All My Sons Information (from shmoop.com)
All My Sons
1. In A Nutshell
Arthur Miller started writing All My Sons in 1945, inspired by World War II and the truelife story (told to him by his stepmom) of a woman who alerted authorities to her father's
wartime wrong-doing (source: Christopher Bigsby, "Introduction to All My Sons."
Penguin Classics, 2000). The play focuses on the story of a businessman who once
narrowly avoided financial ruin by shipping cracked machine parts to the military. He
blames his business partner and builds an empire, but eventually his crime comes back
to haunt him. The play was produced after the war, won the 1947 Tony, and beat out
Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh for the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award that
same year.
You might already know Miller from some of his most famous plays, like The Crucible,
Death of a Salesman, or A View From the Bridge. All My Sons was one of Miller's
earliest plays – and his first commercially successful one – but it already features the
ideas of social responsibility that he obsessed with throughout his entire career.
2. Why Should I Care?
It's easy to judge Joe Keller. He did something really terrible: making a profit off of faulty
airplane parts. Facilitating the deaths of several soldiers. And blaming it all on his
feckless partner. You would never, never do anything like that, right? Us neither.
But we might make some decisions without thinking through the consequences. Like
Joe, we might only be thinking of our friends and our family (or heck, ourselves) when
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we do certain things. Driving in traffic, for example. We're tired, we're late, we're hungry,
and this punk is getting right in our way. With a number of stressors pressing on us, it's
easy to cut him off. It's hard – particularly in a moment of crisis, which is just what Joe
Keller faced – to step back and think of everyone else on the road.
Some people are really good at remembering the whole world when they make
decisions. They are vegetarian, buy local food, compost, recycle, use no fossil fuels,
walk dogs at the shelter, and help old ladies cross the street. We admire those people,
but we don't always count ourselves among them. So maybe we actually can
understand where Joe is coming from. At least a little bit.
3. All My Sons Summary
Joe Keller, a successful businessman, lives comfortably with his wife, Kate, and son,
Chris, in a suburban American neighborhood. They have only one sadness in their lives
– the loss of their other son, Larry, who went missing in World War II. After three years,
Kate still clings to the hope that her son is alive. Chris would like her to give up that
hope because he wants to marry Ann, an old neighbor and Larry's former fiancée.
Ann arrives. Kate, sensing the reason for her visit, gets a little touchy. We learn that
Ann's father is in prison for a crime he committed while working in Joe's factory. Faced
with a batch of defective machine parts, he patched them and sent them out, causing
the death of 21 pilots during the war. Turns out that Joe was also accused of this crime
and convicted, but he was exonerated (set free) during the appeal. Steve went to
prison; Joe returned home and made his business bigger and better.
Soon after Ann's arrival, her brother George follows, straight from visiting his father in
prison. He knows what Chris has in mind and is totally against him marrying Ann. Joe
and Kate do their best to charm George into submission, but finally it's Ann who sends
him away. She wants to marry Chris no matter what.
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The marriage of Chris and Ann is becoming a reality – and Kate can't handle it, because
it means Larry is truly dead. And if Larry is dead, she tells Chris, it's because his own
father killed him, since Larry was also a pilot. Chris finally confronts his father's guilt in
shipping those defective parts.
But Chris won't do anything about it. He won't even ask his father to go to prison. Ann,
who turned her back on her own father for the same reason, insists that Chris take a
hard line. Joe Keller goes inside to get his things. A gunshot is heard. He's killed
himself.
All My Sons Act 1 Summary

The stage directions describe the Keller home as situated in an American
suburb. It's roughly August 1947.

The house is comfortable and well-kept, as is the yard. Downstage left stands an
apple tree stump. The trunk and branches are toppled beside it.

Joe Keller is in his yard reading the want ads. He's a self-made businessman of
about sixty. Doctor Jim Bayliss, his neighbor, is about forty. He's reading the
paper too.

Joe's neighbor on the other side, Frank, enters. He's 32.

The neighbors chat about the weather and the want ads.

Frank notices the felled tree. It was struck by lightning in the night. He observes
how strange it is that the tree planted in memory of Larry was struck down in his
birth month. Larry is Joe's son. He would have been twenty-seven this August,
which Frank remembers because he's working on Larry's horoscope.

What Frank is trying to figure out – at the request of Kate, Joe's wife – is whether
the day on which Larry was reported missing was his "favorable day," when,
astrologically speaking, odds are he wouldn't die.

This piques skeptical Jim's interest – he doesn't buy it.
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
Talk turns to Annie, a young woman who used to live next door. She's visiting the
Kellers and is upstairs asleep for now.

Jim makes a quip about how the block could use a pretty face. Just then his fat
wife enters, nagging him about a patient's phone call.

Frank's wife Lydia comes in, also curious about Annie. Is she engaged? She was
Larry's betrothed.

Chris Keller enters. He's 32. He starts reading the book section.

Joe and Chris start to talk about Larry's tree when eight-year-old neighbor Bert
enters. He's Joe's "deputy" and tattles on some of the other kids on the street. He
asks to see the jail Joe keeps in his basement, but Joe won't let him.

Bert exits; talk turns back to the tree. Mom saw it last night, says Chris. She was
outside when it broke, then she came in and cried.

Kate Keller still believes Larry is coming back, even though it's been three years.
Chris thinks they should puncture the illusion; Joe wants to keep it intact.

Chris sits his dad down. Listen up, pop, he says – I'm going to propose to Annie.
But Mom still thinks she's Larry's girl.

Chris threatens to leave town – and the family business – if his father doesn't
encourage his mother to support this marriage. Joe is shocked.

Kate enters, a woman in her early fifties. She's happy the tree blew down,
because it affirms for her that Larry is still alive. They were in a rush to
memorialize him with that tree.

Kate and Chris tiptoe around a discussion of Annie. Kate doesn't want to
acknowledge that Chris might be courting her.

Kate recalls a dream she had about Larry last night. When she heard the wind,
she imagined it was Larry flying by in his fighter plane.

Kate turns to Joe and wags her finger at him: they shouldn't have planted that
tree. They gave up too soon.

When Chris exits to get his mother an aspirin, she turns on Joe. Chris better not
be planning to propose to Annie. Joe says he doesn't know anything more than
she does – an outright lie.
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
Kate wants Joe to believe with her that Larry will come back. He asks her to calm
down.

They're again interrupted by Bert, who brings up the jail. Kate reacts sharply,
telling him there is no jail there.

Ann enters from the house. She's beautiful and beautifully dressed. She's been
living in New York.

When Chris shows his admiration for Ann, Kate comments lightly that she has
put on a little weight.

Ann remarks on the little changes in the neighborhood: trees, a missing
hammock. She's introduced to Jim, who now lives in her old house.

When Ann mentions Larry, Kate is relieved. Eventually she asks Ann directly if
she's waiting for Larry. Ann says no.

Frank enters and dispels the tension. A little small talk, and then Frank mentions
Ann's father. He's in prison.

Ann is sensitive; she wants to know if the neighbors still talk about her father and
his crime. Chris and Joe say no. Ann remembers the neighbors screaming
"Murderers" at her father, Steve, and at Joe.

In a long monologue, Joe recalls the day he was cleared of the crime. He and
Steve had been accused of selling cracked cylinder heads to the Air Force,
causing twenty-one planes to crash. Joe was exonerated; Ann's father was
imprisoned. When Joe returned home, he walked down the street with defiance
and pride. He suggests the same for Steve when he's released.

Ann admits that neither she nor her brother keep in touch with their father
anymore. They blame him for knowingly shipping out faulty parts, resulting in the
death of so many American pilots. She wonders aloud whether this was
responsible for Larry's death.

That really sets Kate off. Ann should never say that again.

Keller tells his version of the story. There was a mad rush for parts, and when the
cylinders came out cracked, cowardly Steve just decided to send them out. He
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was afraid that Joe and the military would be displeased with the mistake, so he
kept quiet about it.

Chris breaks in. He just wants a change of subject. So they talk about steak and
champagne instead, and Keller exits.

The long-awaited proposal occurs. Chris asks; Ann says yes. Now they just have
to figure out how to tell Kate.

Chris has something to get off his chest. It's about the war. Leading a company,
he lost all his men. Then he returned to the States and felt that nobody noticed;
that the sacrifice of the men who died meant nothing substantial to the people at
home. He has survivor's guilt. Chris feels as though he doesn't deserve life and
doesn't deserve her.

Ann sets him straight – he does deserve her. And he better kiss her right now.

Joe interrupts them. There's a phone call from George, Ann's brother.

Chris tells Joe the news of his engagement to Ann. But Joe is preoccupied with
this phone call. He's afraid George will want to open up his father's case again,
and that Ann is on his side.

Ann emerges. George is coming there to settle something. He wouldn't say what.

This rattles Joe and Kate. Kate tells Joe to be smart.
My Sons Act 2 Summary

It's the same evening, at twilight, and Chris is chopping down the rest of Larry's
tree.

Kate comes out and asks him to watch out for Joe and her when George arrives.
She also wants him to ask Ann to leave with George. Chris still avoids telling his
mom about the engagement.

Ann comes out and has a brief exchange with Chris. She wants them to tell Kate
immediately.

Sue emerges from the house next door. Over a glass of grape juice, she lets it all
hang out for Ann. Number one, Ann should move elsewhere when she marries
Chris. Number two, everyone on the block still thinks Joe is guilty.
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
Ann gets totally freaked out. She asks Chris to assure her that Joe is innocent.
He does.

Joe comes out and after some good-old-boy ribbing, tells Ann he'd like to set
George up with some of his local lawyer friends. He's trying to mend fences in
light of their marriage, he says.

Then Joe ups the offer. He'll give Steve a job when he gets out of prison. Chris
doesn't like the idea, thinks it looks bad. But Joe believes they should forgive
Steve and help set him up.

Jim arrives. He has George in the car. He warns Chris that George is angry and
vengeful, and plans to take Ann home.

George enters. He's described as a man of about Chris's age, but pale and
tweaked out. He's wearing a dirty shirt.

George meets Sue, who invites him to come over and see how they changed the
house he lived in. He declines. He notices everything that's changed about the
block.

George has just been to visit his father, who's shrinking. He launches into why he
came. Ann will not marry Chris, son of the man who destroyed their family.

Filled with regret for turning his back on his father, George tells Steve's version of
the broken cylinder story. In short, over an untraceable phone call, Joe told Steve
to cover up the cracks and just send them out.

It's not a story Ann and Chris haven't heard. They heard it in court. George says
that anyone who knows Steve and Joe knows the truth – that Joe was guilty. It
was only because Chris believes in Joe that George did, turning his back on his
father.

George is trying to take Ann away. Things get really heated – then Kate comes
out.

This makes things hard for George. He really likes Kate.

Kate mothers him, gives him juice, promises to feed him.

George has to leave on the 8:30 train. Kate insinuates that he's taking Ann with
him.
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
Lydia comes out. She and George used to have a thing. He's sad that she's
shacked up with Frank and has three babies now.

Kate says she told him so. Now she wants him to move back, get a job through
Joe, and find a girl.

Joe enters. Some awkward small talk and then they start talking about Steve.
Joe puts out the offer of a job. George doesn't think his dad will accept; he hates
Joe's guts now.

Acting friendly, Joe brings up another instance in which Steve failed to gracefully
take the blame.

Ann has called a cab. But Joe invites George to stay for dinner.

He's just happily accepting when Kate makes a slip. She says Joe hasn't been
sick in fifteen years. But the lynchpin of Joe's story was that the flu laid him up on
that fateful day – which is why Steve is the only one in jail.

George doesn't let Kate's slip pass. He's on the attack.

Frank comes in with the horoscope. It implies Larry is alive.

This is just what Kate wants to hear. George is leaving, and Kate openly directs
Ann to go with him. She even packed her bag.

Chris is furious. He tells George to go. Ann does too. But she exits to see him off.

Finally, Chris tells his mother he plans to marry Ann. She refuses to accept that.
For her, Larry is alive.

Larry is alive, because if he's dead, his own father killed him… Now it's out.

Chris is totally, totally floored. His father is guilty.

Joe tries to explain himself. He's a man of business. What could he do? He was
building a business for his sons.

Chris attacks him, calling him lower than an animal. He weeps.
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All My Sons Act 3 Summary
•It's the middle of the night. Kate is out in the yard. Chris is missing.
•Jim comes back from a house call. He confesses to Kate that he has always known
Joe is guilty. He tells her not to worry; Chris will come back. He'll figure out how to
compromise and come back.
•Jim offers to go look for Chris.
•Joe comes in, upset that Jim is in his business. Kate's had about enough of her
husband. She tells him that, if Chris comes back, Joe should offer to turn himself in.
•Joe can't believe this. His family wanted money and so he made money. Now they are
turning on him.
•Kate explains that, for Chris, there's something bigger than the family. Joe can't
understand that perspective. He's defined by his family.
•Ann emerges. She has her own agenda. She won't do anything about Joe's guilt, but
she demands that Kate admit to Chris that Larry is dead. She wants to get on with her
life.
•Kate refuses. Ann must leave her alone.
•Joe exits.
•Ann gets nuclear. She has a letter from Larry. She hadn't wanted to share it, but Kate
leaves her no choice.
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•Chris shows up. He apologizes to Ann for being a coward, for suspecting his father and
doing nothing about it. He wants to put him in jail now, but doesn't feel like he can.
•Ann tries to comfort Chris. She doesn't expect him to do anything about Joe. But, in
reality, she does.
•Joe comes out defensive. He tells Chris to throw his money away, if he thinks it's so
dirty. He's no worse than any other man in the world.
•Chris knows that. He just thought Joe was better.
•Ann gives Larry's letter to Chris. In it, Larry confesses that he plans to kill himself
because of his father's guilt.
•Joe gets it. He says he'll turn himself in. He goes inside.
•Kate still wants Chris to give it up. But he wants to go through with it, just to teach them
that they have to understand there are wider consequences for their actions.
•A gunshot is heard inside. Chris goes to check, then comes back out. Joe has killed
himself.
•Kate tells him to not blame himself.
3. Themes:
All My Sons Theme of Guilt and Blame
Pretty much everyone in All My Sons has a secret. Even as they tell jokes, drink grape
juice, and dream of dancing, the characters vigilantly protect damning information that, if
revealed, will destroy their lives. Part of self-protection means placing the blame
elsewhere, creating diversions. You shift the blame to an old neighbor, your son, your
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parents. All the forced fun of suburban family get-togethers covers a well of guilt and
shame that inevitably boils to the surface.
Questions About Guilt and Blame
Why doesn't the community confront Joe Keller about his guilt?
Do you think Kate knew about Joe's crime at the time? Do you think she encouraged him to
go through with it?
If Ann hadn't arrived on the scene, do you think Kate or Joe ever would have come clean to
Chris?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
In All My Sons, the suburban community's strong capitalist values enable Joe Keller to
get away with murder.
Chris poses as an idealist to distance himself from his father and subtly deflect blame
from himself.
All My Sons Theme of Wealth
Money, money, money. It's all over All My Sons. Protection of assets leads the
characters to commit some unsavory acts – but that's the way the world is, right? The
doctor's wife nags him to make more house calls to up their income. Joe Keller defends
his war profiteering because caring for his family, to him, meant growing his business.
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Joe's idealistic son, Chris, disdains business, but get some grape juice in him and he's
all "Annie, I'm going to make a fortune for you!" to his fiancée (1.545). In this play,
capitalist culture is pitted against human decency, and the two just can't seem to get
along.
Questions About Wealth
Presumably, Chris will take over the business now that his father's dead. What do you think
he'll do with it? Or do you think he'll take it at all?
Do you think Miller's portrayal of the overweight, money-grubbing doctor's wife has a touch
of the misogynistic?
How does Miller reflect the material values of this society in his settings?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
In the world of All My Sons, the moral man is a martyr.
In All My Sons, Miller pits capitalism against morality, implying that they cannot coexist.
All My Sons Theme of Justice and Judgment
In the back-story of All My Sons, there's a massive crime – the shipment of airplane
parts known to be defective. One partner in the firm ducks the blame. He's released on
appeal and goes on to accumulate impressive wealth and prestige. The other partner
rots in prison, and loses all support from his family. When the play begins, the children
of these two partners suffer the repercussions of this gross injustice. One son has died,
one son is morbidly depressed; the daughter and son who want to marry must fight
through the tangles of their fathers' wrongs, judge them, and judge themselves.
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Questions About Justice and Judgment
Why do you think the judge exonerated Joe Keller and condemned Steve Deever? Is Miller
using this injustice to say something about class or society? If so, what?
Why does George give up his quest for vengeance?
Why don't the neighbors judge Joe Keller for the crime they know he committed?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Kate Keller is right: Ann Deever comes seeking revenge.
The suicide of Joe Keller at the end of All My Sons does not mean "justice is done." Too
many people survive who were complicit in his guilt, and yet remain unpunished.
All My Sons Theme of Lies and Deceit
Everyone is a liar in All My Sons. Joe Keller lies to his sons and his neighbors about a
crime that killed 21 American pilots and sent his partner to prison. His wife Kate keeps
quiet about it too. Chris, the surviving son and heir to Joe Keller's business, lies to
himself about it. He has nothing to fear from the neighborhood, though – turns out
everyone knows everyone's lying. There's a friendly neighborhood agreement to keep
things cute. It's this complicity that the dead son, Larry, couldn't stand returning to after
the sacrifice and bravery of war.
Questions About Lies and Deceit
Why doesn't Ann bring out Larry's letter at the beginning of her visit? Or in the years prior?
Is there an honest character in this play?
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Do you think "deceit" and "complicity" are one in the same? Are those characters who play
along just as guilty as those who commit crimes?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
All My Sons could be read as a study on shades of deceit: outright lie, complicit silence,
and self-deception.
Kate's wily intelligence combines with Joe's social talent to make the Kellers a
crackerjack team of deceivers.
All My Sons Theme of Morality and Ethics
In All My Sons, moral fortitude generally loses to practicality and self-protection. Fearing
the failure of his business, Joe Keller ships faulty parts to the military, which causes the
death of 21 pilots, and blames it on his partner. His son Chris, while suspicious, protects
his share of the business (and his psyche) by neglecting to question his father. The
scapegoat's son, George, comes for revenge, but faced with his sister's iron resolve to
get married to Chris, leaves with nothing. Morality doesn't have the place in the day-today world. In the war, says Chris, men "killed themselves for each other… a little more
selfish and they'd've been here today" (1.541). The characters in this play, though, are
the survivors – the selfish and the self-preserving.
Questions About Morality and Ethics
What moral position do Frank and Lydia represent in the play?
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Joe Keller claims that his highest good is his family; that he committed his crime solely to
protect them. Do you believe him?
If Chris were to "do the right thing" at the end of the play, what would it be?
All My Sons Theme of Memory and the Past
The characters in All My Sons refuse to acknowledge the past. Their denial keeps the
old ghosts around with their dirty fingers in everything. Memory of a dead son is
inextricably linked, for his parents, to knowledge of a hideous crime. That same dead
son's visage puts a stranglehold on his surviving brother's pursuit of happiness with his
love, Ann. Characters struggle to suppress these memories but the past works to reveal
itself through the arrival of an old neighbor girl, through a telephone call from prison,
and through an old letter from the dead son.
Questions About Memory and the Past
Why does Kate object to the planting of a tree for Larry?
How, if at all, do you think the characters would memorialize Joe Keller after his suicide?
Do childhood memories affect the behavior of Chris, Ann, and George? How?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Because she possesses Larry's suicide letter, Ann is less burdened by the past than the
Kellers.
The neighbors' recollections of past aspirations and failures echo the regret and
compromise of the main plot.
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All My Sons Theme of Family
We can tell from the title of All My Sons that the play is about family. We see three
families onstage, and a fourth family – the disgraced former neighbors – emerges again
and again in the dialogue. While Ann and Chris's plans to start a new family first give
the story a drop of hope, the idea of marriage itself seems doomed by the complicated
and compromised unions surrounding the young couple. Much more than a mom and
dad plus 2.25 kids, All My Sons advocates a redefinition of family that extends beyond
each of our own garden plots.
Questions About Family
How do Joe and Kate work their magic on the Deever children?
Do you believe that Larry defines family differently than his father does?
Do you see any of your own family in the Kellers? The Deevers?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
For a moment, lured by the charms of Kate and Joe, George Deever wishes he could
be a Keller.
In All My Sons, Miller argues for a redefinition of family.
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My Sons Theme of Courage
In a post-war (World War II) play like All My Sons, courage is necessarily an important
theme. The characters have different pictures of what courage looks like. For Joe Keller,
it's a fierce protection of his family. Joe's son Chris thinks of courage as self-sacrifice, at
war and at home. For Chris's fiancée Ann, courage means perseverance: leaving the
wreckage of the Keller family with the one thing she wants, a husband. The final act in
the play – Joe Keller's suicide – raises a question of courage. Is his suicide a brave
apology or ultimate cowardice?
Questions About Courage
Why is Chris afraid to acknowledge his father's guilt?
Does Larry's suicide nullify his image as a war hero?
Joe Keller lied to protect his business and his family. Would you consider that brave?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
In All My Sons, the women show the most clear-sightedness and courage.
Though hero in the war, Chris reveals his cowardice in the day-to-day business of living.
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Quotes:
All My Sons Guilt and Blame Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line,
even if what they say turns into a long monologue.
Quote #1
Keller: She thinks he's coming back, Chris. You marry that girl and you're
pronouncing him dead. Now what's going to happen to Mother. Do you know? I
don't. (1.208)
Joe needs Kate's support. In his effort to sustain a delicate situation, Joe tries to guilt
Chris into protecting his mother.
Quote #2
Mother: Everybody was in such a hurry to bury him. I said not to plant it yet. [To
Keller] I told you to…! (1.272)
Kate blames Joe for accepting Larry's death too soon – and perhaps for the romance
unfolding between Chris and Ann that she's anxious to prevent.
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Quote #3
Mother: You above all have got to believe, you…
Keller: [rises] Why me above all?
Mother: …Just don't stop believing…
Keller: What does that mean, me above all? (1.309-312)
Kate doesn't say much, but she says it clearly enough for Joe to understand. He above
all has to believe that Larry is still alive, because if Larry is dead, then Joe killed him.
Quote #4
Chris: I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car, to see
the new refrigerator. (1.541)
When he returns from the war, Chris suffers survivor's guilt. This guilt is informed not
only by his own experience of war, but by his buried suspicion that his father is a war
profiteer.
Quote #5
Keller: It's crazy, but it comes to my mind. She don't hold nothin' against me,
does she? (1.573)
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With George calling from the prison where his father is held, Joe gets paranoid.
Perhaps Ann has come to trap him too? A guilty conscience starts to dampen his good
mood.
Quote #6
George: He's a little man. That's what happens to suckers, you know. It's good I
went to him in time – another year there'd be nothing left but his smell. (2.225)
This is George's introduction to the topic of "Ann, there's no way in hell you are marrying
into this family." George includes Chris in his condemnation of Joe.
Quote #7
Keller: That's the way they do, George. A little man makes a mistake and they
hang him by the thumbs; the big ones become ambassadors. (2.411)
Joe tries to deflect George's anger and blame by sympathizing with Steve.
Quote #8
Ann: I'll do nothing about Joe, but you're going to do something for me. You
made Chris feel guilty with me. Whether you wanted to or not, you've crippled
him in front of me. (3.86)
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Ann has her own selfish motivations here. She wants Kate to clear the slate so she can
get on to building a life with Chris.
Quote #9
Chris: Yesterday they flew in a load of papers from the States and I read about
Dad and your father being convicted. I can't express myself. I can't tell you how I
feel – I can't bear to live any more. (3.162)
We learn from his letter that Larry takes the full weight of his father's guilt on himself. As
Chris says in an earlier monologue, it's the really brave ones who never made it back
from the war.
Quote #10
Mother: Don't, dear. Don't take it on yourself. Forget now. Live. (3.182)
We don't know, guys. What do you think? Should Chris just forget? Isn't that what Joe
and Kate have been trying to do all along?
WEALTH QUOTES
Quote #1
The house is two stories high and had seven rooms. It would have cost perhaps
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fifteen thousand in the early twenties when it was built. (1.1)
Miller establishes in the setting that the Kellers' financial comfort defines them.
Quote #2
Chris: If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it
beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give
myself to. Annie is in the middle of that. (1.219)
Chris hopes he can maintain a balance of making money and building a life he can
believe in. His idealism prevents him from acknowledging the reality of the business
he's inheriting.
Quote #3
Keller: I can afford another bag of potatoes. (1.238)
Keller threw the potatoes away because he thought they were garbage. This
wastefulness provides an interesting contrast to his crime of saving machine parts
(which actually were garbage) and selling them to the military.
Quote #4
Keller: I don't know, once upon a time I used to think that when I got money
again I would have a maid and my wife would take it easy. Now I got money, and
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I got a maid, and my wife is workin' for the maid. (1.245)
Keller is a self-made man and is proud of all his financial success.
Quote #5
Keller: Kid, walkin' down the street that day I was guilty as hell. Except I wasn't,
and there was a court paper in my pocket to prove I wasn't, I and I walked…
past… the porches. Result? Fourteen months later I had one of the best shops in
the state again, a respected man again; bigger than ever. (1.446)
What matters to Keller is that he eventually restored his business to prosperity. Material
success is the ultimate goal.
Quote #6
Ann: And the money, there's nothing wrong in your money. Your father put
hundreds of planes in the air, you should be proud. A man should be paid for
that…
Chris: Oh Annie, Annie… I'm going to make a fortune for you! (1.545)
Chris just called his money "loot" from the war. But with Ann's blessing he quickly
comes around to a perspective that more closely resembles his father's.
Quote #7
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Sue: Research pays twenty-five dollars a week minus laundering the hair shirt.
You've got to give up your life to go into it. (2.65)
While Kate and Ann both downplay their interest in economic comfort, Sue is very
upfront about it. She openly encourages her husband to pursue money and resents
anyone standing in the way of that.
Quote #8
George: I saw your factory on the way from the station. It looks like General
Motors. (2.400)
For George, the successful factory is a symbol of the injustice Joe inflicted on his father.
Joe gets rich; Steve gets imprisoned.
Quote #9
Keller: I don't know what you mean! You wanted money, so I made money. What
must I be forgive? You wanted money, didn't you? (3.61)
Joe feels betrayed by Kate turning on him now. Like her neighbor Sue, she must have
at some point encouraged him to make the family comfortable. Both Joe and Kate hide
from their own responsibility in this matter.
Quote #10
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Keller: Who worked for nothin' in that war?… It's dollars and cents, nickels and
dimes; war and peace, it's nickels and dimes, what's clean? Half the Goddam
country is gotta go if I go! (3.150)
Joe uses the dominant American ideology, capitalism, to excuse his actions.
JUSTICE AND JUDGEMENT QUOTES:
Quote #1
Mother: Stop that, Bert. Go home. [Bert backs up, as she advances.] There's no
jail here. (1.318)
Kate doesn't want Joe to play the jail game with the neighbor kids because it reminds
everyone that Joe's partner is in jail – and that he put him there.
Quote #2
Mother: That's why there's God. Otherwise anything could happen. But there's
God, so certain things can never happen. (1.410)
It may be a mushy personal theology, but Kate needs it. If she accepts that Larry was
killed, she has to also accept the evil of her husband's crime and her own complicity
with it.
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Quote #3
Ann: He knowingly shipped out part that would crash an airplane. And how do
you know Larry wasn't one of them?
Mother: I was waiting for that. [Going to her] As long as you're here, Annie, I
want to ask you never to say that again. (1.464)
Ann doesn't know it, but she's damning the people she's talking to. No wonder Joe is so
forgiving and compassionate in his judgment of her father. He's guilty himself.
Quote #4
Mother: I don't know. [She speaks with warning.] He's a lawyer now, Joe. George
is a lawyer. (1.610)
Kate fears that the retribution she has been expecting may be coming now, in the form
of vengeful George. He's more dangerous now that he's a lawyer. Joe and Kate have
got to be on their game when this guy arrives.
Quote #5
Chris: George, you don't want to be the voice of God, do you? (2.238)
Like his father, Chris wants George to "see it human." Chris is a compromising moral
relativist long before he realizes it at the end of the play.
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Quote #6
George: The court didn't know your father! But you know him. You know in your
heart Joe did it. (2.256)
George doesn't believe the court carried out justice. So he's trying to carry out a little bit
here by taking Ann away from Chris.
Quote #7
George: He's like that now. He'd like to take every man who made money in the
war and put him up against a wall. (2.417)
Steve has gotten a lot more "eye for an eye" since he was imprisoned.
Quote #8
Mother: As long as you live, that boy is alive. God does not let a son be killed by
his father. Now you see, don't you? Now you see. (2.519)
Kate needs God (and horoscopes) to understand how her and her husband's actions
make sense in the world.
Quote #9
Keller: How can I pay?
Mother: Tell him… you're willing to go to prison. (3.56)
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Kate doesn't really suggest this because she believes Keller deserves it. Offering to go
to prison is more like a gesture to Chris. She wants to hold on to at least one son.
Quote #10
Chris: I could jail him! I could jail him, if I were human any more. But I'm like
everybody else now. I'm practical now. You made me practical. (3.124)
Again, Chris places the blame on his parents, who "made" him practical. He needs an
out just as much as his father does.
Quote #11
Chris: Then what was Larry to you? A stone that fell into the water? It's not
enough for him to be sorry. Larry didn't kill himself to make you and Dad sorry.
(3.175)
We wonder why Chris wants his father to be punished so much. For the ideal of justice?
To keep Ann? To cancel out his own complicity?
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LIES AND DECIET QUOTES:
Quote #1
Chris: We've made a terrible mistake with Mother… being dishonest with her.
That kind of thing always pays off, and now it's paying off
Keller: What do you mean, dishonest?
Chris: You know Larry's not coming back and I know it. (1.167-69)
A small foreshadowing of the moral positions of both Joe and Chris here. Chris
acknowledges a reality but does nothing to address it; Joe pretends it doesn't exist.
Quote #2
Joe: So he takes out his tools and he… covers over the cracks. All right… that's
bad, it's wrong, but that's what a little man does. If I could have gone in that day
I'd a told him – junk 'em, Steve, we can afford it. (1.481)
This is the opposite of what really happened. When asked for advice, Joe directed
Steve to cover the cracks. Now he lies to Ann and Chris with ease. Perhaps he's been
telling this story for so long he's begun to believe it himself.
Quote #3
Ann: Don't yell at him. He just wants everybody happy.
Keller: [clasps her around the waist] That's my sentiments. Can you stand steak?
(1.487-88)
Joe is a socially talented man, usually able to charm away any conflict.
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Quote #4
Keller: I want a clean start for you, Chris. I want a new sign over the plant –
Christopher Keller, Incorporated.
Chris: [a little uneasily] J.O. Keller is good enough. (1.583-4)
Chris's deceit lies in his refusal to investigate his own suspicions. He won't accuse his
father of wrongdoing, yet he doesn't want his name dragged into the business.
Quote #5
Sue: I've got nothing against Joe. But if Chris wants people to put on the hair
shirt let him take off his broadcloth. He's driving my husband crazy with that
phony idealism of his, and I'm at the end of my rope on it! (2.89)
Ouch! What a thing to hear about your fiancée. On your engagement day, no less!
Sue's accusations make Ann suspicious that Chris knows more about his father than
he admits.
Quote #6
Ann: I don't care what they think, I just don't understand why you took the
trouble to deny it. You said it was all forgotten. (2.113)
Ann's realization that Chris lied about this makes her suspicious. What else might he
be lying about? His father's guilt?
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Quote #7
George: Oh Chris, you're a liar to yourself! (2.275)
George believed Joe because Chris believed him. He feels doubly betrayed now that
Chris is taking Ann without acknowledging his father's crime.
Quote #8
Mother: Why must you make believe you hate us? Is that another principle? –
that you have to hate us? You don't hate us, George, I know you, you can't fool
me, I diapered you. (2.381)
Kate is very sly, very manipulative. With her magnetic maternal power, she almost
successfully coaxes George into forgetting about the whole thing.
Quote #9
Keller: There are certain men in the world who rather see everybody hung before
they'll take blame. You understand me, George? (2.430)
We want to scream: you're talking about yourself! You're talking about yourself!
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Quote #10
Mother: He hasn't been laid up in fifteen years…
Keller: Except my flu during the war.
Mother: Huhh?
Keller: My flu, when I was sick during… the war. (2.448-451)
Whoops. George smells Kate's misstep right away. The Kellers' enthusiastic attempts at
healing this rift crash and burn.
MORALITY AND ETHIC QUOTES
Quote #1
Jim: I would love to help humanity on a Warner Brothers salary. (1.57)
Jim and Sue reflect, in their subplot, the same conflict between money and ideals that
affects the Kellers.
Quote #2
Chris: Everything was being destroyed, se but it seemed to me that one new
thing was made. A kind of… responsibility. Man for man. You understand me? –
To show that, to bring that on to the earth again like some kind of monument and
everyone would feel it standing there, behind him, and it would make a
difference to him. (1.541)
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Before Chris can give himself fully to Ann, he needs her to understand the conflict he
feels between the idealism of the war and the practicality of daily life back home.
Quote #3
Sue: Chris makes people want to be better than it's possible to be. (2.67)
Sue is a resolute pragmatist. Chris inspires her husband to want to do research, when
she just wants him to keep them comfortable at home by doing ore profitable work.
She's hoping she can influence Ann to get Chris out of the picture so Jim will feel less
conflicted
Quote #4
Keller: I want him to know, Annie… while he's sitting there I want him to know
that when he gets out he's got a place waitin' for him. It'll take his bitterness
away. To know you got a place… it sweetens you. (2.158)
So what do you think: How much of this is Joe truly reaching out to his old colleague?
How much of it is Joe covering his tracks?
Quote #5
Mother: While you were getting mad about Fascism Frank was getting into her
bed.
George: He won the war, Frank. (2.372-3)
Like Chris, George comes back disillusioned from the war. Faced with the banal reality
of late '40s America, they can't understand what they were fighting for in the first place.
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Quote #6
George: [to Ann] He simply told your father to kill pilots, and covered himself in
bed! (2.485)
George seems to react more strongly to the betrayal of his father than to the original
crime of shipping bad parts.
Quote #7
Chris: You killed them, you murdered them
Keller: How could I kill anybody? (2.533-4)
Joe can't identify himself as a murderer, and truly doesn't understand why Chris sees it
this way.
Quote #8
Keller: You lay forty years into a business and they knock you out in five
minutes, what could I do, let them take forty years, let them take my life away?
(2.542)
Joe explains his position at length. He's really hoping Chris will come around, see things
his way, say: "Yes, you did the right thing, Dad. Thanks for saving the business for me."
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Quote #9
Chris: For me! I was dying every day and you were killing my boys and you did it
for me? What the hell do you think I was thinking of, the Goddam business? Is
that as far as your mind can see, the business? (2.557)
Chris's wider vision of humanity is informed by the war. In his earlier monologue with
Ann, he confesses that he feels it draining out of him. In some ways, All My Sons is a
sad coming-of-age story for Chris.
Quote #10
Jim: Oh, no, he'll come back. We all come back, Kate. These private little
revolutions always die. The compromise is always made. (3.23)
As much of a realist as his wife Sue, Jim doesn't believe that anybody can stay idealistic
in the modern world.
MEMORY AND PAST QUOTES:
Quote #1
Frank: Larry was born in August. He'd been twenty-seven this month. And his
tree blows down. (1.30)
Frank is making a retroactive horoscope for Larry, which is why he remembers the
missing soldier's birthday.
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Quote #2
Keller: She's dreaming about him again. She's walking around at night. (1.162)
Keller is frustrated by his wife's stubborn refusal to accept the death of their son Larry.
Quote #3
Mother: Everything that happened seems to be coming back. I was just down the
cellar, and what do I stumble over? His baseball glove. I haven't seen it in a
century. (1.254)
Kate subtly but very powerfully inserts reminders of Larry into the conversation, making
it more difficult for Joe and Chris to be honest with her about their own belief that he's
dead. She wants to maintain a certain reality.
Quote #4
Chris: I've been thinking, y'know? – maybe we ought to put our minds to
forgetting him? (1.273)
While Chris may be the most idealistic character in the play, his gentle request to let go
of the past doesn't stem from concern for his mother. He's preparing the stage to marry
Ann.
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Quote #5
Ann: I guess I never grew up. It almost seems that Mom and Pop are in there
now… Gosh, those dear dead days beyond recall. (1.348)
Ann has a placid relationship with the past – perhaps facilitated by the cut-and-dried
decision she made to break with her father. Her happy memories contrast with the
fraught way Kate, Joe, and Chris think about Larry.
Quote #6
Mother: [emotionally] You think of him! You see? [Triumphantly] She thinks of
him!… he's in your thoughts.
Ann: That's a funny thing to say; how could I help remembering him? (1.358-361)
For Kate, Ann's reference to Larry is a vindication of her own faith that he's still alive.
For Ann – who, even at this point, knows for a fact Larry is dead – it's just part of a
memory.
Quote #7
Ann: Haven't they stopped talking about Dad?
Chris: Nobody talks about him any more.
Keller: Gone and forgotten, kid. (1.430-432)
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Just as they team up to protect Kate from the reality of Larry's death, Joe and Chris
keep the truth from Ann. In fact, the neighbors talk about it all the time.
Quote #8
[On the Rise: Chris is discovered at Right, sawing the broken-off tree, leaving
stump standing alone.] (2.1)
In this stage direction that opens Act 2, we see Chris's insistence on wiping out Larry's
memory so he can move forward with Ann.
Quote #9
Keller: Goddam, if Larry was alive he wouldn't act like this. He understood the
way the world was made. He listened to me. To him the world had a forty-foot
front, it ended at the building line. (3.77)
Joe's image of his dead son's worldview is about to be refuted, in a big way, by the
reading of his suicide note.
Quote #10
Mother: The night he gets into you bed, his heart will dry up. Because he knows
and you know. To his dying day he'll wait for his brother! (3.91)
Kate would prefer that the memory of the past live on, even if it destroys every
potentiality in the future. She can't understand her life without the hope that Larry is out
there somewhere.
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FAMILY QUOTES:
Quote #1
Bert: Tommy said another dirty word to Doris yesterday, and you didn't even
demote him.
Keller: [he chuckles and winks at Chris, who is enjoying all this.] Yeah, that's a
dangerous character, that Tommy. (1.132-33)
Keller is a playful father figure to the neighborhood boys. Chris admires his rapport with
them.
Quote #2
Chris: I've been a good son too long, a good sucker. I'm through with it. (1.215)
Loyalty to his family is getting in the way of Chris's personal happiness.
Quote #3
Keller: I want you to spread out, Chris, I want you to use what I made for you… I
mean, with joy, Chris, without shame… with joy. (1.585)
To be sympathetic to Joe's situation, we really have to get behind the idea that he did it
all for his family.
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Quote #4
Ann: I'm not here out of a blue sky, Chris. I turned my back on my father, if
there's anything wrong here now… (2.119)
Ann places principles over family and she expects Chris to, as well.
Quote #5
Keller: You're in love now, Annie, but believe me, I'm older than you and I know –
a daughter is a daughter, and a father is a father. (2.156)
Ann tries to reassure Joe that hate could never come between her and Chris. For Joe,
family comes first. He's concerned that Ann will come to see things that way, too, under
the influence of her father and brother.
Quote #6
Keller: And I don't understand why she has to crucify the man… A father is a
father! (2.162-166)
Ann's ruthless judgment of her father strikes fears into Joe. What if, when they're
married, Chris begins to feel the same way about him?
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Quote #7
Mother: Your brother's alive, darling, because if he's dead, your father killed him.
Do you understand me now? (2.519)
We're really interested in Kate's own complicity with Joe's decision to let those cracked
cylinders ship. He seems to rely on her guidance quite a bit. Do you think she knew
about it at the time? Gave him advice?
Quote #8
Keller: Chris… Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I took it for you. (2.546)
Joe's rationalization of this crime eventually makes it harder for Chris to condemn him.
But in this moment, all Chris feels is shocked – and tainted by his father's deed.
Quote #9
Keller: I'm askin' you. What am I, a stranger? I thought I had a family here. What
happened to my family? (3.45)
When the truth finally comes to light, Kate retreats from her usual busy mastery of the
situation. Joe's left feeling alone, wondering why he made the sacrifices he did.
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Quote #10
Keller: Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I
guess they were, I guess they were. (3.167)
We can't decide if this line is brilliant or too heavy-handed. Whichever, it's an important
moment for Joe, as he understands – and finally owns – the larger repercussions of his
actions.
COURAGE QUOTES:
Quote #1
Keller: Don't look at me like that, he didn't tell me any more than he told you.
(1.286)
Not true, Joe! He knows full well that Chris wants to marry Ann. But out of fear of losing
his wife's support, he evades confrontation with her.
Quote #2
Keller: That's the only way you lick 'em is guts! (1.446)
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Joe has just recounted his version of the story of his crime, concluding with a victorious
stroll back into the neighborhood after his exoneration. A kind of false courage. Real
courage would have been acknowledging the wrong he did – or, in the first place,
holding life more sacred than a profit.
Quote #3
Mother: All right, Joe. Just…be smart. [Keller, in hopeless fury, looks at her,
turns around, goes up to porch and into house, slamming screen door violently
behind him. Mother sits in chair downstage, stiffly, staring, seeing.] (1.623)
In this last line of Act 1, the stage directions give us an idea of how the Kellers handle
extreme challenges. Joe throws a tantrum and goes in the house; Kate sits outside
processing and preparing. She's the more intelligent and stronger of the two, as we
come to see. Does that make her more or less guilty than Joe?
Quote #4
Ann: I wish we could tell her now. I can't stand scheming. My stomach gets hard.
Chris: It's not scheming, we'll just get her in a better mood. (2.25)
Chris is afraid of his mother's reaction and keeps making excuses to avoid telling her
about the engagement.
Quote #5
George: You're not going to marry him.
Ann: Why am I not going to marry him?
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George: Because his father destroyed your family. (2.233-235)
In comparison to the friendly, circuitous way that Chris and Joe approach things,
George a straight shooter.
Quote #6
George: And my father, that frightened mouse who'd never buy a shirt without
somebody along – that man would dare do such a thing on his own? (2.273)
George believes his father because he knows the characters of the two men involved.
Joe's a bull, and Steve's a mouse. Steve never would have made a huge decision on
his own.
Quote #7
Keller: As long as I know him, twenty-five years, the man never learned how to
take the blame. You know that, George. (2.423)
Joe brings up a number of examples of Steve's cowardice to get George on his side. It's
pretty insidious the way he (and Kate, for that matter) try to seduce George into
complicity with their family.
Quote #8
Mother: You can't bull yourself through this one, Joe, you better be smart now.
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This thing – this thing is not over yet. (3.36)
Joe may see his bull-headedness as courage. But Kate understands the difference
between stubbornness – Joe's go-to mode – and strategy. Strategy is what's needed
now.
Quote #9
Keller: You have no strength. The minute there's trouble you have no strength.
Mother: Joe, you're doing the same thing again; all your life whenever there's
trouble you yell at me and you think that settles it. (3.47-48)
Joe almost seems like a little boy in this exchange, deeply reliant on Kate's intelligence
to solve his problems.
Quote #10
Chris: I'm yellow. I was made yellow in this house because I suspected my father
and I did nothing about it… (3.122)
OK, Chris is a very sympathetic character but look at the way he phrases his
acknowledgement of cowardice here. "I was made yellow." Like his father, he shifts
responsibility to someone else's shoulders.
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All My Sons Characters
Joe Keller
Joe Keller, Ignoramus
Arthur Miller gives a good bit of space to the description of Joe Keller in the opening stage
directions:
A heavy man of stolid mind and build, a business man these many years, but with the imprint
of the machine-shop worker and boss still upon him. When he reads, when he speaks, when
he listens, it is with the terrible concentration of the uneducated man for whom there is still
wonder in many commonly known things, a man whose judgments must be dredged out of
experience and a peasant-like common sense. A man among men. (1.1)
The description of Joe as a simpleton comes up again and again in this play. Chris teasingly calls
him an "elephant" (1.535) and Kate calls him a "bull" (3.36). After George's ominous phone call, Kate
warns her husband to "be smart now, Joe. The boy is coming. Be smart" (1.620). Miller emphasizes
Joe's lack of education as one justification for his criminal actions. We don't think Joe approved
those cracked cylinder heads because he's stupid. He approved them because, as an uneducated
man, he needs all the more desperately to protect his way of making a living.
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Joe and Money
Joe has always been concerned with money. With the Great Depression fresh in his memory – and
personal poverty even older than that – economic security is his greatest concern. Joe is outraged
when Kate and Chris attack him for saving his business. "I spoiled both of you," he says. "I should've
put him out when I was ten like I was put out, and make him earn his keep. Then he'd know how a
buck is made in this world" (3.63). Joe's narration of his triumph over the criminal justice system
concludes with the boast that "fourteen months later I had one of the best shops in the state again, a
respected man again; bigger than ever" (1.446). Until he finally understands the cause of Larry's
death, his primary value is the success of his business and his ability to make money.
Family Man
Miller doesn't totally demonize Joe, however. It's not just for his own comfort that Joe makes money;
it's for his family. "Nothin' is bigger" than family to Joe (1.67). Though they don't like to admit it, Kate
and Chris reap the benefits of Joe's single-mindedness. Kate has a nice house and garden. She can
look forward to steak and champagne by the sea. Chris stands to inherit a lucrative business that will
similarly support a cozy family life with Ann. We believe Joe when he tells his son, " I did it for you, it
was a chance and I took it for you […] for you, a business for you" (2.546, 556). Joe isn't evil, he just
has a tragic lack of vision.
Chris Keller
Like Father, Like Son
Chris is Joe Keller's surviving son. Miller describes him as "thirty-two; like his father, solidly built, a
listener. A man capable of immense affection and loyalty" (1.102). While Joe reads the want ads in
the newspaper, however, Chris reads the book section. Even before the big fight in Act 2, Chris
fancies himself a slight cut above his father the materialist. He doesn't want his name put on the
business, and professes to dislike it. "The business doesn't inspire me," he tells his dad; that's why
he wants to marry Ann. "If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful"
(1.217-19).
When Ann says yes to his proposal, Chris tells her he'll make her a fortune. Who does this sound
47
like? That's right, Joe at the end of the play – though Joe despairs and speaks in past tense. He
accuses Kate: "You wanted money, so I made money… I could live on a quarter a day myself, but I
got a family so I…" (3.61-63). Chris, like Joe, truly puts family first.
Chris also shares his friendly, non-confrontational approach with his father. He likes to glide over
things to avoid conflict. Chris misleads Ann into thinking no one in the neighborhood remembers the
old crime, and tries (with less success) to buddy up to her hostile brother George. He sounds just
like Joe with his condescending, brotherly reasoning: "That's been your trouble all your life, George,
you dive into things… You're a big boy now" (2.240).
Idealist? Coward?
When Chris is missing at the start of Act 3, Jim predicts he'll return. He believes that Chris is honest;
that he never knew Joe was guilty:
"Chris would never know how to live with a thing like that. It takes a certain talent… for lying. You
have it, and I do. But not him." (3.21).
Sue considers Chris a dangerous influence on her husband because of his belief in doing good. And
Joe bemoans the ethical sensitivity of his son: "everything bothers him. You make a deal,
overcharge two cents, and his hair falls out" (3.77). But, Chris seems to recognize and be proud of
this vision of himself. After proposing to Ann, he tells her about the self-sacrifice of men in the war,
and the lack of meaning that sacrifice seems to hold for people at home. He doesn't count himself
among these thoughtless people.
Yet for all his talk about social responsibility is Chris really such a force of moral rectitude? As he
admits at the end of the play, he's also a bit of a coward. He's afraid of his mother and won't be
honest about his intentions with Ann. Perhaps part of him knows that telling her will unleash some
fury he wants no part of. He attacks his father savagely when Joe's guilt is revealed, calling him
lower than an animal. But after a night of thinking about it, Chris still can't bring his father to justice:
"I know what you're thinking, Annie. It's true. I'm yellow. I was made yellow in this house
because I suspected my father and I did nothing about it… Now if I look at him, all I'm able to
do is cry… I could jail him, if I were human any more. But I'm like everybody else now. I'm
practical now. You made me practical." (3.122-124)
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And listen to that guilt-evading language: "I was made yellow" and "you made me practical." Far from
an paragon of moral responsibility, Chris is like a little boy blaming a broken teacup on the wind.
Kate Keller
Mother / Manipulator
Kate is Joe Keller's wife and Chris Keller's mom. Arthur Miller refers to her as "Mother," in the script.
Her motherliness is one of her defining characteristics, as Miller stresses in the stage directions
preceding her first entrance:
Mother […] is in her early fifties, a woman of uncontrolled inspirations, and an overwhelming
capacity for love. (1.230)
Kate's love is accompanied by a need for control. When she senses that Chris is falling for Ann
(which Kate disapproves of), she drops several unflattering hints about Ann's appearance: "I think
her nose got longer" (1.256) and "You gained a little weight, didn't you, darling?" (1.334).
She also wields her love as a weapon. Just as Joe laughs and jokes to dispel tension, Kate nurtures
to manipulate. When George arrives in Act 2, a threat to she and Joe's security, Kate spins a web of
comfort around him that almost makes him forget his desire for justice.
Like Joe was just saying – you move back here, he'll help you get set, and I'll find you a girl and put
a smile on your face. (2.378)
She even remembers his shirt size. Before she slips up about Joe never being sick, she almost
sucked him in.
Kate's Intelligence
Miller describes Joe as kind of a dolt, but Kate is not. She's the clever and wily one; she understands
much more quickly the repercussions of things. The stage directions are full of references to her
sharp instincts. When Chris talks about Ann, Mother listens "with an undercurrent of observation"
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and subtly undermines his budding love (1.260). At the end of Act 1, dreading the arrival of George,
"Mother sits in a chair downstage, stiffly, staring, seeing" (1.623). She's planning how to handle him.
It's up to Kate to strategize, which she has the capacity to do even as everything is blowing up in her
face. Joe recognizes her power. When Chris finds out about his father's guilt, Joe begs her, "Tell me,
talk to me, what do I do?" (3.49).
Kate's Superstition
Kate is intelligent, but she's by no means totally objective or rational. Since the disappearance of her
son, she's looked increasingly to religion, dreams, signs, and even horoscopes to make sense of
reality. When Larry's tree is struck by lightning, she tells her husband, "Laugh, but there are
meanings in such things. She goes to sleep in his room and his memorial breaks in pieces" (1.303).
And of course there's the matter of commissioning Larry's horoscope from Frank. Kate's superstition
is a defense against her husband's guilt – and her own. She explains her philosophy to Ann:
"Certain things have to be, and certain thing can never be… That's why there's God, so
certain things can never happen." (1.410).
Kate is purposely vague, but what she means is what she says later, explicitly: "God does not let a
son be killed by his father" (2.519).
Ann Deever
Ann is the daughter of Steve Deever, former neighbor of the Kellers, as well as former fiancée of the
dead Larry Keller. A little while after Larry's death, she and Chris started writing each other letters. At
his request, she returns to the Keller home, all grown up and beautiful. Chris wants to marry her, and
she wants to marry him. They just have to figure out how to break it to Kate and Joe.
Ann may be young, but she knows what she wants. She's strong. She turned her back on her father
when he was convicted of selling faulty goods to the military. She moved to New York and got a job.
Visiting the Kellers, she has no problem going head to head with Kate, a fierce and manipulative
woman who's twice her age. At the end of the play, when Joe's guilt has been revealed, Ann lays
down the law:
"I'll do nothing about Joe, but you're going to do something for me. [Directly to Mother] You
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made Chris feel guilty with me… I'd like you to tell him that Larry is dead and that you know
it. You understand me?" (3.86)
This is before Ann pulls out the big gun of Larry's letter. She's known all along that Larry is
absolutely, positively dead – he killed himself – but she's merciful enough to keep quiet until Kate's
stubbornness finally forces her hand. She also must have known that Joe was guilty. So when in Act
2 she warns her new fiancé, "I'm not here out of a blue sky, Chris. I turned my back on my father, if
there's anything wrong here now…" what is she really asking? Perhaps she's just getting a handle
on Chris's innocence or guilt, inspecting the goods she's about to invest in.
Ann's secret weapon makes her the most powerful character in the story, and the only one who
reaches her objective – engagement to Chris – by the play's end.
George Deever
George Deever is the brother of Ann and the son of Steve Deever. He grew up as the Kellers'
neighbor before his father was imprisoned for selling faulty goods to the military. George is only
around for Act 2. He has just been to visit his dad for the first time since he went to jail. Full of anger,
George isn't in the Kellers' backyard five minutes before he forbids Ann to marry Chris, "because his
father destroyed your family" (2.235). Kate and Joe almost succeed in seducing George with
kindness, plans for the future, and old arguments about his father's cowardly nature. They fear
George not because he disapproves of the marriage – they do too – but because he's a lawyer.
Though he tries to make Ann to leave, she refuses. Basically, George exists in the play to raise the
stakes of the conflict.
Dr. Jim Bayliss
Jim Bayliss is world-weary doctor in his forties. He lives with his wife, Sue, next door to the Kellers.
Jim has sweet memories of his idealistic youth:
"[…] one year I simply took off, went to New Orleans; for two months I lived on bananas and milk,
and studied a certain disease." (3.25)
But he gave all that up. Now he runs a private practice and makes a good bit of money off of laid-up
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hypochondriacs. Like many of the characters in All My Sons, Jim ducks responsibility and blame.
Thank his wife for his return to suburbia, he says, "She came, and she cried. And I went back home
with her" (3.25). Jim is a good neighbor now, looking in on Kate when she's ill, picking up George in
Act 2, and looking for Chris in Act 3. But he feels lost; "it's even hard sometimes to remember the
kind of man I wanted to be" (3.25). Jim has no illusions about his own morality, and he makes no
judgments about Joe's. He's always known about Joe's guilt, he nonchalantly confides to Kate.
Sue Bayliss
Sue is Doctor Jim Bayliss's wife. Because she put her husband through medical school, she still has
a sort of power over him, which she exerts to keep her family materially comfortable. Sue is cynical
and pragmatic. She asks Ann, when she marries Chris, to take him far, far away. I her opinion, he's
a bad influence on her husband. When idealistic Chris is around, Jim wants to work in research
instead of making house calls to well-paying hypochondriacs. "Research pays twenty-five dollars a
week minus laundering the hair shirt," says Sue, and she wants her husband to forget the option
even exists (2.65). Money-grubbing Sue provides a comic echo of the obsession with money that
drove Joe to make his fateful decision.
Frank Lubey
Frank Lubey is in his thirties and lucky. He avoided the draft in World War II, married Lydia, and set
up a nice house for her and their three kids. With an interest in horoscopes, Frank completes one for
the Kellers' dead son Larry for the day he went missing. Frank arrives with the results (that Larry
must be alive) at a moment of high tension at the Kellers' home. He's a harmless man with no
understanding of the world beyond his backyard.
Lydia Lubey
Lydia Lubey is the Kellers' 27-year-old neighbor, and the wife of Frank. She used to have a thing
with serious old George, but when he enlisted for the army, she gave him up and married Frank. She
has three kids and, apart from them, not a care in the world. Her main pastimes are doing Kate's hair
and fiddling with the toaster. Along with Frank, she represents a certain suburban contingent that
doesn't know much about the world, but doesn't do much harm, either.
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Bert
Bert is a neighborhood kid who comes around the Kellers'. Their play together – mostly centering
around a jail (check out "Symbols") – underlines the image of Joe as a good father.
All My Sons Analysis
Larry's Tree
In the left corner, downstage, stands the four-foot-high stump of a slender apple tree
whose upper trunk and branches lie toppled beside it, fruit still clinging to its branches."
(1.1)
This is Larry's tree, built as a memorial when he didn't return from World War II. It's a
polarizing fixture of the Kellers' backyard, and a symbol of the complex attachment
characters have to Larry's memory. Kate is relieved when lightning strikes it down, a
sign that Larry is still alive, that they tried to bury him too soon. At the opening of Act 2,
killing time (and burning off some nervous energy) before dinner, Chris chops the
remaining trunk down. He wants no reminders of his brother messing up his impending
engagement to Ann, his brother's former fiancée.
Jail
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In Act 1, neighborhood kid Bert asks Joe to arrest another boy for saying a bad word.
Joe has given out that he has a jail in his basement. It's all fun and games until Kate
comes in, angry, and tells them to cut it out.
Keller: …What happened was that when I got home from the penitentiary the kids
got very interested in me. You know kids. I was [laughs] the expert on the jail
situation. And as time passed they got it confused and… I ended up a detective
[laughs].
Mother: Except that they didn't get it confused. [To Ann] He hands out police
badges from the Post Toasties box. (1.438-439)
We start to understand that this jail game is one of the ways Joe has charmed the
community into turning a blind eye to his crime.
All My Sons Setting
The backyard of the Keller home. August in the 1940s.
In the first stage directions, Miller goes into a good bit of detail about the setting of the
play. The Kellers' house is located in the outskirts of an American town. It's two stories
high, has seven rooms, and "would have cost perhaps fifteen thousand in the early
twenties when it was built" (1.1). It is well-maintained, and communicates visually the
material comfort and well-being that the Kellers enjoy.
All My Sons was first produced in 1947, and is set in that period. Men had just returned
from World War II; Ann and Chris will have baby boomer kids. Don't forget, either, that
all of these characters (except Bert) have lived through the Great Depression. Being
poor in the 1930s makes it all the more important for Joe to keep his family comfortable
now. Money is not something he takes for granted.
All My Sons Genre
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Family Drama, Tragedy
All My Sons qualifies as a drama because it's a play, a piece of literature that's never
fully realized until it's put on stage in front of an audience. On the micro level, it's a
family drama, for pretty self-explanatory reasons – it's a drama about a family. And it's a
family drama in a similar way as Ibsen's Ghosts (Miller was a huge Ibsen fan). Both
authors use the nuclear family to explore much bigger social issues. In All My Sons,
Miller investigates middle-class nearsightedness through the story of Joe Keller.
When the conflicts of the Keller family spill out into the whole community, the play is
elevated to another level all together. It becomes a tragedy. However, unlike Greek and
Shakespearean tragedies, it's not about royalty or other big and powerful people. Joe
Keller is a hard worker and a good father, but an abysmal member of society, whose
downfall we get to witness. Arthur Miller would call the play a "tragedy of the common
man." For more information on that, check out the link to his famous essay with the
same title in our "Best of the Web" section.
All My Sons Tone
Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Earnest and Political
Each character in All My Sons argues for his viewpoint – and we can hear Miller's pleas
in their voices. Joe begs everyone to "see it human" and forgive his monstrous deed
(2.481). Chris weeps and gets uppity with his dad: "Don't you have a country? Don't you
live in the world? What the hell are you? You're not even an animal, no animal kills his
own, what are you?" (2.557).
All My Sons Writing Style
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Realistic
Miller was well-known for his ear for dialogue. There's not a lot of poetry in the
language. Instead it sounds natural, like regular people talking. Even the most climactic
moments register as believable, if dramatic, as when Chris confronts his mother just
before the gunshot:
"Then what was Larry to you? A stone that fell into the water? It's not enough for [Joe]
to be sorry. Larry didn't kill himself to make you and Dad sorry." (3.175)
Up With the Title?
Joe Keller is a successful businessman living in a small American town. A few years
prior, during the war, he caused the death of 21 pilots, then hid his crime. When his son
Chris discovers his guilt – and associates it with the death of his brother, also a pilot –
Keller repeats over and over, "he never flew a P-40" (2.526). He doesn't feel a
responsibility to the rest of the world, only to his family. Yet a long-hidden letter from his
dead son makes the man's responsibility clear. Finally Keller understands (and here's
where the title gets a nod): "Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my
sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were" (3.167). Using the metaphor of family,
Miller makes a point about the necessity of a wider social conscience, one that includes
not only ourselves and our offspring, but also our whole world.
What’s Up With the Ending?
At the end of All My Sons, Joe Keller faces the judgment of both his sons: one accusing
him from the dead and one ready to drive him to prison. He goes inside and shoots
himself. What does this suicide mean? Does Joe fear prison? Is he overcome with guilt
and grief? Is he paying for the death of all those pilots with his own death?
We think there's some ambiguity. Kate Keller encourages their son Chris, though he
provoked his father's suicide, not to feel guilty. She encourages him to evade
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accountability. But passing the buck is just what Joe Keller did after selling faulty engine
parts in the war. Perhaps Kate is wrong to encourage Chris to forgive himself, but it's
clear she's just protecting the one family member she has left
All My Sons Plot Analysis
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation,
conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers
sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Initial Situation
Joe, Kate, and Chris Keller are a happy family, except for missing their son and
brother Larry.
The story starts with the basics: who, where, and what. We're in a small American town,
meeting the Kellers and their neighbors. With the "whats" that start to accumulate – the
ominous destruction of Larry's tree, the surprise appearance of Ann – we start to get a
sense that Miller is creating a tense platform for some really big stuff to go down.
Conflict
Chris announces his plans to marry Ann.
This is Big Stuff #1. Why isn't Mama Kate happy that her son wants to marry the girl
next door? Because this girl next door was first engaged to Larry, the dead son. If Kate
and Joe give their blessing, they're admitting that Larry's really dead. Chris's
announcement begins to make the old conflicts come to the surface.
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Complication
George Deever arrives.
Big Event #2. The appearance of George tightens the vice grip on poor Joe Keller.
George believes Joe is guilty, not only of shipping faulty parts but of pinning the crime
on George's father. He doesn't want the marriage to go forward either.
Climax
Chris reads aloud Larry's harrowing suicide letter.
This is the moment in the play when the audience stops breathing. Ann has given Chris
a letter she received from Larry, a suicide note confessing that he knew about his
father's crime and therefore won't go on living. The emotional peak of the play, this letter
forces Joe to change his point of view. He admits – and understands – his guilt.
Suspense
Joe disappears inside.
Understanding that both of his sons blame him for murder – and accepting the charge
himself, at long last – Joe Keller goes into the house. What's he doing, we wonder.
Taking a break from the trauma? Readying himself for jail?
Denouement
A gunshot is heard.
We get our answer. Joe Keller has killed himself.
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Conclusion
Kate, Chris, and Ann are left with the tragic consequences of Joe's life and death.
After the gunshot, a few lines follow to the end of the play. Kate begs Chris to not blame
himself.
All My Sons as Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis: Tragedy Plot
Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic
plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and
Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits
this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
PLOT STAGES
a. Anticipation Stage
Ann arrives at the Keller household.
Booker tells us that in the anticipation stage, the hero is incomplete or unfulfilled. For
Joe, this is the sudden flare-up of his guilty paranoia about the old crime. Joe has been
living for years in relative comfort, not forgetting about Steve Deever, but not facing the
man's ghost, either. When Ann arrives, things get complicated. Not only is she the
daughter of the man Joe put in jail, she's he former fiancée of Larry, the son Kate
refuses to pronounce dead. Joe needs to find a way to absorb Ann into the family
without admitting his guilt.
b. Dream Stage
The family waits for George Deever; Joe will offer him a job.
The end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 seem to teeter between the dream stage
and the frustration stage. As soon as Joe figures out how to deal with one obstacle, a
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new one crops up. When he finds out George is coming to visit, he comes up with a
plan. He will invite Ann and George into the family, and give his disgraced colleague
Steve a job when he gets out of prison. He hopes he can finally put the memory of his
war profiteering to rest.
c. Frustration Stage
George Deever arrives.
Things really get sticky when George arrives. Joe and Kate worry because George, a
lawyer, might try to reopen the case. But what George's probing really sets in motion is
a battle between Chris and Ann's resolution to marry and Kate's resolution that Larry's
still alive. Playing hardball, Kate reveals the truth about Joe's crime.
d. Nightmare Stage
Ann reveals Larry's letter.
Prompted by Kate's stubbornness, Ann shows her Larry's last letter. Chris attacks his
father's murderous small-mindedness, and Ann insists they take him to jail. This is
probably the worst possible outcome for Joe; hence "nightmare stage." Chris reads
Larry's letter aloud, and Joe learns that his act caused Larry to commit suicide.
e. Destruction Stage
Joe kills himself.
Finally accepting the burden of his guilt, Joe kills himself. Kate, Chris, and Ann are left
with the wreckage.
Three-Act Basic Plot Analysis
For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat. Moviemakers know the
formula well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a
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conflict. During Act Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three,
the story is resolved.
Act I
Joe Keller is on orange alert. His defenses are raised by the accident of Larry's tree
blowing down, by his wife Kate's anxiety, and mostly by the arrival of Ann, the daughter
of the man he landed in prison. Chris's intention to marry this girl causes conflict in the
family.
Act II
Ann's brother George arrives, upping the danger. He accuses Joe outright and tries to
take Ann away, but she refuses. At the end of the act, everyone knows it's true. Joe
killed people and ducked the consequences.
Act III
Chris confronts his father. A letter proves once and for all not only that Larry's dead, but
that he killed himself because of Joe's actions. All the questions are answered; the past
is aired. Joe shoots himself.
All My Sons Allusions & Cultural References
When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental.
Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literary and Philosophical References

George Bernard Shaw (1.535): A politically outspoken socialist Irish playwright,
1856-1950.
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Historical References

P-40 (1.479, 2.526): A World War II fighter plane.

Zeppelin (2.197): A dirigible (flying blimp).

Mohandas Gandhi (2.321): Indian lawyer who used peaceful means, including
hunger strikes, to agitate for Indian independence.
Pop Culture References

Don Ameche (1.55): A popular actor in the '30s and '40s.

Andy Gump (2.378): Husband in The Gumps, a comic strip that ran from 19171959.
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