Society Vs. Family

Characters in Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons are divided into two sides: those who believe actions should benefit family, and those who believe actions should benefit society. Joe and Kate Keller belong to the former group, and base their decisions off what will help their family most. Joe in particular has a strong belief that being able to pass something on to his family justifies hurting society. He acts on this belief when he ships the cracked cylinder heads to the army: he knows that this action will hurt others in society, but he does it anyhow, because it will help his family. When he escapes punishment for this crime by blaming it on his partner, he again sacrifices society for family, because he harms someone else while upholding his own family and business. Joe sum up his belief that his family’s needs trump his society’s needs when he is desperately trying to explain to a furious Chris why he chose to ship the bad parts. Joe says, “Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I took it for you. I’m sixty-one years old, when would I have another chance to make something for you?” (70). Kate agrees with Joe on this issue. Additionally, she strongly believes that actions of a family affect only that family and do not matter to the rest of society, and she thus justifies valuing family over society. For example, Kate believes that Larry is still alive, and that because Larry is alive, Joe’s crime is erased and does not matter to anyone else. This is part of the reason that Kate clings so adamantly to her denial of her son’s death—Larry alive means Joe innocent to her. On the other side of the argument are Chris and Annie. Chris’s views are opposite from his father’s, because Chris is deeply ashamed that his father would ship out broken parts for his family’s sake, without regard to his impact on society. This difference between Joe and Chris causes a lot of conflict in the play, because Chris is furious with his father when he discovers Joe’s guilt, feels ashamed to benefit from the business that killed pilots, and wants Joe pay for his crime. Chris summarizes his point of view at the end of the play by telling Kate “You can be better! Once and for all there’s a universe of people outside and you’re responsible to it…” (84). This proclamation clearly shows that Chris feels that society’s needs should be prioritized above those of his family’s. Annie’s opinions are similar to Chris’s on this issue, and she was very ashamed of her father when she still thought that he was guilty. Her shame and anger at her father are so extreme that she doesn’t even write him, and this action shows her placing more importance on society’s needs than on her family bonds. When Ann says about her father, “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” (31), her severed ties with her father are very apparent.

In my opinion, society should be prioritized over one’s family, because everybody is a member of society. Therefore, if an action benefits the entire society, it benefits the family in that society a bit, too. Society depends on people to give up personal wants or needs so that we can all live together: this is the concept of a social contract. If this idea was not obeyed, everyone would do only what benefited them and those very close to them. Though it seems that this could make people happy, in reality it would destroy everyone, because everyone’s wants would clash and harm each other. For example, if everyone obeyed like Joe Keller does in All My Sons and killed others’ sons for their own sons’ sake, nobody’s sons would survive. For this reason, I agree with Ann and Chris that society is more important than individual families, and I disagree with Joe and Kate.


Work Cited:

Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1947.

*I wanted to underline all the "All My Sons" in the post but couldn't.