All My Sons

Joe Keller is the patriarch of the family, he is a self-made man, who worked his way up from worker to boss/owner. He owns a factory that made airplane parts for the military during World War II....

Chris Keller and Ann Deever grew up as next door neighbors, their houses were side by side on the same block. When they were younger, Ann was Chris's brother Larry's girl, in fact Ann was engaged...

Miller criticizes the American Dream by showing how it corrupts the soul and makes us do things we shouldn't do. Joe Keller is the living embodiment of the American Dream. A successful businessman,...

Joe decides to commit suicide after Chris reads aloud Larry's letter to Ann. In the letter, Larry explains to Ann that he knows his father knowingly sent out plane parts that were faulty to...

Joe Keller says that everything he has done in his life has been for his sons. This includes the decision to ship the cracked cylinder heads that lead to the death of so many airmen. Because Joe...

The function of the newspaper in the first act of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons is to set the scene with a communal activity that involves minimal actual interaction but also serves to introduce...

The apple tree is symbolic in many ways. First, it was planted in the memory of Larry, the eldest the the Keller children whose plane was shot down in the World War II. Apple trees are universal...

The play is set in the aftermath of World War II. It is about the Keller family: Kate, Joe, and their two sons, Chris and Larry. Larry was in the military and died during the war before the play...

The setting of the play in Joe Keller's backyard is significant because it shows the intimate relationship between Joe's home and business lives. The setting reinforces Joe's self-image as a...

In All My Sons, Miller presents Joe Keller as both a tragic hero and a villain by having Joe force Steve Deever to ship the faulty machine parts. On the one hand, Joe may be considered a tragic...

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons debuted on 1947 and examines the role of morality and mortality among business partners. The use of a gendered term in the title highlights a heightened sense around the...

In the play Ann and George are sister and brother, both children of the former partner of Joe Keller, Steve Deever. However, they differ in their attitude to their father, who has now been in jail...

Chris is suffering from survival guilt, often described by survivors as the feeling that while they survived, better people died. Survivors often believe that others died because they were better,...

Some people turn to astrology as a way of finding answers to their problems. Kate Keller is one such person. She's been trying to find out what's happened to her son Larry, but so far without any...

The title of the play All My Sons is justified because Joe Keller should have thought of all the pilots who flew in planes that contained defective parts his company sold the government as his sons...

Kate's attitude towards her son is sort of the "elephant in the room" for the rest of the characters. She simply refuses to believe that her son, Larry,was killed in a plane crash three years...

Steve Deever is presented in All My Sons as a patsy, a victim of the obsessive, headlong pursuit of the American Dream. What Miller is doing here is alerting us to the fact that it's often the...

Arthur Miller was an author of modern tragedies, plays that illuminated the frailty of both human life and, as importantly, of humanity itself. In perhaps his most well-know and loved play, Death...

The title says everything about the perspective that Joe Keller ought to have had on humanity but chose not to adopt out of greed. He should've realized that he had a great responsibility to all...

The significance of money in the play is to show the downfalls of pursuing it and the compromised and sometimes unethical things that the pursuit of money can drive people to do. Money is...

George is Ann's brother and he functions in the play's second act as an inquisitor and antagonist to Chris and especially to Joe. George does not believe Joe Keller's story about what happened in...

It might be a bit of a stretch to conclude that Sue Bayliss, a former nurse now married to an idealistic physician, “hates” the Keller family, her neighbors in Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons. If...

Frank is a 32-year-old character who managed to be one year ahead of the draft. He never served in WWII. Instead, he stayed home, and as a result, began dating and married George’s former...

Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons is the story of the Keller family, which is comprised of the parents—Joe and Kate—and their two sons Chris and Larry. The play is set immediately post-World War II,...

Joe Keller is a factory man who has worked hard all of his life for his family. As All My Sons by Arthur Miller begins, Joe is sixty years old. His son, Chris Keller, is thirty-two and a veteran of...

The title All My Sons resonates in a few ways with the content and the themes of the play. Although Joe Keller's relationship with his son Chris is central to the action of the play, the final...

We find out the answer to your question at the end of Act I when Joe Keller tells "his" story to Ann Deever, Steve Deever's daughter and Joe's former partner on whom Joe has conveniently blamed the...

Chris Keller has been living in a state of denial. He is his father's son, and that involves a certain amount--actually, a considerable amount--of self-deception regarding the Keller family's...

All My Sons classifies as a classical Greek tragedy because it has all the necessary elements that define one. The essential definition of a classical Greek tragedy is when a hero who is basically...

This is a highly timely and important revelation, as Jim's understanding of Keller's position and his own revelation about how he has been similarly involved in acts of compromise underscore the...

By setting his play in the years following World War II, Arthur Miller emphasizes the dramatic changes in U.S. society and the challenges that many people faced in recovering from the war. Although...

Realism is writing that portrays life as it really is or as it could be. In short, realism in literature seeks to emulate the way highs and lows of everyday life. In realism, the characters act and...

In Act II, with Ann Deever at the Keller home, visiting, she makes it clear that she has no respect or love for her father because of what he did in the plant when he was partners with Joe Keller....

This question is a little difficult to approach because the women in the play serve different roles. Some of the characters seem a bit free in their actions, while others are more restricted....

Near the end of the play, Ann feels that she must reveal the truth about Larry because Kate simply will not accept the idea that he is most likely dead. Kate's firm belief in Larry's being alive...

The announcement of George's visit in Act I creates a level of tension for Ann, Chris, Kate and especially Joe Keller. It serves to open the past events and bring the incident with the faulty...

The conflicts that Chris has with his father, mother, and girlfriend are all related to the death of his brother, Larry. Ann was Larry's girlfriend, who started dating Chris after Larry died in the...

Chris calls Keller "Joe McGuts" after hearing Keller describe his return to the neighborhood after being released from custody. Keller says that instead of parking directly in front of his own...

George is the son of Steve Deever, the former partner of Joe Keller. When he first enters the play, he has just come from visiting his father in jail. He is convinced that Joe is the real criminal...

There is no explicit proof, for example, anywhere in the play where Joe or Kate call Chris their older son, but he is older than Larry. His age, 32, as compared to the younger Anne Deever at 26,...

“I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were.” This is what Joe Keller says after discovering why his son, Larry, killed himself. Larry was angry and...

As a father, Joe Keller thinks that he is sacrificing all that he has to be a strong provider for his sons. He keeps the family business strong so that he can pass it on to Chris and Larry once he...

On the surface, the role of women in All My Sons is fairly conventional. Women such as Kate Keller are confined to supportive roles as wives and mothers. To a large extent, they only live their...

There is so much of this sad play that shows this is a domestic tragedy. A domestic tragedy can be defined as a tragedy where the principal actors in the tragedy are normal lower and middle class...

When Kate Keller says these words to her husband, she is referring to the fact that George Deever, Ann's brother, is on his way to the Keller home. She is very concerned about George's need to...

The two protagonists of All My Sons are Chris Keller and Ann Deever. Their decision to be married, despite Ann's prior engagement to Chris's brother, Frank, moves the plot of the play forward and...

Chris could be described as irresponsible in that he shames his father so badly that he commits suicide. Yet in challenging his father's fraudulent behavior, he wants his family to recognize that...

I would just like to add one additional thought to those that pmiranda has already posted and that is the totally unforgiving society that made a "mistake" impossible. If there had been...

There is a suggestion in the play that Chris always knew about his father's guilt. It is hidden in the fact that Chris has never allowed his name to be put on the business, and in the remark that...

Aristotle defines a tragic hero as a good person, no better or worse morally than most people, who suffers a reversal of fortune due to an error in judgment and excessive pride. He is relatable,...