All My Sons Miller
August 21st, 2008
All My Sons is a play written by Arthur Miller. It premiered on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 328 performances.
Based on a true story which Miller first read about in a paper, All My Sons is the story of Joe Keller, a factory owner who provided the USAAF with airplane parts during the Second World War. As the story unfolds, however, it turns out that Keller knowingly supplied faulty cylinder caps in 1943, resulting in multiple deaths - deaths that Keller blamed on then-partner Steven Deever. Keller was exonerated but Deever went to jail for the crime.
It eventually comes out, however - four years later, that is - that Keller is just as guilty for the crime as his partner. More, his brother Larry Keller, whose plane failed during the war and who subsequently died, may have been one of those with Keller’s faulty parts. Faced with familiar struggles and the threat of going to jail, Keller first argues that he had to ship the parts (otherwise his factory would’ve been shut down and his family would have suffered) and then, in despair, kills himself at the end of the play.