Thursday, April 16, 2015

Questions for All My Sons

Greetings!

As you finish reading All My Sons over the weekend, you may find you want to re-read some of the early parts of the play to look for clues about the ending. Reading the play for a second time is a very different experience!

Also, here is a glossary of terms in the play. There are several things specific to life in the US in 1947 explained in these notes.



To guide your journal entry, and to prepare you to work with and discuss the play Monday, use one (or more) of these questions:

  1. Consider Chris Keller’s world view versus his father’s: One is guided by a sense of responsibility to the greater community, the other by a sense of responsibility to family. Is one of these moral compasses inherently right or wrong?
  2. Do you believe there is some truth to Joe Keller’s argument that certain wrongs are excusable in the name of family? 
  3. Is Joe Keller basically a decent member of society? Do you accept Chris’s idea that his father is “no worse than most men”? Or is what Joe did actually evil?
  4. In what ways does the experience of war impact this play? Do you think American citizens today still retain that sense of “country” that Chris refers to in the climatic scenes of the play?