Sonjoy Boishnab

Reg No: 2016236066

Eng 412 (American Drama)

Department of English, SUST

“The Founders of the American Dreams are the ultimate Victims of its Consequences”

The American dream is rooted in the American declaration of independence. It is

something special for the American people for which they long for a time to be honored in

society somehow. In All My Sons Artur Miller has depicted the American dream by exposing

tragedies in the life of the main protagonist Joe Keller. American dream is basically a set of

notions about individual rights, freedom democracy and equality. American people believe that

anyone, regardless of where they born or what class they belong, can attain their success through

sacrifice, risk taking and hard work. Moreover, American exceptionalism also works with

American dream in order to making it forceful. American exceptionalism is built up with the

ideologies of America where the American people think that they are virtuously unique and their

empire is the empire of liberty. Besides, they also think this nation as the last hope of earth where

they are the leaders of the free world.

Though these ideologies sound fascinating but in reality, these are the reasons behind the

growing misconceptions among the American people. The founders of the American dream

spread out these ideologies to grow patriotism and a sense of nationalism among the American

people in order to build up a new powerful nation. Through these fake ideas they make their

people lovable to their country and fight for their country. As their ideologies are built on the
basis of fake ideologies, they sometimes become victim of it. The idea is very clear in the play

All My Sons that the Americans are practically right but they are morally wrong. In this play,

Miller showed the consequences of American dream through killers character that how it

corrupts the pure soul of Americans and makes them force to do the illegal things. Keller is an

uneducated man who has become wealthy and successful by committing a heinous act in society.

His obsession of making money has led him to be the murderer of twenty-one pilots.

In this play, Keller seemed to sacrifice his social morality in order to business pursuit. It

is not something like that Keller was unaware of the consequences of his action rather he was

driven by a force throughout the whole play, that is called American dream. The ideas of

American dream in the capitalistic American society made him blind toward morality. In that

sense, Keller himself has become the victim of the American dream because it excites capitalism

in America and makes people money hunter. Here, Miller showed the American dream used only

in economic purpose that destroyed others’ lives and even the family of the businessman too. For

the fulfilment of that dream Keller had to sacrifice a lot even his life at last. Keller’s ideas of

giving his boy everything that he never had made him force to commit the crime, that is the

perfect example of American dream.

Miller reveals how such flaws of individuals can be interpreted with the economic

progress and business success in terms of American dream. American dream incites the tendency

of money making in order to lead a better life in a capitalistic society. Miller criticizes such

system of capitalism which encourages greed for money what may sacrifice the human life and

happiness. the American dream idealizes the particular life style of people in America with

potential and rights rather than morals and ethics. The death of twenty-one pilots is the most

obvious cost of the American dream in this play. At last, it is very much clear that the way Keller
got the idea of money making and leading a happy life it becomes averse to him and caused his

death at last. As Keller himself has become the victim of American dream which he cherished

from years so, the statement “The founders of the American dreams are the ultimate victims of

its consequences” is true.