All My Sons By Arthur Miller

Quick Facts His previous play, The Man With All The Luck, closed on Broadway after four performances, and he was giving himself one chance more before closing the door on theater. Miller took two and a half years to write the play; his other plays took him an average of three months to write. All My Sons was so successful, Miller was frightened. Not wanting to lose touch with reality, he sought a job in manual labor, but abandoned it after a few days.

Miller and the Government In 1944, the FBI started watching Miller. A copy of the script of All My Sons was given to FBI censors, who called it “Party propaganda.” In 1947, plans to stage All My Sons abroad were met with opposition over its potentially negative depiction of U.S. culture. The Civil Affairs Division of the American Military refused to issue a license for a production of the play in occupied Europe. In 1956, Miller was questioned in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, accused of being a Communist.

Inspiration for the Play In 1944, Miller’s mother-in-law mentioned an article she had read in an Ohio newspaper about a war profiteer whose daughter had turned him into federal officials for selling faulty machinery to the Army before running away from home.

American Industry in WWII By the end of the war, the U.S. had produced 88,410 tanks, 257,390 artillery weapons, 2,679,840 machine guns, 2,382,311 military trucks and 324,750 warplanes. The United States Steel Corp. made 31.4 million kegs of nails, and enough steel fencing to stretch from New York City to San Francisco. Spending on military preparedness reached a stunning $75 million a day by December 1941, and, by 1944, war profits after taxes reached $10.8 billion.

The Business of WWII “Everybody knew a lot of illicit fortunes were being made, a lot of junk was being sold to the armed services, we all knew that. All the rules were being violated every day, but you didn’t want to mention it.” — Arthur Miller Not only were factories asked to churn out material at an alarming rate (as their patriotic duty), most were also switching from the products they’d previously produced and knew well to complex tank and aircraft parts.

The Results. . . In 1943, Wright Aeronautical Corp., which produced airplane engines, was accused of manufacturing leaky, defective engines, falsifying inspections and destroying records to cover up its wrongdoing. President Truman stated: “The facts are that they were turning out phony engines and I have no doubt a lot of kids in training planes have been killed as a result.”

Jan. 17, 1943—the S.S. Schenectady snapped in two and sank off the West Coast, only a few hours after it had been delivered to the Maritime Commission. The sinking was due to the steel plate on the ship, which was “brittle” and “more like cast iron than steel.” The defective steel had been supplied by the Carnegie-Illinois Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, whose officials had willfully and consciously delivered faulty material to the Navy.

Anaconda Wire and Cable Co. was indicted Dec Anaconda Wire and Cable Co. was indicted Dec. 21, 1942, for conspiring to sell the government defective communication and other combat wire, although its officials “well knew at all times” that use of such wire would “endanger the lives of men in the military service of the USA.”

Characters: Keller Family Joe Keller (Keller): Middle aged and prosperous family man whose world does not extend beyond the borders of his front yard or the gate around his factory Kate Keller (Mother): cannot abandon the memory of Larry, the son she lost in the war Chris Keller: a war hero who finds suburban life stifling; devoted to his parents; suffers from survivor’s guilt

Survivor’s Guilt Psychological term originally coined in the 1960’s to describe survivors of the Holocaust who felt they weren’t entitled to happiness or wealth after the trauma of the concentration camps Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who studied psychological disorders in WWII veterans, describes it this way: “It is the soldier-survivor sense of having betrayed his buddies by letting them die while he stayed alive—at the same time feeling relieved and even joyous that it was he who survived … his pleasure in surviving becoming a further source of guilt.”

Characters: Deever Family Herbert (Steve) Deever: Joe’s business partner, accused of manufacturing defective parts; in prison Ann Deever: honest, down-to-earth; will not forgive her father George Deever: practical and down-to-earth; convinced of his father’s innocence

Characters: The Neighbors Dr. Jim Bayliss: good man who believes in the duty of one man to help another Sue Bayliss: put Jim through medical school, and she expects more than gratitude in return Frank Lubey: simple guy with an interest in astrology; avoided the draft Lydia Lubey: former sweetheart of George's, but she did not wait for him to return from the war Bert: neighborhood boy who plays cops-and-robbers games with Joe Keller

Events Leading Up to the Play Early Autumn, 1943 Joe Keller’s plant ships out faulty plane parts. Late Autumn, 1943 Twenty-one pilots are killed in crashes. November 25, 1943 Larry Keller is reported missing. 1945 Joe's plant rebounds and becomes one of the most successful in the state. August 1947 Larry's memorial tree blows down in a storm.

Timeline of the Play Act One Sunday Morning, August 1947 Act Two Twilight on Sunday Evening, August 1947 Act Three Two AM the next morning, August 1947

All My Sons and Walter’s Purple Heart The primary action driving the play has already occurred and been buried beneath the routines of daily existence. The living are “haunted” by the dead. Miller states that the structure of the play is “to bring a man into the direct path of the consequences he has wrought.” He also proclaims that “you can’t live without denial…the truth and mankind are cousins, not brothers and sisters...you have to deny something in order to survive.”

Andrew and the Keller Family The Kellers construct fictions that enable them to justify themselves in their own eyes. Joe Keller re-writes the past and refuses to accept responsibility for his actions.

Walter and the Keller Family Kate Keller cannot (or will not) accept the present. Chris Keller carries the past with him and isn’t sure how to deal with it. The Kellers are in a holding pattern, unable to move on from the past.