FREE ESSAY ON ALL MY SONS-ARTHUR MILLER

ALL MY SONS-ARTHUR MILLER

Andrew English
AP English Essay
All My Sons
Arthur Miller's All My Sons is a perfect example of a literary work that builds up to,
and then reaches, an ending that simultaneously satisfies the reader's expectations and
brings all the play's themes to a dramatic conclusion. As the past slowly bubbles up into
the present, the reader begins to need certain confrontations - and certain judgments -
to occur. The finale that Miller deftly crafted for this play is filled with a dramatic
irony that leaves the reader thinking. In the end the wrong has been avenged, and the
inner and outer circles -family and society - have come crashing together.
Even though Miller is slow to establish his main theme in the exposition, once set, the
main themes develop into powerful messages that hold meaning for all: if one cannot look
beyond their personal circle, they are condemned to an ignorant existence ended by a
tragic moment of realization. Joe Keller goes through this slow, and painful, process of
realization. It has been hard work for Keller to maintain his blind ignorance toward his
crime, and his guilt; however, despite his efforts, his tainted past is continually
creeping into his sacred inner circle, the only world that Keller allows himself to
recognize. When Keller sees that his inner circle is only a tiny speck in the greater
outer circle - and that those people, whom he thought were unrelated to him, were
actually all his sons - he takes his own life, an acceptable ending for the reader.
As Miller's play ends, the personal beliefs of each character come into question. Chris
is forced to look at his father, and his father's guilt, in the harsh light of reality
for the first time. 'Father' had always meant the personification of goodness and
infallibility to Chris. When reality's light illuminates the cracks in Keller's good-guy
facade, Chris can only run away. Ironically, the only person who truly realizes the full
consequences of Keller's crime is Keller himself; he dies to regain his conscience.
Another belief that shatters under reality's torrents is Mrs. Keller's belief that her
son survived the war. She is forced to confront this pipe dream in the end, when Ann
brings a letter from Larry, documenting his planned suicide. As in O'Neil's The Iceman
Cometh, this confrontation of the pipe dream does not bring peace - but death.
This play is highly structured and extremely well-written. As soon as Miller sets his
main theme into place, the entire play moves in the direction of that theme's tragic
conclusion. The battle described in Miller's drama, the unending war between social
expediency and moral righteousness, comes to the inevitable climax that the reader needs
and expects. No loose ends are left behind to add ambiguity to the work, and the reader
is left satisfied that Miller has come to a logical and fulfilling denouement.