All My Sons

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1947

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act I

Act II

Act III

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Houses

All My Sons is staged in the backyard of a typical mid-century American town. The Kellers’ house serves as the backdrop to the entire play, giving a prominence to the home as an important symbol. For Joe, the house is the clearest symbol of why he has done what he has done. By building a business and buying a house, he is adhering to the principles of the American Dream. The house is evidence of Joe’s success, which has come in spite of his self-admitted lack of intelligence. Though hard work, he claims, he has provided for his family, and the house is a symbol of this legacy. At the same time, however, Joe’s success is not built solely on hard work. The house symbolizes his need to excuse his immoral behavior, and the way it dominates the stage represents the way his lies and misdeeds tower over all of his success. Joe deludes himself into believing that the house justifies his actions, even as this delusion is steadily torn apart over the course of the play. The house serves as a symbolic reminder to the audience of how Joe has excused this behavior, right up until the end.

For Chris, a house means something else entirely. Even at the start of the play, when Chris is still swept up in his idealistic impression of what it means to live in America, he has no interest in inheriting his father’s house. Chris is a true believer in the American Dream, and he believes that he should build something for himself. He wants to earn a house in his own right and symbolically achieve his own ambitions by starting afresh in a new house in a new city. In this sense, Chris tacitly accepts his father’s idea that the house represents a successful legacy that he can leave for the next generation. Since Chris is such a true believer, however, the idea of simply inheriting a house seems hollow to him. Ironically, the house symbolizes an ideal of American success for both father and son.

The Keller house is not the only symbolically important house in the play. When George and Ann return to the neighborhood where they grew up, they are given the chance to take a tour of the house in which they once lived. Now, Jim and Sue live in the house and have made many changes. Since George and Ann moved out, their lives have fallen apart. Their father is in prison and, until recently, they refused all contact with him due to the nature of the crimes of which he was accused. As such, George declines the offer of a tour. He does not want to enter his childhood home because, to him, the house symbolizes a happier time. In recent years, he has so few happy memories of his family that he does not want to be reminded of how much his life has changed in the intervening years. Seeing how much his childhood home has been altered would only remind George of how much he has lost. George and Ann return to the neighborhood and spend all their time in other houses, not wanting to undermine the few happy memories they have left.

The Apple Tree

In the aftermath of Larry’s disappearance, the Keller family planted an apple tree in their back yard. The tree does not have the same symbolic meaning for all the family members. For Joe and Chris, the tree is intended to memorialize the missing member of the family. They accept that Larry is dead and the tree is planted to honor his memory, functioning as a symbolic acceptance of his death. Kate does not like the tree. She does not accept the possibility that Larry is dead, and she rages against anyone who threatens to undermine her delusion. To her, the tree symbolizes her family’s betrayal. She hates the tree because she hates the idea of giving up on Larry. In this way, the apple tree symbolizes the discordant reactions of the Keller family to a seismic event. While the tree stands as a testament to the practical way in which Joe and Chris have accepted reality, Kate’s hatred for the tree marks her as different from the other members of the family.

At the beginning of the play, the tree has just been knocked down by a storm. The characters react differently to this event, and through their reactions, they reveal their evolving characters. Joe is the first character to mention the tree. He stares at it while reading his newspaper, doing nothing to clear the debris from the yard. He is more interested in the tree as a conversation piece that in any symbolic meaning it might have. By contrast, Kate loudly declares her pleasure that the tree has fallen. For her, this is yet another sign that Larry is still alive. Some unknown force is sending her a message, she suggests, by dismantling the same tree that represents her son’s death. Chris is the most practical of the three. At the beginning of the second act, he is dismantling the tree carefully so that all that is left is the stump. He is the only person mature enough to properly process Larry’s death. He is neither trapped in a delusion like his mother nor resistant to the truth like his father. In taking the tree apart and clearing up the mess, Chris is symbolically demonstrating that he is the sole member of the Keller family who is willing to do what must be done.

The apple tree also has a broader symbolism, evident from its position in the yard. When both Ann and George return to the Keller house for the first time in many years, they remark that the trees have grown up around the house, blotting out the light in the yard and throwing the Keller property into shade. The apple tree is an extension of this, creating even more darkness for a family that has—in a symbolic sense—much that it wishes to keep away from the light. Joe’s secrets and Kate’s delusions are represented by the shadows, as they desire to avoid the glaring light of the truth for as long as possible. When the apple tree falls, several characters remark on the way in which the empty space where the tree once stood now allows much more light into the property. This is a subtly symbolic comment, as the falling of the tree before the start of the play sets into motion the chain of events that disperses the shadows from the Keller household. They have been avoiding the truth about Larry’s death for years, and the falling of his memorial tree suggests that this approach is untenable. The light is pouring into the yard, illuminating the inconvenient truths and casting away the shadows from the lives of Joe and Kate. Whatever delusions they once had, however much they insist on lying to themselves, they will not be able to do so much longer. Like the symbolic tree, their false realities will soon come crashing down, and the light will return.

Larry’s Letter

At the end of Act III, Ann reveals that she is in possession of a letter Larry sent to her in the days before he disappeared. While Larry’s disappearance has long been unexplained, the letter reveals that Larry learned about his father’s role in the distribution of faulty engines and his status as a war profiteer. Larry could not live with this knowledge, so he took his own life. The letter is an important clarifying tool in resolving many of the tensions that have arisen throughout the play. Furthermore, the way Ann has kept the letter to herself for many years is deeply symbolic. Ann has known the truth since Larry’s disappearance, but she did not share the letter with Larry’s family. In the letter, she learned that Larry took his own life because of the serious crimes of which both their fathers were accused. Since she believed the court’s judgement that her father was guilty and Joe was innocent, Larry’s suicide takes on an even more tragic dimension. Ann has seen how her boyfriend and childhood friend reacted to something that she believes was the fault of her father. She cannot bring herself to show the letter to the family because she blames her father for Larry’s death. The slow reveal of the letter symbolizes Ann’s slow realization that Joe, rather than Steve, was at fault.

First, Ann shows the letter to Kate, who she believes needs closure. In response to the letter, however, Kate remains in denial. She slips into silence and vanishes into the back of the stage, unwilling to share what she has learned with the people who already believe Larry to be dead. Chris’s response represents his complete contrast to his mother. As everyone is arguing, Chris uses an important truth to silence his family members. He reads the letter out, deciding that the time has come for the private and tragic truth to be known. This is an action that symbolizes Chris’s idealism, in that he believes that the truth should be told, no matter how harmful or damaging it may be. While Joe has been willing to indulge Kate’s delusion, Chris is ripping away the metaphorical bandage by publicly reading his brother’s words. The letter is the catalyst for Joe’s suicide, bringing the play to a close. In this way, the letter symbolizes the need for truth, however painful, to shatter comforting delusions.