Joe Keller and Herbert Deever, partners in a machine shop during the war, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison, while Keller escaped punishment and became a wealthy man. In this commanding work, a love affair between Keller's son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Herbert's daughter, the bitterness of Herbert's son, George, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, and the reaction of a son to his father's guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity.
All My Sons first introduced the themes that run through Miller's work as a whole: the relationships between fathers and sons and the conflict between business ethics and personal morality.