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This masterpiece of Arthur Miller, All my Sons discusses a global theme among people which is the conflict between self-interest and social responsibility. Joe and Jim are examples of two characters that prefer their self-interest over their social responsibility. Joe is a businessman who has a factory for manufacturing plane parts that to be sold to the American Army. One day, one of the factory production lines produced cracked cylinder heads. Steve who is Joe's deputy manager phoned Joe to warn him about the problem. Joe did not want to lose money or to have his factory shut by the government so Joe asked Steve to weld the cracked parts and send them to the American Army and said that he could not go to factory that day because he had influenza. The cracked parts led to the crash of twenty-one planes and the death of their pilots. Joe and Steve were sent to prison. Joe appealed leaving all the blame on the part of Steve and denied Steve's real story and said that he was not in the factory on that day and that he knew nothing about the matter. Joe's son Larry disappears in the war. Later on they discover that he committed suicide because he could not stand the idea of the guilt and crime of his father. Chris who is Joe's other son who is known for his idealism doubts that his father is guilty but he prefers to deceive himself and continue taking a salary from the factory of his father but he discovers that his father is really guilty and confronts him but Joe says that he did all that for Chris and his family. This part is the climax of the play in which Joe manifests his justifications of doing his crime and Chris opposes him and reminds his father of his responsibility towards society. When Joe realizes that Larry is dead because of his crime, Joe realizes the core idea that Miller wants to reveal that Joe must have cared for the sons of the other fathers as if they were his own sons and this is his right role that Joe had to do but Joe did not. Miller wants to say that when one prefers his self-interest against the responsibility towards society, of course for the favor of oneself or one’s family, this selfishness would demolish and ruin the people he had done all his deeds for their favor; Joe loses his son Larry, loses his reputation and the reputation of his family, and even at the end he loses his life by committing suicide and loses the rest of his family by his death. Kate who is Joe's wife becomes a sad widow and Chris weeps for the death of his father. On the other hand, Jim lives for gaining money for his family forgetting about his dream of serving his society through doing medical researches because his wife Sue wants this. He lives sad and as if he is imprisoned in the life of selfishness and preferring his family’s interest over the responsibility towards society. Although Jim did not commit any actual crime, he feels sad because he is not able to perform his duty towards his society. Miller wants to say that by serving society and prevailing the interest of the whole over the interest of the individual, the person would be happier.
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