All My Sons (Characters)

Characters

Annie

See Ann Deever

Dr. Jim Bayliss

Jim Bayliss is a close friend of Chris Keller. He and his wife Sue bought the house formerly owned by Steve Deever and his family; this makes him a neighbor of the Kellers. Although Jim suspects that Joe is as guilty as his former partner is, he likes the Keller family. He even tries to protect Joe from a confrontation with George Deever.

Sue Bayliss

Sue Bayliss, Jim’s wife, reveals that the town knows the truth about Joe Keller, and, unlike her husband, she basically dislikes the family. However, her animus is largely directed against Chris, not Joe. She believes that he knows his father is guilty and has profited from the situation. As a result, she deems him a phony, and she deeply resents his friendship with her husband.

Bert

Bert is a neighborhood boy. He plays with Joe in the beginning of the play, pretending to be a policeman. Bert’s gullibility provides a comic counterpoint to the more serious gullibility of Joe’s son, Chris, who believes in his father’s innocence. Joe has also shown Bert the gun with which, at the end, he kills himself.

Ann Deever

Ann is the attractive daughter of Steve Deever, Joe’s former partner. She is visiting the Kellers for the first time since her boyfriend, Larry Keller, was reported missing in action. She has been invited by Chris; they are in love, much to the consternation of Kate, Chris’s mother.

Ann believes that her father is guilty and has refused to visit him in jail. She is perhaps blinded by her love for Chris, whom she plans to marry.

However, she carries what is in fact a suicide letter that Larry wrote to her before his final mission. Deeply shamed by his father’s conviction, Larry disclosed his inability to live with the fact of his father’s crime. When Kate continues to refuse to believe that Larry is dead and tries to prevent her marriage to Chris, Ann is forced to show her the letter. With the Larry’s final thoughts revealed, Chris is forced to face his father’s guilt.

George Deever

George is Steve Deever’s son and brother to Ann Deever. He is a lawyer and a threat to Joe Keller, who fears that he might try to reopen the case that put Joe and his father in prison. After visiting his father in jail, he confronts Joe. George is convinced that Joe destroyed his father and was the real instigator of the crime. When he discovers that Ann is in love with Chris, he tries to persuade her to leave with him.

Kate’s kindness almost placates him, and he even seems ready to accept Joe’s version of what happened; but Kate inadvertently reveals that Joe was not sick when the defective parts were shipped and thereby confirms what his father had told George. He storms off before Chris is forced to face the truth and Joe commits suicide.

Chris Keller

Chris, at age thirty-two, is Joe and Kate Keller’s surviving son. He is in love with Ann Deever, the former girlfriend of his deceased brother, Larry. He invites Ann to visit the Keller home so that he might propose to her.

A veteran of World War II, Chris now works for his father, Joe. Since being exonerated and released from prison, Joe has built a very successful company. Chris believes that his father is innocent, as he feels was proved at the pardon hearing before Joe’s release. An idealist, he has a very strong sense of justice and responsibility, and he bears a residual guilt for surviving the war when many of his friends died.

He also believes that one should be guided by the noblest principles, and he tries to encourage his friend, Jim Bayliss, to leave his medical practice to pursue a higher calling in medical research. His influence angers Jim’s wife, Sue, who believes that Joe is guilty and that Chris is a hypocrite.

Although his love for his father blinds him to the truth, when Joe’s guilt is finally revealed, he believes that he has no choice but to see to it that his father is returned to prison.

Joe Keller

The Keller family patriarch, Joe is a self-made businessman who started out as a semi-skilled laborer and worked his way up in the business world to become a successful manufacturer. He owns a factory, where he employs his surviving son, Chris.

Initially, Joe seems like a very genial, good-natured man, almost like a surrogate grandfather to the neighborhood kids. He is very outgoing with his neighbors, and has a disarming tendency to engage in some self-deprecation, noting, among other things, that he is not well educated or as articulate as those around him. It is partly a pose, however, for he actually prides himself on his business acumen. His business means a great deal to him, almost as much as his family.

Unfortunately, Joe has sacrificed quite a bit for such success. During the war, he ordered his partner, Steve Deever, to cover cracks in some airplane-engine parts, disguise the welds, and send them on to be used in fighter planes, causing the death of twenty-one pilots. Although convicted, Joe put the blame on Steve and got out of prison.

When the truth is revealed about Larry’s death, Joe is at first unwilling to face the responsibility. Finally realizing the consequences of his actions and his limited course of action, he commits suicide.

Kate Keller

Kate is Joe’s wife and the mother of Chris. Although her older son, Larry, was reported missing in action during World War II, she hopes that he has survived and will eventually return home. She hopes for this not only because she loves her son, but also because she knows the truth about Joe: he ordered his partner Steve to cover the cracks in the cylinder heads that eventually resulted in the death of several American fighter pilots. Although Larry never flew a P-40 fighter, Kate believes that Joe must be held accountable as his murderer. She is finally forced to face Larry’s death when confronted with the letter that he sent to Ann Deever announcing his impending suicide.

Her motives are hidden from Chris, who earnestly wants her to face the fact of Larry’s death and move on with life. He wants to marry Larry’s former girl friend, Ann Deever, but he knows he will not be able to obtain his mother’s blessing as long as she continues to hold on to her unrealistic conviction that Larry is still alive.

Kate is a sympathetic character. She is kind and motherly, but the truth of her husband’s guilt tortures her. As the pressure mounts, she develops physical symptoms of her inner agony. At the end, after Joe shoots himself, she tells Chris to live — something she had not been able to do since the death of her other son.

Frank Lubey

Frank Lubey is Lydia’s husband. A haberdasher, he is perceived as flighty and socially inept. Gracious, intelligent, and attractive, Lydia makes him seem rather silly by comparison. Frank, always missing each draft call-up by being a year too old, did not go to war. He married Lydia when George Deever, her former beau, did not return to his hometown from the war.

Frank’s foolishness extends to his belief in astrology, which would be harmless enough were it not for the fact that he keeps Kate’s hopes of Larry’s survival alive with his insistence that Larry’s horoscope could reveal the truth.

Lydia Lubey

Lydia is Frank’s wife. She is a charming, very pretty woman of twenty-seven, described by Miller as a “robust laughing girl.” Before George went off to war, she was his girlfriend; when he did not return home after his father was imprisoned, she married Frank, a dull alternative. When George does come to confront the Kellers with his father’s accusations, he is reminded of everything he lost. He also knows that Lydia deserved better than she got.

Mother

See Kate Keller

Media Adaptations

• All My Sons was adapted as a film in 1948. Chester Erskine wrote the screenplay. Directed by Irving Reis, the cast included Edward G. Robinson as Joe Keller, Burt Lancaster as Chris, Mady Christians as Kate, Louisa Horton as Ann Deever, and Howard Duff as George Deever. The film is available on videocassette.
• The play was also produced as a television play in 1955 and again in 1987. The 1955 version featured Albert Dekker, Patrick McGoohan, and Betta St. John in its cast. It is not, however, extant. The 1987 version, directed by John Power, was a television special produced by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It featured Joan Allen, Zeljko Ivanek, Michael Learned, Joanna Miles, Aidan Quinn, Alan Scarfe, Marlow Vella, and James Whitmore. It is not currently available on videocassette.