A view from the bridge : All my sons

Powerful, passionate and frighteningly relevant, the drama of Arthur Miller deals in the hard currency of 'social' realism and tragedy. "All My Sons" (1947), which brought Miller his first major success, is a merciless exposure of wartime profiteering and the capitalist ethic. The ideological conflict of father and son is a compelling one, and points to the way Miller develops his later drama, where social issues are tempered and tautened by the theme of personal disintegration. Eddie, the hero of "A View from the Bridge" (1955), is an illiterate longshoreman. His inexorable progress towards self-discovery and fall stirs the emotions with the same painful intensity as the play jolts the intellect.