All My Sons by Arthur Miller

 All My Sons by Arthur Miller

 

              All My Sons, Arthur Miller's first commercially successful play, opened at the Coronet Theatre in New York on January 29, 1947. It ran for 328 performances and garnered important critical acclaim for the dramatist, winning the prestigious New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.

              Miller's earlier play, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), had not done well and had quickly closed; therefore, at the time All My Sons opened, Miller's reputation as a writer was based almost solely on Focus (1945), his lauded novel about anti-Semitism.

              Miller is a social dramatist, and his plays deal chiefly with social themes like the one related to the relationship between the individual and the society or the family. He tries to bring out the conflict between the individual and society, and the efforts of the individual to gain 'his rightful position in his society' or his family which forms an important component of society. Miller’s first major success, All My Sons is one of the greatest classics of the American stage. 

              In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Joe and Kate Keller are living a comfortable suburban life. But the Keller’s son Larry, a pilot, is missing in action and for Kate questions about his disappearance just won’t go away. When Ann Deever, his former fiancée, comes to visit, the shadows of the past and its dark secret threaten to destroy their future happiness. All My Sons is a gripping family drama and a searching critique of the American dream.