to turn in the kidnapper and return the child to her neglectful mother and a probable miserable life, or leave the child with the kidnapper who would inevitably give the child a good home. Each decision shows the impact of idealism. Actions have consequences. Good or bad?
Chris forces his father to acknowledge his misdeed by realizing he caused the pilots' deaths. Joe says, "Yes, they were all my sons." Even this is not the end of the misdeeds. Two other secondary plots involve moral choices and evil consequences when morality is not chosen. Ann Deaver, the girl next door who was engaged to the older brother when he went to war, and now recently engaged to Chris, must live with a flawed decision she made. The other plot line goes to Ann's father and the consequences surrounding him.
"All My Sons' is a powerful play that holds up to scrutiny an American story of success at a high cost and the devastation that malignant success brings to so many others. With this play Miller established himself as a major talent and voice of conscience which would become so important in "The Crucible" and McCarthyism to come.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Accounts and accountability, March 27, 2008
The story line of this family tragedy centres on an entrepreneur's/ manager's bad decision under heavy pressure: deliver a faulty product even when you know it can cause serious problems to the customer? Try to hide the product flaws? Or risk the ruin of the enterprise? And once started on the wrong trajectory, do you accept accountability or do you put the blame on a weaker link in the chain?
This basic dilemma is known to everybody from politics to business life.
Miller wrote this play after WW2, and his example of the problem are faulty cylinder heads delivered to the airforce under time pressure.
The man who did it compounded his crime by dodging truth and letting another man go to jail.
The families of both men are heavily interrelated and as it turns out, the damage is unreparable. Not just to the crashed pilots, but also to sons and daughters.
Reading the play now gives me a feeling of meeting a stereotype, but then, was the theme really as well explored at the time as it seems now? Quite possibly Miller was a pioneer in it, I don't know. I give only 4 stars because the play is a bit over-didactic.
I have not researched this, but I seem to remember that Miller got some flack from the McCarthy-committee for this play. Must have looked awfully un-American apparently, to explore questions of accountability. Certainly not a tradition in presidential circles.
P.S. I read an old interview with Miller where he says that he got 'invited' to the committee only because the guys were hoping for a photo shooting with Marilyn.
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