Volume 26, Issue 1
DOI: 10.53555/03276716.2017.1014
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath: A Marxist study
Abstract
Written in two different yet ideologically overlapping decades, the texts of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons (1947) and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) reveal the contradictions inherent in the American Dream, especially when filtered sieved through capitalist exploitation, war profiteering, and socio-economic alienation. They critique the American capitalist system and its eroding impact on familial, ethical, and class relations.
The article, through Marxist critical lenses, is a humble attempt to investigate the different ways in which the individual is situated within and subjected to larger capitalist structures that highlight issues of class conflict, false perception, the commodification of life, and struggle. Although both the plays belong to two distinct forms—one a tragedy, the other a social realist epic- they still strongly critique American capitalism and underscore the necessity of class consciousness and solidarity.
Keywords
Capitalism, Class Conflict, False Perception, , Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, American Dream, tragedy