All My Sons

Brilliant play, where it starts off as just a mere domestic drama about grief and the weird relationship of a man going after his brother's fiancée after he passes; it is almost innocent enough where I expected it to merely be about just that. But Miller then begins to twist the knife before stabbing me repeatedly by the end. I was floored by the audacity of the play to kick me while I was down and not have it feel gratuitous.

Chris: Ann, I love you. I love you a great deal. [Finally] I love you. [Pause. She waits.] I have no imagination... that's all I know to tell you.

Chris: I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. I mean you can take those things out of a war, but when you drive that car you've got to know that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, and you've got to be a little better because of that. Otherwise what you really have is loot, and there's blood on it.

Mother: I told you to marry that girl and stay out of the war!
George: [laughs at himself] She used to laugh too much.
Mother: And you didn't laugh enough. While you were getting mad about Fascism, Frank was getting into her bed.

Mother: Your brother's alive, darling, because if he's dead, your father killed him. Do you understand me now? As long as you live, that boy is alive. God does not let a son be killed by his father.

Chris: Is that as far as your mind can see, the business? What is that, the world—the business? What the hell do you mean, you did it for me? Don't you have a country? Don't you live in the world? What the hell are you? You're not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what are you?

Jim: Oh, no, he'll come back. We all come back, Kate. These private little revolutions always die. The compromise is always made.

Keller: There's nothin' in this world he could do that I wouldn't forgive. Because he's my son. Because I'm his father and he's my son.Mother: Joe, I tell you...Keller: Nothin's bigger than that. And you're goin' to tell him, you understand? I'm his father and he's my son, and if there's something bigger than that I'll put a bullet in my head!

Chris: Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars? Then what'll I do it for? We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honour was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don't love a man here, you eat him!

Chris: I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.

Chris: Then what was Larry to you? A stone that fell into the water? It's not enough for him to be sorry. Larry didn't kill himself to make you and Dad sorry.Mother: What more can we be!Chris: You can be better!

Really good

Holy smokes does this play pack a punch! I did not see all of the twists and turns coming. I found myself  having to reread a couple of passages over just to make sure I read what I had read. This is a gut-wrenching tale about how one man's actions forces others to see him, and how it quietly and secretly takes a toll over his family with time.  Arthur Miller seldom disappoints in capturing the emotional dynamics of family life.