Play " All My Sons "

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☆ About  the  play " All My  Sons " : 

The play opens in the backyard of the Keller home, on an August morning following a violent storm. A fallen apple tree, its branches still full of fruit, lies in pieces on the ground. Joe Keller surveys the damage while visiting with his neighbors, Jim and Frank. The men are joined for a short time by their wives, as well as a neighborhood boy, Bert. Talk turns to Annie, former fiancé to Keller’s missing son Larry. Ann is visiting at the invitation of Keller’s other son, Chris. Chris and Ann wish to get married despite the misgivings of Kate Keller, the family matriarch, who continues to hold out hope that Larry may still be alive. Annie admits she has cut ties with her father Steve, who remains in prison for shipping faulty airplane parts that led to the death.of multiple soldiers. Joe Keller defends his partner’s actions to Ann, explaining that Steve made a mistake but is no murderer. Joe and Kate fear Ann and her brother George have come to blame them for Steve’s imprisonment. Chris is troubled as well, suffering survivor’s guilt becauseHe has become financially prosperous while many of his fellow soldiers have died. Joe implores Chris to accept his legacy without reservation. It is the reason Joe has made the choices he has.It is the twilight of the same day. Chris is sawing the broken tree, leaving the stump behind. Kate joins her son, confiding her fear that George might reopen the case against Joe. Sue Bayliss visits with Ann, asking her to move away once she marries Chris, whose “phony idealism” impacts her husband. Ann’s brother George arrives after having just visited their father in 

prison. George demands that his sister leave with him, arguing that Joe was complicit in the actions that landed Steve in jail, and that everything the Kellers have is “covered with blood.” Kate welcomes George, reminiscing about the past and making him forget his convictions 

until she slips and uncovers an inconsistency in Joe’s defense. The ensuing argument upsets Kate, who insists that if Ann and Chris marry, they must all admit Larry is dead and that Joe is responsible. As the act ends, Chris is left despondent as his father admits he ordered the actions that resulted in the deaths of twenty-one soldiers.Act III opens at two in the morning. Kate, as usual, is awake. Chris has driven off after his argument with Joe. Dr. Bayliss sees Kate as he comes home from an emergency, and the two discuss the complex compromises humans must make between money and honesty. Jim goes to look for Chris, and Joe joins Kate outside. Kate cannot find the strength to console her husband or help him decide what to do about turning himself in or losing his son. Defending his choices to support his family, Joe insists that if there is anything more important than family, he will “put a bullet in (his) head.” Ann joins the Kellers and demands that Kate free her remaining son by admitting once and for all that Larry is dead. When Kate refuses, Ann shares a letter Larry wrote the day he went missing. Keller's eldest son crashed his own plane after learning about his father’s role in the downed aircrafts. Unable to face the implica-tions of his father’s actions and the lack of humanity in the world, Chris is determined to leave town. Realizing that due to his actions, he has lost “all his sons,” his own as well as those who  life.

☆ Introduction of Arthur Miller:

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, like so much of his acclaimed works, seeks to explore the most compelling questions about everyday life and the common man. What is “a good life?” What choices must we make to acquire it? What lies must we tell and truths must we face in the process? What do we owe to our community?Written in 1945, the play addresses the complexities of an America just beginning to recover from World War II, a world full of loss and hope, recrimination and redemption. After the frugality of the Depression and war years, it was a society where affluence and abundance could overcome personal ethics. Advertisements and propaganda elevated the tenets of capitalism 

and portrayed the purchase of refrigerators, es, and automobiles as downright patriotic.What relevance might Miller’s play hold for today’s students? In an era where they are bom-barded with messages of commercialism, rampant materialism, and profiteering, All My Sons and its implicit warnings hold plenty of parallels. Americans and their values are just as difficult to define and justify today as in the postwar decade of Miller’s text. And the everyday choices people make can be just as complex and ambiguous.

All My Sons provides multiple, rich opportunities for college and career-ready analysis and activities. In this guide, each of Miller’s three acts serves as the anchor piece for a “text set.” Each anchor is complemented by additional texts such as speeches, primary documents, videos, or images, providing multi-leveled and multi-modal access to the complexities of Miller’s play. Discussion questions and key quotations are provided to elicit student response. Activities integrate college and career ready skills such as evaluating claims, citing text evidence, drawing inferences, determining multiple themes, and analyzing rhetoric, purpose and point of view. Students will take ownership as.

☆ Critical  idea on  " All  My Sons   : 

Nearly all the characters in the play are concerned with the establishment and maintenance of family life. Joe Keller is the “head” of the Kellers: he has run a successful manufacturing business both during and after the Second World War.

Loss and Memory

Many characters in the play wrestle with the memory of loved ones who are now gone: lost to them or dead. The most prominent “lost” character is Larry, one of Joe and Kate’s two sons. Joe believes, ironically, that Larry was more willing to “let slide” some of the small things that help a business to turn a profit.

War, Morality, and Consequences : 

The Second World War is not just the immediate worldwide precursor to the play; it is inseparable from its action.Specifically, the war resulted in the death of Larry and caused the kind of difficult choices that forced Joe and Steve into their fateful decision to allow the production of cracked parts for American planes. But the war also provided Larry, Chris, and other American soldiers a clear set of black-and-white moral choices like  democracy.

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