Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Letters

Handwritten letters are the media through which characters communicate hidden, important truths. In Act One, Chris tells Joe that he can tell from Ann’s letters that she has accepted Larry’s death. Conversely, Ann tells Chris that “Even in your letters, there was something ashamed,” a reality that drives the action of the play. Chris and Ann have fallen in love through their letters, not uncommon in this wartime.

Ann takes the most important letter from her pocket during the play’s moonlit conclusion, and Kate snatches it from her hand. This letter, Larry’s final letter to Ann, is the climax of the tragedy. Larry’s letter reveals his suicide mission was the result of his father’s actions. Larry’s words make clear that he feels the guilt that his father ignores. Larry reveals that he “can’t bear to live anymore” knowing what he knows.

Clothing

Miller uses clothing as a motif to call attention to relationships. For example, when Ann appears in Act One and Kate remarks on her gorgeous dress, Ann admits that she spent three weeks’ salary on it, a sign of her big-city success. When Kate asks Ann if she’s put her clothes away, Ann is surprised to learn that she is sleeping in Larry’s old room. Ann is embarrassed to realize that Larry’s clothes and shoes are still there and the shoes are all shined.

When George appears at the Kellers’, the first thing Ann notices is his soiled shirt, a reflection of his stained soul. Most significantly, George is wearing his father Steve’s hat, an unusual accessory for him that Ann notices immediately. This hat contrasts with Lydia’s flowered hat, a reflection of her domesticity and creativity. Dramatically, George tells Ann that Steve has grown smaller and that in another year “there’d be nothing left but his smell.”

Secrets

There are many secrets suppressed and confessed in All My Sons. Ann and Chris’s intention to wed is a secret they share first with Joe and later with Kate. Chris shares his secret disillusionment with the war with Ann. Bert, the youngster who plays detective with Joe, won’t share his secret of a bad word spoken by Tommy. Secretly, Kate wanders around the yard at night to calm her fears and commune with Larry. Offstage, Steve shares with George the secret about Joe calling in sick to shirk responsibility of the munitions crime. Of course, the two biggest secrets are the phone call between Joe and Steve on the day that the engines were caulked and shipped and the secret revealed in Larry’s last letter, which was the truth of his suicide and the reason behind it. These secrets lay in waiting, and their exposure both precipitates and resolves the play’s conflicts.