All My Sons is a Broadway play by Arthur Miller that received a warm appreciation. The play set happens during the second world war, and tells the story of Joe Keller, a war profiteer who puts money above duty to society and human relations. Joe has a wife Kate and a son Chris; his other son Larry has presumably died in the air crash at war. Joe frames his employee and business partner Steve Deever, who ends up in prison for selling defective airplane cylinders on Joe’s orders. This paper aims to discuss the turning point in the play All My Sons by Arthur Miller.
In the first act, the story centers around Joe’s daily life, his work, and relationships with family. Joe’s acquaintance Frank, on Kate’s request, is making a horoscope for the day when Larry went missing: “Well, a favorable day for the person is a fortunate day according to his stars… it would be practically impossible for him to have died on this day” (Miller, 2015, p. 28). Surprisingly, Keller reacts very discreetly and says that this is nonsense. This reaction is an important touch in his character and behavior: Joe is a practical, purposeful person, he finds Kate’s hopes delusional, which annoys him, while business allows him to distract from personal grief.
The first turning point in the play is when the viewer finds out about Steve’s imprisonment. Steve’s daughter Ann, a former Larry’s girlfriend, has been corresponding with Chris and plans to marry him. She states that her father is currently in prison for selling broken cylinder heads which led to the death of 21 men. The next turning point comes in the second act, when Joe admits that he ordered to send the cylinder heads to Air Forces to avoid going out of business, but when the news hit the press, he cheated on Steve and left him at the factory. Here, not only Joe’s betrayal is revealed, but also a social problem of the time when people who participated in the war and those who did business at home or refused to participate could not find an understanding. The practice of supplying low-quality components for monetary gain seemed even more terrible.
In the third act, Chris leaves home because he cannot come to terms with his father’s guilt, although Joe does not accept his own role in this decision. The most important twist in the story occurs at the end of the play, when Ann reads Kate a letter from Larry in which he contemplates suicide after learning about his father’s deception. Larry’s reaction helps Joe to admit his guilt, and he 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. I’ll be right down” (Miller, 2015, p. 100). Joe goes to get his coat to turn himself in to the police and kills himself backstage, the audience hears a gunshot.
Placing the most important turning point in the finale is a very successful technique, because after watching the play, the audience has enough time to think through all its elements. Joe’s suicide forces the viewer to reassess his seemingly frivolous and stingy character and redeems his guilt for the death of 21 people. The finale also reveals the characters of Chris and Kate. The viewer feels more sympathy for Chris and his pain over Larry’s death. Kate is also seen in a different light – her stubborn premonition that Larry was not killed turned out to be true.
Thus, the turning points in the play All My Sons by Arthur Miller were discussed. Twists and turns in the story allow to evaluate the social problems caused by the second world war from two positions – social justice and humanity. Miller focuses more on people’s relationships through their social choices and roles than on criminal acts. The basis of the plot is a dramatic technique, a background for understanding people who were participants of tragic historical events.
Reference
Miller, A. (2015). All my sons. Penguin Classics.