Symbolism/Motifs

The Apple Tree

• Represents Larry

• Symbolises the Keller’s lives since Larry’s death.

  Planted at the news of Larry’s disappearance and therefore it marks a beginning of Kate’s determined fantasy that Larry is still alive. Frank makes much of the fact that the tree fell so close to Larry’s birthday - Horoscope.

• Chris’s removal of the tree removes the symbol of the past - he wants to get rid of the memory of Larry so he can be with Ann.

• Biblical Parallel - Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are thrown out of the Garden of Eden for eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

Apples

• They apples are ‘still clinging’ which illustrates how young Larry was when he died.

• They’re symbolic of opportunity & all the possibilities Larry and young men that went off to war had in front of them.

• Keller hands Chris and Ann an apple (broken in half). This represents opportunity and possibility. Opportunity is mainly to Chris demonstrating Keller’s obsession with success and legacy.

The Baseball Glove

• When Kate comments that she tripped over Larry’s baseball glove, she muses that, ‘everything that happened seems to be coming back’ (Act I).

• The baseball glove is somewhat symbolic of the return of Larry.

• However, it’s more symbolic of Larry before he went to war, and before the other characters’ memories of him were coloured by his disappearance.

• It is a symbol of Larry as an adolescent, before the war dragged him into adulthood.

• When he became a soldier, he abandoned his carefree life, in which he could enjoy playing a game.

• As a soldier, his life was dominated by his job.

Jail

• 8 year old Bert plays an ongoing game with Joe Keller in which Joe pretends to have a jail in his basement.

• The make-believe jail represents what lies beneath the Keller house and what weighs down the Keller family; a terrible secret.

• Joe and Bert’s game maddens Kate, who yells them to stop.

• Joe also has an arresting gun, a playful antic that foreshadows the suicidal gunshot at the play’s conclusion.

Steve’s Hat

• George is wearing Steve’s hat.

• Steve’s hat not only generically announces his presence but specifically, his identity as an upstanding business man - something which was obliterated by his arrest and imprisonment.

• George’s decision declares his faith in his father, and represents how he has taken on his father’s way of thinking, rather than his own.

Aeroplanes

• Kate’s dream - Larry flew over the Keller’s house when he was training, which Kate recalled in Act One.

• In a vision, Kate heard the roar of his engine right before the apple tree snapped.

• Kate remarks that George takes an airplane from New York to see his father after 3 long years, a detail that shows the importance and urgency of his trip.

Larry’s Horoscope

Letters

Secrets