"All my sons" /Arthur Miller
By: Gil Itman
I choose to write my composition about the play "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller.
The play takes place in American suburban after world war II, Joe and his neighbors are sitting in Joe's yard and they are talking about Ad's in the newspaper and about the weather.
After that they are talking about Larry's tree that broke down after the storm that happened last night. By that conversation we find out that Larry is Joe and Kate's son that went missing while the war three years ago.
While their conversation we find out another detail and it's about new guest that will visit the house soon, that guest is Annie – Larry's fiancée before the war.
Chris (which he is Larry's brother) invites her to their house because he wants to merry Annie.
Annie's father – Steve used to be Joe Keller partner in their factory until the case that pot Steve in jail.
Steve and Joe were accused that they sent cracked cylinder parts and by that caused the death to 21 pilots.
Chris tells Joe that he wants to marry Annie but Joe ignores it because he is afraid of Kate's reaction. But when Chris says that we will move to another city and leave the family business Joe instantly changes his mind.
Annie comes to the yard and all the family starts to talk about her and about George her brother.
Chris and Annie are left along in the yard and Chris tells Annie a story about his time in the army that all his soldiers were killed while the war and when he came back he found out that everyone is into making money and getting career while he is not like this.
After that they show their love to each other and they are having their first kiss.
suddenly Joe walks in and says that George – Annie's brother is on the phone calling from the prison that their father is inside, Annie gets inside the house to talk to him while Chris and Joe starts to worry.
The second act of the story starts with Chris chopping of the three of Larry and cleaning the garden.
Kate walks in and asks Chris to protect her and the family in George visit – She is afraid that George will try to bring up the case back but Chris calming her down.
After Kate Annie is walking inside the garden and start talking to Chris about George and she is afraid the George will try to prevent the marriage but Chris calm her down to.
Annie stays alone in the garden while Sue is coming in, Sue and Annie are having a conversation but in the middle they start to fight. After the conversation Sue leaves and Chris walks in the room, they are kissing again and again Joe walks in in the middle.
Joe tells Annie that when she see George to offer him a job in the factory and also to Steve when he exits jail, not as a partner but in a decent job. Annie ignores the offer and she says that Steve is a criminal and he is not worth it.
When George arrives to the house the pressure between the characters is growing because they know that George came from a visit from his father Steve, first he talks with Chris and Annie and his not afraid to bring that subject up, he argues with Chris and says that Joe didn’t came to job that day and talked on the phone because he knew he his going to do something wrong. Annie calms him down and says that the already knows that, and that it was on the trail. And Annie says that the judge found out that Joe is not guilty and that’s enough for her.
Kate enters in the middle of the argument between Chris, Annie and George and when she enters they stop arguing. Kate treats George like a little boy – like she treated him when he was young, that’s the way she is trying to soft George.
When Joe enters the room, the pressure between the characters is back but Annie, Chris, Joe and Kate makes George to leave the idea and the conflict behind, but when Kate says by accident something about Joe's illness and that makes George bring that subject up and makes him mad. After that a huge plot twist is happening, George is telling Annie to come back home with him and Kate says that if Larry is dead then Joe killed him.
Joe and Chris stays alone in the garden and they are having a conversation where in the middle of it Joe confess about his crimes and about sending the broken cylinders parts. Chris reacts very hard to it because everything he believed to was tear apart – the ideals of respect and honor and mostly his dad reputation. Chris is in shock and he ran out the house.
Kate sits alone in the garden and then Jim joins her and they are having a conversation. In that conversation we find out that Chris is missing for a few hours, Annie is locked in Larry's room and that Joe is very uneasy.
Joe joins Kate and he is afraid. He doesn’t know if Chris will tell on him to the police and by that getting him – his own father to jail. Joe blames Kate because she always wanted money and she brought him to do what he did.
Annie walks into the garden and says she got something to show Kate but she didn’t want to show her, she have a letter in her hand, in that letter Larry tell her that he heard of what happened to Steve and Joe and he can't handle with the blame so in his next flight he will going to disappear in china's shore.
Kate takes that letter very hard and she starts to cry.
Joe coming to the garden and arguing with Chris, Joe says that if he supposed to go to jail so half of the people in this country are supposed to go to.
Annie gives the letter to Chris and Chris is reading it out loud so Joe could hear it to, Joe reacts very hard to that letter, he realizes that his acts actually killed Larry.
Joe enters the house by saying he is going to the police to hand over himself because of his acts, Joe enters the house. Kate tries to tell Chris that it's not the right thing to do and he should not hand over his own dad to the police but Chris is resisting to hear what Kate says.
A gunshot heard over the house, Chris and Kate understands that Joe killed himself and Chris is trying to rescue him.
Additionally I feel connected to the Moral of this play because I believe in taking self- responsibility on my acts with my whole heart and The values of honesty and decency are stronger then value of money.
However what I dislike in this play is that the plot was Confusing and complicated and just in the third act I understood the full picture.