All My Son's Analysis

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Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, takes place over the course of a day beginning and ending at the Keller home. The play opens on a Sunday morning in August and is set in the backyard. Joe Keller is the man of the house providing for his wife Kate and son Chris. Throughout the course of the script they are joined by their friendly neighbors as well as Ann and George Deever, the children of Joe’s former partner, Steve Deever. The important events have come and gone however, through natural dialogue, a choice made in the past is told, which fuels the plot of the play. When the characters are first introduced one can comfortably assume that the Keller’s are a secure upper-middle-class American family. Joe works hard to keep his factory business afloat so that he can provide for and protect his household. Life in the unnamed town seems easily likeable. But as the play goes on, the Keller’s history is gradually peeled away to reveal any family’s worst nightmare. What the characters already know, the audience knows very little about. We are outsiders looking in and getting to know these people as they are in the present time. When more information slowly becomes apparent, and the action of the play ensues, the audience becomes more and more curios. Arthur Miller carefully controls the flow of information rather than relying solely on action, which makes the play feel realistic. Just your typical Sunday chatter between neighbors that the audience can easily relate to. As the play continues, Miller uses certain objects to get the characters to discuss them in reference to events that happened three years ago. Slowly but surely the audience gets all of the necessary information they need to understand what this family has gone through and what they aren’t letting go of. The audience goes along for the ride taking in each and every word enabling them to track how these
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