AMS critical quotations/lenes

English lang lit - all my sons

3 quotations: By Miller from Tragedy of the common man

1. “to bring a man into the direct path of the consequences he has wrought”

2. “Keller’s destruction in the attempt posits a wrong or an evil in his environment”

3. “Tragedy enlightens and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man’s freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts”

critical quotations for Keller

• “all my sons is about a man who places survival above value, self above the group, pragmatism above the ideal, loyalty to family above responsibility to society” - Bigsby

• “keller survives by insulating himself from the involvement in the world” - Bigsby

• “keller seeks conformation that appearance matters more than reality” - Bigsby

• “his desire to pass the business onto his son is rooted in love” - Bigsby

• “the average Joe” - Thrind

• “importaintly Keller’s punishment is thought to come from society rather than from the god’s” - Thrind

critical quotations for Chris and Ann

• “it is precisely chris kellers sense of betraying his old comrades that makes him feel guilty, a guilt that he finally all to ready to project upon his flawed father”- Bigsby

• “she becomes chris’ bargaining tool”- Bigsby

• “chris and ann survive together because they are not trapped by the past that has shaped them”- Denison

• “the gentle fiancée of both sons who letter in hand takes on the role of an agent of change in the most complex circumstances”- Denison

• “even though ann will be marrying into the family which destroyed her father, she has realised that the worst thing to be in life is alone, and she is desperate to hold onto chris”- Abbotson

other critical quotations

• “if george is a reminder of what is being denied, he also represents the innocence of the pre war world”- Bigsby

• “kate keller refuses to acknowledge his death not least because to do so would be to accept a connection between her husbands actions and her own loss”- Bigsby

• “kate is the real kingpin of this family. it is kate whom they must all serve to please and it is kate whom eveyone turns to for advise and comfort”- Joseph

• “it is a play that burns with immediate relevance to a world at war”- Coult

• “the kellers are imprisoned in a jail of their own making”- Kinder

a feminist lens

• ann needs to be married to chris in order to survive in society

• at the time (post war) woman had just had to step up into typically male dominated roles, however when they returned from war, they were pushed back into their domestic roles

• kate powerful maternal instinct is what lets her know what really happened to larry and it is also this that forces her to suppress her knowledge of kellers crime

a marxist lens

• a criticism of the ideology of capitalism and profit being prioritized over human life

• keller = a bourgeois figure, who chooses maternal gain over his social ethical responsibility

• the american dream is a tool used to promote capitalism

• joes decision is rooted in fear of economic suffering and his concern for holding onto his status

• the clash between chris and joe can be seen as a collide between capitalist and collective