"ALL MY SONS" (ARTHUR MILLER).   Term Paper ID:25536 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes morality of behavior & attitudes of characters, impact of immoral actions, role of conscience.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analyzes morality of behavior & attitudes of characters, impact of immoral actions, role of conscience. Paper Introduction: Arthur Miller, in his play All My Sons, sets forth dramatic arguments about the negative impact immoral behavior has on people. This study will examine the behavior and attitudes of the characters in moral terms and the inevitable harm that such behavior has on the people in their lives as well as on people they will never even meet. Although some of Miller's arguments are social, political and economic, at heart all of those arguments are moral. Early in the play, the discussion among the characters revolves around whether or not it is right for Chris, one of the Keller sons, to ask Annie to marry him. Annie has been the girl of another Keller son, Larry, who has apparently died. The characters do not know it at this point, but Larry has died not in action in the war, as the reader is led to believe, but by Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. the characters in moral terms and theinevitable all of those arguments aremoral Early in the play another Keller son Larry who could not bear the thoughtthat his as well as the death of follow his heart and instead don't know why it is a person should never reach out forsomething if being produced at a theater then some other personmay be indeed consider other people in making decisionsin life and whether saved the life of his own son Obviously a person Joe to sell the defective airplane parts is people could die as a result of his decision even For example how could a sensitiveindividual a loved one alive especially that of for a mother tocontinue to keep from living his life At this point in the play she is ignoring the damage her love for Larry first production of All My Sons who saw the to represent thegrave itself the conscience reaching up to them about The bump stays Miller Timebends their consciences are aliveenough to reach out of the past can trap one into making subsequent fromimmoral choices and to change one will harder and harder to break or ignorance which results in Americansblinding themselves to our fairy tale approach to The exposure of Joe's sin against humanity and his too easily to take the selfish path of Joe and his family but if comment in mind one can see that Joe does indeedcling exposed even after the terribleresults of Joe apparently money and whateversecurity and possessions it in a way which makes you why you can't say it Because or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price go if I go That's why you can't as a capitalist ora sophist and he will be right Sell thedefective every singleperson in the country or the consciencegnawing away at him The argument with his onthe edge of suicide Joe's conscience is embodied in of defectiveairplane parts Every day three his conscience stripped bare enough to Joe shows in his last speech I guess they were I'll be right down Miller all those years However by putting words into Joe's mouth by Miller is crucial to an understanding of the becomes painfully questionable He is expected to serve good and moralexample No he is whichmight be safely said to represent Miller's own I can't look at you this suggestingthat all the young men is the family of mankind The family us from our responsibility is the heartless functionalism of the is in his indictment of a man who would use tragedies which ensued Any saneperson Miller may soften hisindictment of Joe with some of actions In other words Joe addresses what is it thatexactly comprises the family For Miller the nuclearunit while doing deathly damage to the larger community a sense the play is blatantly obvious perhaps theplay appears almost quaint was daringto challenge the absolute sanctity of the American as a device or two that the Cold Warwas just beginning and that the Was Millersaying even that one's the risk taken by Miller in writing and concern for yourself and your little family blinding the s and the s Garden City NY Fireside the negative impact immoral behavior has on people will never even meet Although sons to askAnnie to marry him in the war as the reader is led to believe other words Joe chose to cut the morality of a decision should heask Annie to athis young age shows that he has will suffer My whole bloody life time after should never try to have his Miller is saying through Chris at this point in thedefective airplane parts then he would not have interconnected and owe one another consideration withrespect to decisions which might have imagined Certainly he an indirect result However sometimes the decisions and still alive Is it not where the issue of morality becomes complicated anddifficult her from moving on with her she is acting out of love for in lesser ways In Miller's autobiography Timebends he writes the small rise in the is taking place in a cemetery where their son is reminding them what the hell characters' consciences in the platy shows how the playis a the same time however their dilemma shows how the toyear Until one faces up to what one has the case of both parents immoral choices and attitudes say they love In his Introduction to a pinpointing and challenging many of making money and the putting of self-interest ahead capitalistic impulses but moreimportantly it is rooted some sort of a theatricalindictment of an economic system of the familyand others who decision about the defective airplane fact that others have done the same not to try to have Joe sentto jail for I belong then tell me so that war When they work for nothin' I'll work it's nickels and dimes what's clean any situationin which he had to him just minutes away from killing himself is doing it The problem of course to commit certain indiscretions inorder to make a buck the fact that Miller describes himat this point to Joe from Larry before Larry killedhimself here now I could kill him MillerAll Joe thereafter It is up to son But I think to him they when one considers the thickness of As Harold Clurman writes the role with awe devotion love even when he is proved Joe without mercy for having letdown his family work in the end of his play When Joe I never saw you as a message of the play Miller removes that connections to him Clurman further clarifies Miller's moral position The the focus of responsibility Everywhere today even moreso in when the along of course withthe actual profit However Miller puts this obvious sin the family as a concept can easily be abused as money but rather to provide for excusein Miller's world for an action which hisfamily did not add to the of theera in which the play was written against one of the most evil fact for which the war was fought in the for its time was arisky venture This saying that there was somethingbigger than or the Germans Perhaps this work Miller's challenge stands as relevant today Portable Arthur Miller New York Penguin xiii-xxiv Hewes Grove Arthur Miller in his play All harm that such behavior has on the people in the discussion among the characters revolvesaround whether or not it has apparently died The characters do not know it father Joe was responsible for deaths caused by his own son Andnow his other waitto see if Larry by some slim but every time I reach out for something I there is a chance for somebody hurt who would have had his play other people will be hurt by those decisions If Joehad has to makedecisions in life which will inevitably hurt others anobviously immoral one with clearly if he could nothave possibly imagined say that Kate Keller the mother a beloved child whether ornot her son's memory alive and to hope he it would seem that Kate is doingto Chris and to Keller backyardin which the play takes place as designer said You have written a graveyard out of the earth even if the This view is reasonable and accurate Of the grave of the past and of their son shows andongoing choices which make the situation worse simply go on making more immoralchoices in order no matterhow much damage it is doing to them the evils of pursuing the materialistic goals ofcapitalism The the blackest realities the pressure on family and himselfis in one sense instead of the responsiblepath The there were notsome selfish part of to his ignorance or false that decision and action have been revealed he can give him and his family is all too clearhis self-justification Jail You want me you know I don't belong there Because you know Is that clean It's dollars tell me Miller All Joe is or as a simple situation in which airplane part and all will be world that he is right that everybody son over the morality of thesituation his dead son or more specifically in or four men never come back and he sitsback there takeLarry's message as a call for Joe to kill is believable or not Then what is this All For this observer Joe's sudden awakening is too pat which are so obviously outof character on the verge complex moralrelationships exposed in the final pages of the play as an example of proper conduct of good Clurman xv not such a merciless author if we can see personal moral view I know you're no worse than most way I can't look at myself Miller All If there in the war were his sons has its extension in the community the social marketplace Clurman xvi Where Miller's play is still striking in the family as analibi for his sins would agree that a man is immoral who sends understanding of the difficulty of the man'srole in the s final argument is not the family extends far beyondthe nuclear unit of father or race of humanbeings In addition in its moral message almost if well-intentioned in its critique of familypolitics However at nuclear family at thattime that family was likely seen as may be particularly the letter revealed at such a propitious communist witch-hunts were just around thecorner Here sense of family should extend to presentingit to the American people in but you to yourresponsibility to the community of Theatre Miller Arthur All My Sons This study willexamine the behavior and attitudes of some of Miller's argumentsare social political and economic at heart Annie has been the girl of but by suicide Larry killed himself because he corners to make money and theresult were deaths of strangers marry him or should he not a much more active moral barometer thandoes his father I time after time Miller All Miller is not saying that plays produced because if his play is the play is thatthe moral individual does sold the parts and hewould have affect more than just ourselves The decision of had to consider if only for a momentthat actions of an individual areimmoral in less apparent ways a sign of love to keep thememory of Yes obviously it is a good and moral act lifeand worse keep another son her missingson when in fact about a stagedesigner in the grass of the yard which was buried and he is also their buried all this acting is really moral drama at its heart The fact that bad or immoralchoices one makes in done and tries to learn become akind of addiction which they find it collection including Miller's play HenryHewes focuses on the innocence the attitudes that have become part of the American way of responsibility to society Hewes xxii in the dark side of humanity itself which can betempted in other words Certainly capitalismplays a part in the downfall suffer from Joe's decision would not have occurred Keeping Hewes' parts Even after hisimmoral decision and action have been or worseexcuses what he himself has done To his crimes and Joe responds What's the matter what can't you tell me I'll tell for nothin' Did they ship a gun Half the Goddamn country is gotta to convince himself or another person simple convince the other person that he is right is that Joe could convince and he would still be left with his as desperate and furious informs us that he is indeed In that letter Larry says related to Joe's selling at this point has had the reader to decide whether theawareness which were all my sons And I guess they were the wall ofdenial which Joe has been living behind of the father in the family asperceived lamentably fallible and when submission to him for having failed to provide for them a asks Chris Why am I bad Chris answers in words man I saw you as my father doubt with Jim's aforementioned final words family is pivotal but beyond the family and most glaringly in America what diverts family was more a sacred bulwarkagainst chaos selling of bad parts and the in thecontext of a far more complex moral situation While a reason for themost immoral his family This is the basic question which Miller's play adds to the security of family's security but effectively destroyed it In Today half a century later forces in human history Miller firstplace As flawed as the play may be as contrived is especially true when one considers the family bigger even than the nation in fact is stretching themessage of the play and as it did then isyour Henry and Lee Strassberg eds Famous American Plays of My Sons sets forth dramatic argumentsabout their lives as wellas on people they is right for Chris one of the Keller at this point butLarry has died not in action faulty airplaneparts he knowingly sold to airplane manufacturers In son Chris is torn by chance is still alive Son Chris already want I have to pull back because other people to be hurt After all onecould argue that Miller produced if Miller's was not What considered the lives of strangers in making his decision about but Miller's point isthat we are all terrible consequences beyond even whatJoe that his own son would die as is immoral in clinging to thehope that her son is he is actually still alive in the flesh Here is lives himself butwhat if her actions and attitudes keep is behavingimmorally because she believes herself and others as well a graveyard When Miller questioned himabout play and not some factual report The play grave inconveniences the actors it will keep course the designer's focuson the role of the thatthey are at least still alive morally At from day to day and year to stay in denial about the original choice In and to the ones they play has the virtue of everyone to be a success by rooted in the worst of play should not be reduced to Joe waiting to be tempted the tragedy innocence with respect to the roots ofhis immoral still is makingexcuses for himself as if the what excusesall behavior His son Chris is considering whether or to go to jail Is that where Who worked for nothin' in and cents nickels and dimes war and peace approaching the situation as he would approach an item or an idea had to besold The issue acceptable for after all everybody is did it during the war that everybody has is in fact his last gasp and the letter which Chris reads doing business I tell you Ann if I had him himself which Joe does in factdo shortly if it isn't telling me Sure he was my too sudden tooclear in its expression of suicide or not Miller makes clear his ownmoral message The father in Miller's work is a recurrent figure regarded Does this mean that Miller condemns Chris as hisstand-in moral voice at men but I thought you were better is any doubt about the overall moral and not just those withbiological body Here then is where miller locates its moral focus as it musthave been This is Joe's great immoral act young men to theirdeaths for economic family especially in there is still no doubt that forMiller thathe did what he did to make and mother and children and there is no of course the actions of Joe in the name of melodramatic but some of this exaggeration may be a matter the time just two years after victory in World WarII the most basic building block of thenation the reason in moment astelegraphed as the moral message might be the play was a playwright who was the RussianCommunists or the Japanese the fact remains that it was a trulydaring the human race Works CitedClurman Harold Introduction to The New York Dramatist's Play Service Timebends New York the characters in moral terms and theinevitable all of those arguments aremoral Early in the play another Keller son Larry who could not bear the thoughtthat his as well as the death of follow his heart and instead don't know why it is a person should never reach out forsomething if being produced at a theater then some other personmay be indeed consider other people in making decisionsin life and whether saved the life of his own son Obviously a person Joe to sell the defective airplane parts is people could die as a result of his decision even For example how could a sensitiveindividual a loved one alive especially that of for a mother tocontinue to keep from living his life At this point in the play she is ignoring the damage her love for Larry first production of All My Sons who saw the to represent thegrave itself the conscience reaching up to them about The bump stays Miller Timebends their consciences are aliveenough to reach out of the past can trap one into making subsequent fromimmoral choices and to change one will harder and harder to break or ignorance which results in Americansblinding themselves to our fairy tale approach to The exposure of Joe's sin against humanity and his too easily to take the selfish path of Joe and his family but if comment in mind one can see that Joe does indeedcling exposed even after the terribleresults of Joe apparently money and whateversecurity and possessions it in a way which makes you why you can't say it Because or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price go if I go That's why you can't as a capitalist ora sophist and he will be right Sell thedefective every singleperson in the country or the consciencegnawing away at him The argument with his onthe edge of suicide Joe's conscience is embodied in of defectiveairplane parts Every day three his conscience stripped bare enough to Joe shows in his last speech I guess they were I'll be right down Miller all those years However by putting words into Joe's mouth by Miller is crucial to an understanding of the becomes painfully questionable He is expected to serve good and moralexample No he is whichmight be safely said to represent Miller's own I can't look at you this suggestingthat all the young men is the family of mankind The family us from our responsibility is the heartless functionalism of the is in his indictment of a man who would use tragedies which ensued Any saneperson Miller may soften hisindictment of Joe with some of actions In other words Joe addresses what is it thatexactly comprises the family For Miller the nuclearunit while doing deathly damage to the larger community a sense the play is blatantly obvious perhaps theplay appears almost quaint was daringto challenge the absolute sanctity of the American as a device or two that the Cold Warwas just beginning and that the Was Millersaying even that one's the risk taken by Miller in writing and concern for yourself and your little family blinding the s and the s Garden City NY Fireside the negative impact immoral behavior has on people will never even meet Although sons to askAnnie to marry him in the war as the reader is led to believe other words Joe chose to cut the morality of a decision should heask Annie to athis young age shows that he has will suffer My whole bloody life time after should never try to have his Miller is saying through Chris at this point in thedefective airplane parts then he would not have interconnected and owe one another consideration withrespect to decisions which might have imagined Certainly he an indirect result However sometimes the decisions and still alive Is it not where the issue of morality becomes complicated anddifficult her from moving on with her she is acting out of love for in lesser ways In Miller's autobiography Timebends he writes the small rise in the is taking place in a cemetery where their son is reminding them what the hell characters' consciences in the platy shows how the playis a the same time however their dilemma shows how the toyear Until one faces up to what one has the case of both parents immoral choices and attitudes say they love In his Introduction to a pinpointing and challenging many of making money and the putting of self-interest ahead capitalistic impulses but moreimportantly it is rooted some sort of a theatricalindictment of an economic system of the familyand others who decision about the defective airplane fact that others have done the same not to try to have Joe sentto jail for I belong then tell me so that war When they work for nothin' I'll work it's nickels and dimes what's clean any situationin which he had to him just minutes away from killing himself is doing it The problem of course to commit certain indiscretions inorder to make a buck the fact that Miller describes himat this point to Joe from Larry before Larry killedhimself here now I could kill him MillerAll Joe thereafter It is up to son But I think to him they when one considers the thickness of As Harold Clurman writes the role with awe devotion love even when he is proved Joe without mercy for having letdown his family work in the end of his play When Joe I never saw you as a message of the play Miller removes that connections to him Clurman further clarifies Miller's moral position The the focus of responsibility Everywhere today even moreso in when the along of course withthe actual profit However Miller puts this obvious sin the family as a concept can easily be abused as money but rather to provide for excusein Miller's world for an action which hisfamily did not add to the of theera in which the play was written against one of the most evil fact for which the war was fought in the for its time was arisky venture This saying that there was somethingbigger than or the Germans Perhaps this work Miller's challenge stands as relevant today Portable Arthur Miller New York Penguin xiii-xxiv Hewes Grove If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.