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Essay / Arthur Miller's depiction of the effect of deception illustrated in his play All My Sons
As long as there has been communication between people, there has been dishonesty. Everyone lies, and there are as many reasons to lie as there are people who tell untruths. People may lie to save someone's feelings or to make them feel bad. In the play “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, it seems like every character is a lie; from a little white lie to a big, destructive lie that tears a family apart. The immoral family patriarch, Joe, destroys his entire family due to his inability to deal with the consequences (Savran 1995). His need to hide the truth to avoid reality is what leads to the death of man, including himself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Lies tend to be separated into two groups: little white lies and big, destructive lies. In the first case, they tend to spare someone's feelings in a certain situation, but this play also shows that a white lie can become destructive. In "All My Sons", patriarch Joe Keller and his son Chris have a conversation about fueling mother Kate's delusions that Larry is still alive. The dialogue is as follows: Chris: We made a terrible mistake with Mother...by being dishonest with her. This kind of thing always pays off, and now it's paying off. Keller: What do you mean, dishonest? Chris: You know Larry isn't coming back and I know it. In this quote, Chris has a breakthrough. He realizes that by letting his mother believe Larry is alive, he and his father have set Kate back in several ways. Since they deceived her for years by not helping her see the reality of the situation, Kate has been unable to move on or overcome her grief; instead, she obsessively clings to the hope that Larry will return at any moment. This shows the sinister nature of lies; even white lies can become destructive (Gross 1975). What started as a way to save Kate from heartbreak, her family no doubt thought they were doing the right thing by not being honest with her. Over time, this has warped Kate to the point where she can no longer accept progress and change. She absolutely refuses to believe that Ann isn't waiting for Larry like she is, which leads to another white lie when Chris doesn't immediately make his intentions towards Ann clear. Again, he's trying to protect Kate from the truth for his own good, because at this point they fear that the trauma she would experience when confronted with the truth would just be too much for her to bear. When it comes to lying, it rarely stops after just one; there must be a continuous cycle of lies that follow to maintain the first. The moral implications of this white lie, and the subsequent lies that follow, are that Chris and Joe are essentially abandoning Kate in her time of need. What they do may seem well-intentioned, but it ends up emotionally crippling Kate. She is not given the tools she needs to cope with anything in her life and instead lives in a deep state of denial towards her son and husband. Instead of facing the horrible truth and coming out of it, they choose to remain in a sort of limbo, where Kate will be forever delusional (Gross 1975). Chris and Joe fail to offer Kate what she truly needs: the support, love, and honesty of her family in a time of extreme sadness and pain. Without going through this difficult period, shewill never be able to recover and continue his life. For a mother, the death of a child is the most intense pain imaginable, and Chris and Joe believe that if they lie enough, the problem will simply go away. The lie is covered up by just passively agreeing with Kate, it doesn't seem like Chris or Joe have much to say on the subject of Larry, it's always Kate who goes on and on. However, it soon becomes obvious that they are greatly mistaken about the harmlessness of this dishonesty; lies have consequences that will catch up sooner or later. Unfortunately for the pilots who lost their lives and for Ann's father, Steve, Joe turns a blind eye to the lie about manufacturing faulty airplane parts. Instead of being honest and facing the first consequences, Joe tends to keep up a lie until he is able to literally destroy people's lives. The pilots whose lives were lost and the fact that Steve is rotting in prison seem to have no effect on Joe. He lives his life in the shadow of a huge tragedy, with the blame on his shoulders, and continues to be unconscious and in denial. Ann's brother George was also destroyed by Joe's lies; he turns to drugs to cope with the impact of his father's actions and subsequent imprisonment. Unlike the dishonesty between him, Chris, and his wife, the lie about the plane's parts doesn't just negatively affect their little family unit; it destroys the lives of the pilots, their families, Steve and his family, and has a very profound impact (Savran 1995). Joe's lie gets out of hand: he first tells Steve to just cover the cracks and send them in, saying everything would be fine. This results in the death of many people, and possibly even the death of his own son Larry. The question of Joe's dishonesty comes to a head when Kate says, "You have no strength." As soon as there are problems, you have no more strength. Joe, you're doing the same thing again; All your life, every time there's a problem, you yell at me and you think it's fixed. This quote shows a moment of clarity for Kate; she realizes exactly what type of person her husband is. Joe is too weak and always takes the easy route at the expense of everyone around him. He has very weak moral fiber and feels like if everyone seems happy on the surface, then there's no real need to dig deeper to find the truth. Throughout the play, Kate engages in cognitive dissonance when it comes to Joe; it's just too painful and unfathomable for her to accept the fact that Joe could be responsible for Larry's death. Kate, who stands by Joe despite all his lies and manipulations, finally realizes the monster that her husband really is (Savran 1995). For Joe's part, it seems that Kate is the last person to believe him, and when she finally realizes the truth, Joe is truly overwhelmed by the magnitude of his actions and commits suicide. Although it can be argued that Joe commits suicide because of the he feels immense guilt for the lives he has lost, but the fact is that Joe's main motivation throughout the play seems to be financial. It seems his lies often lead to financial gain; Joe puts wealth before being a moral person. Joe is confronted with this by Kate, when she says, “Joe, Joe…. . . That doesn't excuse you doing it for the family. You have to excuse him! For him, there is something bigger than family. Once again, it takes a moment of clarity for Kate to finally be able to tell Joe the truth that he's spent a lot of time hiding from. He doesn't understand why everyone is so angry with him..