The Dangers of Shirking Responsibility in Arthur Millers...

The Dangers of Shirking Responsibility in Arthur Millers All My Sons Arthur Millers All My Sons is a well-made play in every sense of that term. It not only is carefully and logically constructed, but addresses its themes fully and effectively. The play communicates different ideas on war, materialism, family, and honesty. However, the main focus, especially at the plays climax, is the issue of personal responsibility. In particular, Miller demonstrates the dangers of shirking responsibility and, then, ascribing blame to others. Nearly every character in All My Sons, in one way or another, fails to take responsibility. The Keller family, as a whole, is severely dysfunctional in that they keep secrets and†¦show more content†¦The ramifications of his action is that not only did young men die in the war but his friend and business partner, Steve, was sent to prison for the crime. Meanwhile, Joe continues to live as a free, but possibly haunted, man. There is great irony in his speech about his return home from jail: The story was, I pulled a fast one getting myself exonerated. So I get out of my car, and I walk down the street. But very slow. And with a smile. The beast!. I was the beast; the guy who sold cracked cylinder heads to the Army Air Force; the guy who made twenty-one P-40s crash in Australia. (628) His cool words of innocence seem to belie the fear of being found out and the continual struggle to convince himself that he really is not guilty. He does, as the saying goes, protest too much. The truth, when revealed at the end, really is more than he can live with. When others recognize what he has known in his heart all along, Joe kills himself. As mentioned above, All My Sons is not just about the failure to be responsible; it is about blaming others for ones own wrongs, that includes giving responsibility to another for ones own life. This, too, is a facet of almost every characters personality. While Joe, again, is the major character to give blame, others do as well. Steves children, George and Ann, place much responsibility for their own actions on Chris. George says he only believed everything,Show MoreRelatedManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 PagesHughes−Ginnett−Curphy The Art of M A: Merger/Acquisitions/Buyout Guide, Third Edition Reed−Lajoux and others . . . This book was printed on recycled paper. Management http://www.mhhe.com/primis/online/ Copyright  ©2005 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval