[.ca] 20th Century All My Sons (ISBN 0141185465)

War crimes:
The action takes place in less than 24 hours. According to the introduction by Christopher Bigsby, Miller is most concerned with the fractures in relationships. The main character, Bigsby contends, Joe Keller, does not understand the social contract. In the opening it is established that Keller had two sons and now has one. His neighbor is a doctor. Keller lives in a substantial house with, it is evident, a tree-shaded yard. The doctor's wife wants him to treat patients to get the fees, even if the treatment is unnecessary. Kate Keller wants to believe the dead son, Larry, is coming home again. Chris, the remaining son, wants to confront his mother with the truth. Chris also tells his father he is going to ask his brother's fiancee to marry him. Ann has been in New York for three and a half years. Kate Keller doesn't understand why she is visiting now. His mother, Kate, surmises that Chris wants to marry Ann. Ann's father has been imprisoned for causing defective parts to be sold for military planes. The actual culprit is the owner of the business, Joe Keller. At an earlier stage in the drama Ann doesn't know her father is innocent. Chris was moved by the comraderie and loyalty of the men with whom he served in the armed forces. The doctor's wife tells Ann about Joe's perfidy. Chris had not yet learned part way through the action of the play that his father was responsible for the defective parts. Joe was acquitted at his trial. Ann's brother George tells her that Chris's father destroyed their family. It seems that Joe had told their father to weld over the defective cylinder heads. Joe wouldn't come down to see the parts. He was sick with the flu he claimed, but he promised to take responsibility. In court Joe denied making the phoned instructions. George wants to go and talk to Chris's father. Kate Keller tells Chris his brother is alive because if he's dead his father, Joe Keller, killed him. Through his mother's statements Chris learns that his father did have a role in releasing the defective parts. Joe Keller claims he kept the family factory profitable for Chris's sake. The writer of the introduction claims that the success of the play scared the playwright who had produced nothing comparable yet in his career when the play was produced in 1947. It is very very good. Nothing about it is dated.

Not His Best, but Great!:
This play is magnificient. I won't tell you the plot, because you really need to read it for yourself. If you enjoyed The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, this should be the next Miller book to your library. A great play to put on also. A driving piece of work that sets up Miller's continual theme of personal versus business ethics.

Not A Pulitzer.:
"All My Sons" is a play that captures the reader simply with the title. The first few pages are rather slow, but after setting the characters this play takes off like a rocket. The reader is plunged directly into post WWII America, in the middle of a town's scandal and a family's crisis. It is easy to understand the scandalous ongoings of small town America, certainly a lesser focus of the novel. The centrifugal point of the play is just a different twist on "Romeo and Juliet". If one strips away the whole conflict with the town and the influence of the war, all you are left with is a story about a boy and girl who are in love but who's families are at odds with each other. The result is book with a hackneyed base plot and an overdramatic ending. Luckily for Miller, he adds enough meat with the town and war subplots to classify this play as worthreading and worth seeing on stage. Although, in comparison to his only Pulitzer winner, "Death of a Salesman"...Well, comparing the two will not do "All My Sons" any justice. If you liked "Death of a Salesman" then go for this book too. On the other hand, if you found "Death of a Salesman" to be lackluster, "All My Sons" will only add to your grief.

Easy to read - Very Enjoyable:
When I first opened the book and read the first few lines, it was easy to tell that this book was going to be easy to read. But aside from that, All My Sons is filled with much symbolism, foreshadowing, and just a great plot. The story is unique, the conflicts are twisting, and the ending is shocking. I've yet to read many novels or plays that contained all of these features. I think what makes this play great is that it is written so a child can read it, yet the theme can relate to anyone young or old.

An Early Example of Miller's Genius:
This 1947 play contains all of the basic themes that would figure prominently in such later Miller masterpieces as DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE CRUCIBLE, and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Joe Keller is a former airplane part manufacturer who during WWII allowed defective parts to be shipped out -- in order to save his own job -- then blamed his partner, Steve Deever, for the "oversight" when the planes crashed. A particularly disturbing aspect of the drama is that Joe's wife, Kate, knows the truth about her husband's crime but chooses to keep silence for the sake of her own belief that Larry, the Kellers' elder son who went missing in action, is still alive. The important themes in ALL MY SONS are the individual's responsibility to his family versus his responsibility to society at large, and the possibility -- or impossibility -- that a man may lead a "normal" life while knowing that he betrayed his own family. It is chilling the way Miller has Keller's guilt gradually force itself to the surface during the course of the play, until we at last see him in all his guilt and shame as a tragic figure. I encourage you to read this excellent, early Miller work.