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"ALL MY SONS" (ARTHUR MILLER).
Term Paper ID:25536
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Essay Subject:
Analyzes morality of behavior & attitudes of characters, impact of immoral actions, role of conscience.... More...
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10 Pages / 2250 Words
4 sources, 9 Citations,
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Paper Abstract:
Analyzes morality of behavior & attitudes of characters, impact of immoral actions, role of conscience.
Paper Introduction:
Arthur Miller, in his play All My Sons, sets forth dramatic arguments about the negative impact immoral behavior has on people. This study will examine the behavior and attitudes of the characters in moral terms and the inevitable harm that such behavior has on the people in their lives as well as on people they will never even meet. Although some of Miller's arguments are social, political and economic, at heart all of those arguments are moral.
Early in the play, the discussion among the characters revolves around whether or not it is right for Chris, one of the Keller sons, to ask Annie to marry him. Annie has been the girl of another Keller son, Larry, who has apparently died. The characters do not know it at this point, but Larry has died not in action in the war, as the reader is led to believe, but by
Text of the Paper:
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at thattime, that family was likely seen as the most basic building block of thenation, the reason, in fact, for which the war was fought in the firstplace. Works CitedClurman, Harold. even if [the grave] inconveniences [the actors] it will keep reminding them what the hell all this acting is really about. . In the case of both parents, immoral choices and attitudes become akind of addiction which they find it harder and harder to break, no matterhow much damage it is doing to them and to the ones they say they love. The argument with his son over the morality of thesituation is in fact his last gasp, and the fact that Miller describes himat this point as "desperate" and "furious" informs us that he is indeed onthe edge of suicide. I can't look at you this way, I can't look at myself! My whole bloody life, time after time after time (Miller All 14). That's why you can't tell me (Miller All 67). Early in the play, the discussion among the characters revolvesaround whether or not it is right for Chris, one of the Keller sons, to askAnnie to marry him. However, sometimes the decisions and actions of an individual areimmoral in less apparent ways. Joe is approaching the situation as he would approach any situationin which he had to convince himself or another person--as a capitalist, ora sophist, or as a simple situation in which an item or an idea had to besold. Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? . Today, half a century later, perhaps theplay appears almost quaint, if well-intentioned, in its critique of familypolitics. The play is taking place in a cemetery where their son is buried, and he is also their buried conscience reaching up to them out of the earth. Because you know I don't belong there. No, he is not such a merciless author, if we can see Chris as hisstand-in moral voice at work in the end of his play. I'll be right down (Miller All 68). Introduction to The Portable Arthur Miller. . This study willexamine the behavior and attitudes of the characters in moral terms and theinevitable harm that such behavior has on the people in their lives as wellas on people they will never even meet. Joe's conscience is embodied in his dead son, or, more specifically,in the letter which Chris reads to Joe from Larry before Larry killedhimself. Was Millersaying even that one's sense of family should extend to the RussianCommunists, or the Japanese, or the Germans? Andnow his other son Chris is torn by the morality of a decision--should heask Annie to marry him, or should he not follow his heart and instead waitto see if Larry by some slim chance is still alive. Until one faces up to what one has done and tries to learn fromimmoral choices and to change, one will simply go on making more immoralchoices in order to stay in denial about the original choice. Of course, the designer's focuson the role of the characters' consciences in the platy shows how the playis a moral drama at its heart. I saw you as my father. While Miller may soften hisindictment of Joe with some understanding of the difficulty of the man'srole in the family (especially in 1947), there is still no doubt that forMiller the family as a concept can easily be abused as a reason for themost immoral of actions. At this point in the play, it would seem that Kate is behavingimmorally, because she believes she is acting out of love for her missingson, when in fact she is ignoring the damage her "love" for Larry is doingto Chris and to herself and others as well in lesser ways. The problem, of course, is that Joe could convince every singleperson in the country or the world that he is right, that everybody did"it" during the war, that everybody has to commit certain indiscretions inorder to make a buck, and he would still be left with his consciencegnawing away at him. Because you know! (Miller Timebends 275). As Harold Clurman writes, the role of the father in the family asperceived by Miller is crucial to an understanding of the complex moralrelationships exposed in the final pages of the play: The father in Miller's work is a recurrent figure regarded with awe, devotion, love, even when he is proved lamentably fallible and when submission to him becomes painfully questionable. Larry killed himself because he could not bear the thoughtthat his father Joe was responsible for deaths caused by faulty airplaneparts he knowingly sold to airplane manufacturers. xiii-xxiv.Hewes, Henry, and Lee Strassberg, eds. Obviously, a person has to makedecisions in life which will inevitably hurt others, but Miller's point isthat we are all interconnected and owe one another consideration withrespect to decisions which affect more than just ourselves. Arthur Miller, in his play All My Sons, sets forth dramatic argumentsabout the negative impact immoral behavior has on people. The play should not be reduced to some sort of a theatricalindictment of an economic system, in other words. The family has its extension in the community, the social body. Joe at this point has had his conscience stripped bare enough to takeLarry's message as a call for Joe to kill himself, which Joe does in factdo shortly thereafter. However, by putting words into Joe's mouth which are so obviously outof character, on the verge of suicide or not, Miller makes clear his ownmoral message. Famous American Plays of the194 s and the 195 s. In other words, Joe chose to cut corners to make money, and theresult were deaths of strangers as well as the death of his own son. But I think to him they were all my sons. Where Miller's play is still striking in its moral focus, as it musthave been even moreso in 1947 when the family was more a sacred bulwarkagainst chaos, is in his indictment of a man who would use the family as analibi for his sins. You want me to go to jail? This view is reasonable and accurate. However, at the time, just two years after victory in World WarII against one of the most evil forces in human history, Miller was daringto challenge the absolute sanctity of the American nuclear family. I never saw you as a man. Is that clean? The decision of Joe to sell the defective airplane parts is anobviously immoral one, with clearly terrible consequences, beyond even whatJoe might have imagined. New York:Penguin, 1995. After all, onecould argue that Miller should never try to have his plays produced,because if his play is being produced at a theater then some other personmay be hurt who would have had his play produced if Miller's was not. Yes, obviously, it is a good and moral act for a mother tocontinue to keep her son's memory alive and to hope he lives himself, butwhat if her actions and attitudes keep her from moving on with her lifeand, worse, keep another son from living his life? His son Chris is considering whether or not to try to have Joe sentto jail for his crimes, and Joe responds in a way which makes all too clearhis self-justification: Jail? To Joe, apparently, money, and whateversecurity and possessions it can give him and his family, is what excusesall behavior. (Miller All 67). When they work for nothin', I'll work for nothin'. Is it not a sign of love to keep thememory of a loved one alive, especially that of a beloved child, whether ornot he is actually still alive in the flesh? Clurman further clarifies Miller's moral position: The family is pivotal, but beyond the family is the family of mankind. . New York: Dramatist's Play Service, 1947.---. . The exposure of Joe's sin against humanity and his family and himselfis in one sense rooted in the worst of capitalistic impulses, but moreimportantly it is rooted in the dark side of humanity itself which can betempted too easily to take the selfish path instead of the responsiblepath. Miller is not saying that a person should never "reach out forsomething" if there is a chance for somebody to be hurt. Keeping Hewes' comment in mind, one can see that Joe does indeedcling to his ignorance, or false innocence, with respect to the roots ofhis immoral decision about the defective airplane parts. In a sense, the play is blatantly obvious in its moral message,almost melodramatic, but some of this exaggeration may be a matter of theera in which the play was written. If Joehad considered the lives of strangers in making his decision about thedefective airplane parts, then he would not have sold the parts and hewould have saved the life of his own son. This is Joe's great immoral act, along of course withthe actual selling of bad parts and the tragedies which ensued. At the same time, however, their dilemma shows how the bad or immoralchoices one makes in the past can trap one into making subsequent andongoing choices which make the situation worse from day to day and year toyear. Is that where I belong?--then tell me so! Although some of Miller's argumentsare social, political and economic, at heart all of those arguments aremoral. . Certainly he had to consider if only for a momentthat people could die as a result of his decision, even if he could nothave possibly imagined that his own son would die as an indirect result. It's dollars and cents, nickels and dimes; war and peace, it's nickels and dimes, what's clean? It is up to the reader to decide whether theawareness which Joe shows in his last speech is believable or not: Then what is this if it isn't telling me? What's the matter, what can't you tell me? Sell thedefective airplane part, and all will be acceptable, for, after all,everybody is doing it. . When Joe asks Chris, "Why am I bad?", Chris answers, in words whichmight be safely said to represent Miller's own personal moral view: I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. . In other words, Joe;s final argument is not thathe did what he did to make money, but rather to provide for his family.This is the basic question which Miller's play addresses: what is it thatexactly comprises the "family"? . Even after hisimmoral decision and action have been exposed, even after the terribleresults of that decision and action have been revealed, he still is makingexcuses for himself, as if the fact that others have done the same or worseexcuses what he himself has done. Does this mean that Miller condemns Joe without mercy for having letdown his family, for having failed to provide for them a good and moralexample? Here, then, is where miller locates the focus of responsibility. In his Introduction to a collection including Miller's play, HenryHewes focuses on the innocence, or ignorance, which results in Americansblinding themselves to the evils of pursuing the materialistic goals ofcapitalism: The play has the virtue of pinpointing and challenging many of the attitudes that have become part of the American way--our fairy tale approach to the blackest realities, the pressure on everyone to be a success by making money, and the putting of self-interest ahead of responsibility to society (Hewes xxii). Timebends. In Miller's autobiography, Timebends, he writes about a stagedesigner in the first production of All My Sons who saw the Keller backyardin which the play takes place as a graveyard. The fact that their consciences are aliveenough to reach out of the grave of the past and of their son shows thatthey are at least still alive morally. Everywhere today, and most glaringly in America, what diverts us from our responsibility is the heartless functionalism of the marketplace (Clurman xvi). Miller's challenge stands as relevant today as it did then: isyour concern for yourself and your little family blinding you to yourresponsibility to the community of the human race? And I guess they were, I guess they were. New York: Grove, 1987.----------------------- 11 Garden City, NY: Fireside Theatre, 1988.Miller, Arthur. . Annie has been the girl of another Keller son, Larry,who has apparently died. . Half the Goddamn country is gotta go if I go! Who worked for nothin' in that war? All My Sons. Certainly capitalismplays a part in the downfall of Joe and his family, but if there were notsome selfish part of Joe waiting to be tempted, the tragedy of the familyand others who suffer from Joe's decision would not have occurred. The bump stays! For this observer, Joe's sudden awakening is too pat, too sudden, tooclear in its expression when one considers the thickness of the wall ofdenial which Joe has been living behind all those years. Perhaps this is stretching themessage of the play and the risk taken by Miller in writing and presentingit to the American people in 1947, but the fact remains that it was a trulydaring work. However, Miller puts this obvious sin in thecontext of a far more complex moral situation. Here is where the issue of morality becomes complicated anddifficult. As flawed as the play may be, as contrived as a device or two may be(particularly the letter revealed at such a propitious moment), astelegraphed as the moral message might be, the play for its time was arisky venture. For example, how could a sensitiveindividual say that Kate Keller, the mother, is immoral in clinging to thehope that her son is still alive? If there is any doubt about the overall moral message of the play,Miller removes that doubt with Jim's aforementioned final words suggestingthat all the young men in the war were his sons, and not just those withbiological connections to him. Sure, he was my son. This is especially true when one considers that the Cold Warwas just beginning, and that the communist witch-hunts were just around thecorner. For Miller, the family extends far beyondthe nuclear unit of father and mother and children, and there is no excusein Miller's world for an action which adds to the security of the nuclearunit while doing deathly damage to the larger community or race of humanbeings. What Miller is saying through Chris at this point in the play is thatthe moral individual does indeed consider other people in making decisionsin life, and whether other people will be hurt by those decisions. Son Chris already athis young age shows that he has a much more active moral barometer thandoes his father: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. I'll tell you why you can't say it. . The characters do not know it at this point, butLarry has died not in action in the war, as the reader is led to believe,but by suicide. Here was a playwright who was saying that there was somethingbigger than the family, bigger even than the nation, in fact. When Miller questioned himabout the small rise in the grass of the yard, which was to represent thegrave itself, the designer said: You have written a graveyard play, and not some factual report. I tell you, Ann, if I had him here now I could kill him--" (MillerAll 68). In addition, of course, the actions of Joe in the name of hisfamily did not add to the family's security but effectively destroyed it. . Any saneperson would agree that a man is immoral who sends young men to theirdeaths for economic profit. He is expected to serve as an example of proper conduct, of good (Clurman xv). The issue to him, just minutes away from killing himself, is simple--convince the other person that he is right and he will be right. . In that letter, Larry says, related to Joe's selling of defectiveairplane parts, "Every day three or four men never come back and he sitsback there doing business..
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