All My Sons Essay - 1222 Words

Life is full of many hard decisions that people have to take, often on the spur of the moment. Some we get right others turn horribly wrong. Joe Keller, the tragic hero of Arthur Millers play All My Sons, was no different. His whole life was dedicated to his family and their well being but all his plans were undone by one fatally flawed decision. The audience can relate to Joe and feel sympathy for him because he was a good man who did many great things for his family and in the end paid the ultimate price. Towards the end of the play, Joes son Chris anguishes over the fatally flawed decision made by his father, thus eliciting the sympathy of the audience. However, this is not enough to detract from the audience relating to Joe as a†¦show more content†¦Joe doesnt have many bad qualities in him the only times the audience do see such qualities is when he speaks ill of Steve to others like when he says, I owe him a good kick in the teeth(Act 2, p47). However, the audience knows he does not really mean these things but only says them to cover up his fatal mistake. So we forgive Joe his mistake because as Plutarch, the Delphic priest, said almost 2000 years ago, to make no mistakes is not in the power of man and also because Joe tries to rectify his mistake by offering to give Steve a good job when he gets out of priso n and offering to help Steves children. Joe has spent his life making many decisions most of which appear to have been good decisions resulting in his family enjoying a comfortable life. The audience admires him for this. Unfortunately, late one night Joe made a hurried decision, which he believed he could get away with. The reasons for his decision comes to light near the end of the play, in Act 2, when he tells Chris why he made that decision, Im a business man, a man is in business; a hundred and twenty cracked, youre out of business, you got a process, the process dont work youre out of business; you dont know how to operate, your stuff is no good; they close you up, they tear up your contract what the hells it to them? You lay forty years into a business and they knock you out in five minutes, whatShow MoreRelatedEssay on Conflict in All My Sons1102 Words   |  5 PagesConflict in All My Sons The conflict in the play â€Å"All My Sons† in embodied by two different sets of values. The older generation represented by Joe and Kate strongly believed in family values and Pursue of the American dream at any cost. In contradiction, Joe and Anne express the younger generation’s ethics and ideals clearly shown in the thoughts of idealism that money is not the most important thing in life. 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The play brings out the reality that not everything is perfect. Holes are created by the fight between good and evil. In this play the evil is the act of lying, and the good is the innocence of ignorance. The play starts with an everyday business man given the age-old fight of man versus himself. He had to decide whether or not to ship defective parts. OnRead MoreEssay about Disillusionment in All My Sons by Arthur Miller615 Words   |  3 PagesDisillusionment in All My Sons by Arthur Miller One of the central themes of All My Sons is the disillusionment of the young, and this theme can be traced through the character Chris, who comes to be disenchanted with his family, society and himself by realizing that none of these is as moral as he once believed. When he finally finds out through questioning his father that his father is, in fact, guilty of knowingly shipping out the cracked cylinder heads, he says to his father â€Å"What the hellRead More The Dangers of Shirking Responsibility in Arthur Millers All My Sons 967 Words   |  4 PagesThe Dangers of Shirking Responsibility  in Arthur Millers All My Sons  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Arthur Millers All My Sons is a well-made play in every sense of that term. It not only is carefully and logically constructed, but   addresses its themes fully and effectively. The play communicates different ideas on war, materialism, family, and honesty. However, the main focus, especially at the plays climax, is the issue of personal responsibility. In particular, Miller demonstrates the dangers of shirking