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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Apple Tree

The toppled apple tree, laden with all its Christian symbolism, sits downstage left in honor of Larry. Just as Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden that led to the fall of man, so does the fall of Larry’s tree symbolize the start of the fall of his family. Fruit still clings to its branches, the way that Larry’s memory still clings to his family. Several characters comment on the tree’s fate and are physically drawn toward it during the action. Kate complains that they planted it too soon and remarks on the coincidence that the tree blew down in the month Larry was born and on the very day that Ann visits. Kate saw the tree snap right in front of her as she walked in the windy yard.

Act Two opens with Chris sawing the broken-off portion of the tree, leaving only a stump that remains visible throughout the rest of the play. When George appears, he remarks that the trees have gotten thick, symbolizing the tangled delusions that nearly obscure the deadly pretenses of these households.

Airplanes

The damaged airplanes flown by twenty-one Air Force pilots hover in the metaphorical center of the play, but other airplanes also contribute to the play’s meaning. Larry flew over the Keller house when he was in training, which Kate recalled in Act One. In a vision, Kate heard the roar of his engine right before the apple tree snapped. Kate remarks that George takes an airplane from New York to see his father after three long years, a detail that shows the importance and urgency of his trip.

As the play reaches its climax, Chris demands to know how his father could allow faulty engines to be sent to war. Joe retorts that he never thought the engines would be installed in planes, and Chris accuses, “Kids were hanging in the air by those heads. You knew that!” A symbol of the technical progress during World War II, airplanes were the means to winning the war. However, in All My Sons, airplanes symbolize the dark underbelly of the deadly military-industrial complex, and even more so, the danger of the American Dream.

Jail

Eight-year-old Bert plays an ongoing game with Joe Keller in which Joe pretends to have a jail in his basement. This make-believe jail represents what lies beneath the Keller house and what weighs down the Keller family: a terrible secret. Joe and Bert’s game maddens Kate, who yells at them to stop. Joe also has an arresting gun, a playful antic that foreshadows the suicidal gunshot at the play’s conclusion.

There are real jails in the play, too, as first mentioned by Frank in Act One in reference to Steve being in prison. Joe also spent time in prison until he was exonerated of the munitions crime. Joe describes being in the cell next to Steve when they heard the news of Larry’s disappearance. When Joe finally admits his guilt, both Kate and Chris tell him that he belongs in jail, a reality he seems to accept but then denies by killing himself.

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