Joe Keller as the Tragic Hero in Miller's All My Sons

Joe Keller as the Tragic Hero in Miller's All My Sons

Ancient Greek tragedies were almost always about a protagonist with a

tragic flaw. This flaw dictates the stories events and leads to the

eventual downfall of the protagonist. The story cannot end until the

protagonist has realised his flaw and tries to remedy it. This very

often involves the protagonist dieing in an attempt to make right what

wrongs he may have caused.

Arthur Miller has borrowed this idea as a base for his play ‘All My

Sons’. The protagonist of this play is Joe Keller, a sixty-year-old

retired factory owner. The play follows the story of him and his

family ; his wife Kate, his son Chris and Chris’ fiancée Annie in

1940’s suburban America. The play reveals that Joe committed a crime;

he knowingly sent out faulty cylinder heads for use in the war and

then blamed his partner, Annie’s dad, who went to prison instead of

Joe. Kate also knows he did this and is struggling to keep the secret.

However, she feels she has to believe he didn’t do it or it means that

he would have been responsible for the death of their other son Larry,

who they believed died flying planes in the war.

Joe is a victim of the American Dream. He wanted to do the best he

could by his family, and in his quest for money, forgot about the

greater scheme of things in the world. This is his major flaw-he

cannot see beyond the forty foot line that surrounds himself and his

family. He thinks what he is doing will help his family but by making

the ill-considered decision he makes, he ends up hurting them more

than helping them.

At the start of the play, the audience is not aware of any of Joe’s

misdeeds. He is portrayed by Miller as a friendly man, who is a pillar

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characters think of Joe, and also what he is thinking himself, without

the plot being too obvious and being revealed too early. The way that

Miller uses these dramatic devices to piece together the story slowly

makes for a very effective tension builder, which will keep the

audience captivated throughout.

Miller makes it easy for the audience to identify that Joe is a tragic

hero right from the start. As soon as the audience is aware that Joe

is keeping a secret is it obvious that he has committed an offence,

which he is going to suffer for. Miller then shows the audience Joe’s

suffering, mostly through dialogue he has with the other characters.

He then uses mostly stage directions to let the audience know how the

play has finished, which is a very effective way to show his suicide,

as it is not too brash, and perhaps unsympathetic of the situation.