Conflict between self and society in Arthur Miller's play ‘All My Sons’

Arthur Miller, a prominent American dramatist, reflects in his plays the average American man's spiritual dilemmas, his inward battles and mental conflicts in a mechanical, competition-ridden society. His protagonists are constantly in an attempt to assert their human dignity on an unwilling and indifferent society. In the play ‘All My Sons’, Arthur Miller makes it clear that one of the obstacles to man's realization of his true self and the society at large is his imperfect knowledge of the consequences of his own actions. Joe Keller, the central character, in a fanatic allegiance to a family centered dream of success, commits an anti-social action. But when the realization dawns upon him that social interests are larger than the family interests, he commits suicide. Miller attempts to show that along with individual actions, pressures of a materialistic society are also responsible for the final doom.