Many characters in All of My Sons base their actions on what they perceive society as needing. Joe Keller even admits "For you, a business for you!" (70). He knowingly shipped out defective parts that would kill other men as long as his son could be happy withe the business. He greatly values family over society as a whole and he has taken it to an absurd extreme. In the end however, he begins to realize that in fact society is like an extended family. He observes " Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess there were, I guess they were" (83). He has gradually realized that there is no different connection between family and society. Any one of those men could have been in his family, and it happened to Chris. However, there is no real difference between Chris and those other men that were killed. Joe Keller finally decides to believe this when they get the letter from Larry. Larry threatens to kill him, and that is what finally convinces him that society and family really are no different. Kate on the other hand is not convinced, and all they should be is sorry. She remarks " What more can we be!"(84). She is not convinced that this letter changes anything, and that all they should do it be sorry. Larry was a horrible tragedy, but she believes her overall behavior should not really change because of him.
I believe that needs of your family is often more important than the needs of society. Your family not only depends on you, but what you do much more greatly affects it. So you become an important part of it. Try as hard as you want, and you're unlikely to be able to change society. However, you're family can very easily be changed for the better through your efforts. This makes it paramount to help them as the potential is so much greater. However, helping society should not be sacrificed for that. Society is also important, if a bit harder to relate to, due to the lack of physical people you can know. Society is much easier to harm, as you don't feel like you're harming anyone. It's more of a vague object that people think of, and this allows them to justify all the wrongs that happen to society as a whole.
Miller, Arthur, and Christopher Bigsby. All My Sons : A Drama in Three Acts. New York: Penguin Classics, 2000.
3 comments:
You made some great points. When Joe began to see what he did as wrong it was a big point in the play. He reacts in an extreme way by shooting himself. Joe thought that family was above everything but he changed. It was interesting how no matter what seems to happen Kate doesn't change her beliefs.
Wow, I never thought of it that way. Personally, a wrong to society is wrong whether it will affect society in any way, just like a wrong to family is wrong. I believe that if you do something wrong in the eyes of society, you shouldn't be able to put it off because you did it, "for your family". That just doesn't count. But you brought up an interesting counter arguement. Your remarks on the change of the characters was interesting as well. Well done.
I agree with what you say about how much more you can impact your family personally through your actions. You seem a bit contridictory on the subject of society though. First you say that "Try as hard as you want, and you're unlikely to be able to change society" but the you say "Society is much easier to harm, as you don't feel like you're harming anyone". So do we have a big impact on society as individuals or not?
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