Conflict of Ideal between Parents and Children in “All My Sons”

Abstract

Arthur Miller, a social dramatist, mostly deals with the theme of social relationship in his plays. His play All My Sons deals with the theme of guilt and responsibility towards the nation one belongs to. Like other plays of Miller, it exhibits his ideas on various social as well as economic matters and voices his criticism on the capitalistic society of his time. He questions for the
definition of success. The play exhibits a family where a son, Chris Keller, is not happy with his father and not ready to respect his father, Joe Keller, as a responsible person for the nation he belongs to and tries to make realized him that what he did at the cost of being successful in the past was not right. Actually Joe supplied American Air Force with defective cylinder heads
during the Second World War, and that causes the death of twenty one pilots. Chris feels blame worthy for this doing of his father because he thinks as a father Joe did it only for the sake of his family and this continuous thinking in Chris’ mind begins a conflict between a father and a son which continues till the very end of the play and Chris m a k e s h i s f a t h e r r e a l i z e d
his responsibility for all his sons. Now Joe has acknowledged his guilt in less and he does no find any reason to live anymore and finally commits suicide with having these words on his lips ‘All My Sons’.