Keller again proves to the audience that he loves his son on page 163 when he says to Kate “There’s nothin’ he could do that I wouldn’t forgive. Because he’s my son… I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s something bigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head!”. Although this shows Keller’s irresponsibility towards society it also shows Keller’s devotion to his family. Keller obviously believes that family is the most important thing in the world.
This little speech of Keller’s is also very ironic because at the end of the play Keller does actually put a bullet in his head when he finds out there is something bigger than family. The audience will see this speech of Keller’s as a warning that Keller will probably end up putting a bullet in his head. This will unsettle the audience and that is exactly what Miller intended to do by hinting in Keller’s speech what will happen to him in the end.
Chris, unlike his father, does not believe that family is the most important thing in the world. He thinks that the society in which you live is just as important as your family. Chris proves to the audience that he feels this way on page 117 when he says, “It’s wrong to pity a man like that. Father or no father, there’s only one way to look at him. He knowingly shipped out parts that would crash an airplane”. Here the audience sees how Chris doesn’t try to justify what Keller has done just because he’s his son. The audience sees that Chris treats Keller how he would treat any other man who had committed the same crime. It is Chris’ belief that society is just as important as family that makes him treat his father like a man, not just like a father.
I think that Chris’ war experiences had a dramatic effect on his attitude towards society and his family. On page 121 in his speech about the soldiers he was in charge of during the war he says “They didn’t die; they killed themselves for each other”. Here, Chris is commenting on how selfless those soldiers were and how they gave everything they had and died so that they could help their comrades. I think Chris’ war experiences really opened his eyes up to how selfish people are in the real world and how rather than man helping fellow man it is more like dog eat dog. Chris says in his speech “A kind of - responsibility. Man for man.” I think this is what he has learnt from his soldiers. He has learnt that in society you have a responsibility to one another and that is why Chris feels society is equally important to family.
As the play unfolds Keller begins to realise that Chris does not agree with his belief that family is more important than society. Keller does not approve of Chris’ beliefs and he proves this to the audience on page 163 when he says “Goddam, if Larry were alive he wouldn’t act like this. He understood the way the world is made… to him the world had a forty foot front, it ended at the building line”. Here Keller is saying that Larry was sensible and that Larry had the same beliefs as himself. Although Keller doesn’t actually know that he says it because he thinks he has made a failure out of Chris so he wants the comfort of believing that Larry would’ve been a success if he had survived the war and that he would have been one hundred percent devoted to his family.
Keller’s tragedy is founded in his misplaced family devotion. The main reason Keller is such a tragic hero is because he did a bad thing but for a good cause. If he had been more responsible and hadn’t shipped off the cracked cylinder heads then the whole mess would have been avoided.
Keller never actually faces up to fact that it was his fault that twenty-one pilots died. Even at the end when the audience thinks he is facing up to his responsibilities because he says, “I can’t sleep here. I’ll feel better if I go”, he actually goes inside and shoots himself. By doing this he avoids taking responsibility for his actions. He does this because he thinks the fact that it was for his family makes it all right. He proves to the audience that he thinks this on page 162 when he says, “You wanted money, so I made money. Why must I be forgiven?”. Although it is a great shame that Keller never faced up to his responsibilities I still think he was a tragic hero.
Tragedy involves a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal. Tragedy usually involves great loss. It involves a great loss where someone falls from a highpoint to an ultimate low. This low point usually ends in death.
In Keller’s case his highpoint is achieving the American Dream. We know he is very wealthy because in the introduction it says his house “would have cost perhaps fifteen thousand dollars in the early twenties when it was built”. That was a lot of money in those days so we can take a pretty safe guess that Keller was living up to the American Dream.
Joe Keller is looked up to in his neighbourhood even though they do actually know what he has done. He is a respected figure in society because the neighbourhood admires him for being able to wriggle his way out of a prison sentence. They admire him for how clever he was to lie and pin the blame on someone else. I think this is a very corrupt society and I think that is what Miller was trying to portray to the audience in “All My Sons”. Miller wanted to get across to the audiences his views on American society.
I think Miller writes about another broader tragedy in the play besides Keller’s tragedy. This tragedy is the society we live in today and how nobody looks out for each other. It is all about the survival of the fittest nowadays. This is what Chris tries to stand up against throughout the play.
Keller’s tragedy in “All My Sons” is that he works so hard for the American Dream and at the end of the play he shoots himself. By doing this he is giving up everything he has worked so hard for over his life.
