All My Sons: Significance of title

All My Sons is a play that studies the denial of guilt and social responsibility of a man versus his own self-interest. In AMS, the play shows how Chris Keller, a self righteous man wrecked by survivor's guilt, ultimately confronts the truth of his father's perjury. The bracket of lies and wrongdoing are hastily patched over by a veneer of an idyllic, desirable middle class suburban lifestyle of the Kellers, reflective of the pragmatic American Dream in post-war America. The title is significant in its ambiguity that is open for interpretation as to whether it is of reference to a microscopic view of family ties, or that it is answerable to the larger community as a social contract bound by the altruistic love a man can possibly have for a man. Lastly, it is also a foreshadowing of the various Christian allusions infused into the play.

The title is a foreshadow of the various Christian allusions infused into the play. For example, the scene opens up to a quintessential suburban home of the Kellers. However, a jarring juxtaposition of a broken apple tree (planted to commemorate Larry's death) alludes to the broken eden of the Keller household. Furthermore, Chris Keller in name is already an obvious reference to Christ, and further exemplified in his larger ideals of altruism, although borderlining on martyrdom. Also, Joe Keller, in response to Chris, screams, "A man can't be a Jesus in this world!" This statement was made to project the very idea that the altruistic love Chris expected 'an average Joe' to quantify towards protecting the sovereignty of the community as he would all his own sons, is not realistic in a pragmatic world of "the great big dogs" where "you don't love a man here, you eat him!" Ultimately, the title of All My Sons could refer the altruism Christ portrayed in his cruxification, reflected in Larry in his attempt to atone for his father's ultimate betrayal to all his sons under his social contract by sacrificing himself. However, it could also refer to the subtle underlying fact that just as Christ is referred to as the Son of Man, so was the prophet Ezekiel, except that in Ezekiel's manner it stresses on his humility, a way of saying he is completely a mere human creature in contrast to the glory of God. Miller, through the significant Christian allusions of his title, tries to show that this is what Joe is, a mere mortal susceptible to mistakes rather than the glorified figure that all his sons, Larry and Chris, had regarded him to be - "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."

All in all, by offering a human paradigm of salvation of differing interests, that cannot by its very nature succeed, All My Sons is a thought provoking title that in steeped in metaphor and meaning, and in fact contrasting at times. This is also by itself a consolation Miller offers its readers; that it is hard to put a finger on what or whom is at fault when there are many unanswerable paradoxes where hardly anyone is without blame.