How far can All My sons be considered a tragedy?

• Joe is a classic tragic hero, begins the play with a loving family and succesful business, possesses a tragic flaw (his belief that his family is more important than anything else, leading to his confused morals and corruption that led him to send out cracked engine heads, knowing full well the engines may fail in a plane) During the play he falls from grace, due to his tragic flaw, as he loses the love of his son Chris when Chris finds out it was infact Joe who agreed to send out the engine heads. At the end of the play he recieves his justice, as his suicide repays the suicide of his son Larry, as well as the deaths of the 21 pilots. The universe is at the end just, adhering to the rules of tragedy, in which the tragic hero must die at the end. Joe also realises his tragic flaw in the play, though after his doom is decided, as after reading Larry's letter he realises the enormoity of what he has done, and his responsibilty for the deaths of 21 innocent sons, though at this point it is too late to save Larry or earn the forgiveness of Chris, and his coming death is the only possible resolution.
• There is conflict, the major conflict being between Chris and Joe over Joe's decision to choose his family's wealth over the possible lives of American pilots. This conflict is also encompassing of the general battle in morals, idealism/realism, with Chris being the idealist and Joe the realist. This major conflict cannot be resolved, as Joe has already acted on his beliefs and Chris has damned him for this.
• Conflict between Kate against Anne/Chris, as Kate refuses  to accept the couple as she believes Larry is returning. Chris believes he is long dead and Anne, unbeknowst to everyone else, knows for a fact he is.
• Innocent characters suffer in the play due to the tragic hero's fatal flaw, notably Chris, Kate, Anne and George.
• Conflict between George and Joe/Chris as George accuses Joe of stiching his father Steve up, also between brother and sister, as Anne still believes Joe is innocent at this point.
• I do not see much hope at the end, which is usual for a tragedy, it is difficult to see how Kate, Chris and Anne can move on from the suicides of both joe and larry, perhaps Chris and Anne will now get married, but the twin suicides are surely too much for Kate to survive, and will forever haunt Chris and Anne at the very least.
• Doomed romance between Chris and Anne, as Larry's brother their relationship is not accepted by Kate.
• Unrequited love from George towards Lydia, another man to have suffered unfairly from circumstances in the war.

All My Sons Act 3

This act, though short, is the most dramatic in the play. Jim Bayliss reveals to Kate that he once ran away to follow his dreams in doing research in New Orleans, however he returned to his wife Sue because he is "a good husband." Jim has been trapped by his possesive wife Sue, and is tied down to his family. He wishes for Chris to run away and start his life over, but knows Chris will come back to his family, as this will be what Chris feels is right. Jim is perhaps a glimpse into the future of Chris, where his ambition, vitality and dreams die in order to be loyal to his family, falling into the same trap of Joe of family over everything else.

Anne reveals her lonliness, and thus refuses to leave the house without Chris, raising a question of whether it is Chris she loves, or whether she is now desperate for any kind of company, having spent three years alone without Larry. Kate refuses to accept Larry is dead, and Anne is forced to give her Larry's last letter, revealing that after hearing about  Joe's arrest and that the cracked engine heads came from Joe's own factory, Larry was so distraught and ashamed that he killed himself. There is a question of why did Anne give Kate the letter now? And not at the time of Larry's death? It is likely that after Joe was proved innocent she did not wish to hurt the family, and did not ever wish to show Kate the letter, but has done so now so she will not be able to interfere with Chris and Anne's relationship.

In his last confrontation with Joe, Chris reveals that his innocence is gone, and he now accepts that the world is a selfish, dog eat dog world. Chris is completely dillusioned with it, having experience honour and comradeship during the war. He says he will not bring Joe to jail, as he understands that many people in the war, did do or would have done the same and most of the world is as selfish as he is, but this does nothing to lessen Chris's hurt, as he believed that his father was better than the rest of the world, but he has now been revealed to be as flawed as the next man, and a "man amongst men."

When Joe reads the letter he finally realises the enormity of what he did, not only has he killed his own son but the sons of 21 other familys, Joe describes them as "All my sons." When Joe shoots himself it satisfied a tragedy's need for the tragic hero to die, and acts as a punishment and payment for the lives Joe took.

All My Sons Act 2

The main event in this act is the introduction of George Deever, who after visiting his father in prison, now believes that Joe is in fact guilty. This opinion is revealed to be shared by the neighbours, as Sue Bayliss reveals to Ann. The fact that the neighbours believe Joe is guilty yet are still friendly towards him shows his ameanable character and the power and influence he has in the neighbourhood, that no-one ever seems to have considered turning him in. There is a major conflict in this act between George and Chris, as George accuses Joe of condemning his father to prison while Chris still believes his father is innocent. Ann takes the side of Chris, also believing that Joe is innocent.

A mini-tragedy is introduced when it is revealed that George had been in love with Lydia, another neighbour the younger generation grew up with. When George went to war Frank Lubey seduced Lydia and married her in his absence, and George appears to be heartbroken by this and by his father's false imprisonment. Joe briefly manages to convince George that his father lied, by pointing to past examples when Steve failed to confess to his faults. However Kate accidentally reveals Joe was in fact partly responsible when she claims Joe was never been ill, when illness was the excuse Joe used when not going into work the day the engine making process went wrong. Joe's fatal flaw is now revealed when Chris realises his fathers guilt. Joe says he did not mean for the engines to go into real planes, he thought the faults in them would have been realised before they were put into planes and they would be discarded, but he was prepared to take the risk in order to save his business and livelihood and keep supporting his family. Joe fatal flaw is he puts his family, business and own personal wealth above everything else, even the lives of pilots. While supporting his family is a noble ambition his morals are confused, as though he feels guilt he still believes what he did was the lesser of two evils and supporting his family was more important than producing safe engines for pilots. Chris is the foil for Joe, Chris has unwavering high morals and is disgusted by what his father did, storming out of the house in the climax of Act 2.

All My Sons Act 1

Prior to the play, Joe Keller and Kate married, raised two sons Chris and Larry in the neighborhood. They lived next door to Steve Deever, Joe's business partner, and his two children George and Ann. Larry and Ann were childhood sweethearts, George grew up loving another neighbour called Lydia. During World War II George, Chris and Larry all went to war. Lydia married Frank Lubey. Larry became a pilot, and was lost in action (presumably when his plane went down.) Joe and Chris have since accepted his death, but Kate still believes he is alive and going to return. Around the time Larry dissapeared 21 pilots were killed when their planes went down after being loaded with faulty engine heads. This equipment came from Joe and Steve's factory, and they were both arrested. At court the two men blamed each other, but Joe was pardoned while Steve was convicted and imprisoned. George and Ann disowned their father, believing him to have murdered the pilots. Joe returned to the neighborhood, he was at first ostrasised from the community, but later things went back to normal, though all the neighbours still believe Joe is guilty. Ann moves away to New York and George moves away to become a lawyer. Chris realises he has always had feelings for Ann. The night before the play starts, three years after Larry's dissapearance, Ann comes to the Keller house after being invited by Chris. The same night there is a great storm and Larry memorial apple tree is blown down. The return of Larry's old girlfriend, who is still unmarried, and the destruction of the memorial tree, give Kate more reasons to believe that Larry is still alive.

Tragic elements

• Comic relief provided by neighbours, Jim and Sue Bayliss. And Frank and Lydia Lubey.
• Betrayal is a large theme. Chris wants to marry Ann, his brothers girlfriend, betraying his memory. Conflict between Kate and Chris.
• Steve is in prison, Joe professes his innocence over the faulty engine parts, but does he have something hide? Conflict between Joe and the Deever children, and possible Joe and Chris as well.
• Joe's fatal flaw? Appeasement? Simultaneously appeasing Chris's desire to marry Annie and Kate's belief that Larry is still alive.
• Joe and Kate's marriage doesn't seem to be that affectionate. Kate is annoyed that Joe has given up hope of Larry coming back.

The Great Gatsby Chapter 1

The Great Gatsby is written in the first person, from the point of view of Nick Carraway. Nick starts the story by telling the audience of a peice of advice his father gave to him in his youth, not to judge or criticise anyone as they have not had the advantages Nick himself has had. Nick says he has taken this advice to heart, and says he now reserves all judgement on other people, when their moral standards do not match up to Nick's own, which he protrays as being very high. He portrays himself as being very tolerant and non-judgemental, but his determination to not judge has caused him to avoid intimate revelations from other people, so he will not be tempted to judge them for their most secret actions. As such it seems Nick was perhaps a bit of a loner at college and in his early life, as he did not want to form an intimate bond with another person for fear of being judgemental. It is important to start the novel with his passage, as it sets up Nick's shy and unitimate personality, and explains his often aloof nature and the reasoning behind it. Despite preaching tolerance Nick appears to perhaps to have let snobbishness in, as he "snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth." While he is tolerant of people with less manners and lower morals due to their poorer background he is also suggesting that people of a lower class than himself can't be of the same moral standard as someone of a higher birth, and is making excuses for some peoples behaviour when all that is to blame for their own malovolence is their own actions, and not the opportunities presented at birth. However Nick recognises the limits of this view, and says that good manners can be founded on hard rock or wet marshes and it doesn't matter where the person has come from, they are still capable of high morals. He said that when he came back from the East he wanted the world to be at a moral attention forever. While this revelas Nick is writing about his experiences in New York the previous summer and autumn, it also revelas that perhaps while in the east Nick experienced some moral shortcomings, and now wishes that despite his earlier views about opportunities at birth, everyone in the world had the same high morals as himself. Nick introduces Gatsby, the titular character, and say that Gatsby was somehow different from anyone else. Despite promising to be non-judgemental Carraway says Gatsby represents everything for which Nick has "unaffected scorn."

First Opinions on Nick Carraway

Nick Carraway seems to be quite wealthy and upper class, as he is descended from some old scottish dukes, he attended Yale University (only the richest can afford to go) and his father can afford to fund his first year living in New York. He seems to be a restless person, and one who wants to both reform and rebel. He wants to move away from his home town, and not take on the hardware business that has been in his family for three generations, however he choses the bond business because as he says, everyone he knows is in the bond business. He claims this is a move based on reality, he thinks that the bond business is a flourishing business and he can be financially stable from it, but perhaps he has been swayed by bother sharesmen.

He says that he has taken some of his father's advice very seriously, and as such judges no man, no matter what they do, based on the fact they are from a more disadvantaged background. This seems to be a good quality, but he goes on to say that fundamental decencies are parcelled out unequally at birth, he admits this is a snobbish thing to say, because though he accepts lower class people when they do not act in the way he is expected too, neither does he give them a chance to act above the label given to them by soceity. Carraway claims he has always tried to get out of situations when someone is about to reveal an intimate issue, as he wishes not to judge them for what they have done, but this lack of social contact has probably made him a socially awkward and certainly a reserved individual, believing that people should keep their problems to themselves, and outward expressions of emotion should be limited.

Two Hands

The poem two hands is written in a fairly formal style, there is no use of slang or colloqualism. The poem is written in one long stanza, with a heavy use of ejampment. It is a free verse poem, as it doesn't seem to conform to any recognised poetry style. It is written in the first person, from the point of view of the poet himself, speaking about his own life and profession and father. There is a subtle ryhme scheme, the second and third lines ryhme, then there are two non rhyming lines, then a rhyming couplet, then two non-rhyming lines, then another rhyming couplet etc until you get the last line which is non-rhyming, just like the first line. These lines are desgined to stand away from the poem, as the beginning and end. The poem's enjampment has been carefully set out to adhere to this unusual rhyme scheme, which isn't obvious to a listener of the poem.
There is a heavy use of personification in the poem, as the two hands mentioned in the poem are metaphors for the poet and his father. The poem is about the contrasting careers of the two men, so the poem title "Two hands" is good as it represents the two different men, about which this poem is about. The first piece of personification is when the pencil in his fathers hand is described as "nodding stiffly." This creates an image of his father tapping his medical journal with a pencil at certain sentences, like some people do when reading (though we only learn later he is reading a medical journey) but the word stiffly suggests fatigue and tiredness, and when we learn this man has performed thirteen operations that day, we understand why the word stiffly is used, as his fathers hand is exhausted. The same hands is described as "leading the scalpel an intricate dance." Scalpels don't really dance, but is is another use of personification and creates an image of the quickness of movement of the scalpel, and the different moves it must make during an operation, controlled by the fathers hand. The phone is described as having "sobbed itself to sleep." This personification creates the image of the phone ringing and ringing, and being ignored by the father, has eventually become silent. The word sobbing makes the phones ring sound loud and desperate, and perhaps the incoming calls are to summon the father to another operation. He has chosen to ignore the call as he "has articles to read." The poet is at the other end of the house, listening to the phone calls, and he begins to curse his own hand (the hand represents himself and his own talents.) He blames the hands indescisions, but he means his own indecisiveness. He describes his fingers as having "some style on paper, elsewhere none" This imagery is referring to his own talents, he is a talented writer and poet, but has little other talent. He describes the two hands as being similar in appearance, but completely different in what they do. The hands represent the two men as a whole, so the two men probably look very similar, and may even have some similarites in personality, but the men have completely different talents and different jobs, Jon Stallworthy is a poet, while his father is a surgeon. Stalworthy is jealous of his father's profession, and uses the hands metaphor to describe how he writes all day, saving no-one's life, not really helping anyone, while his father saves many people's lives everyday, and is really having a positive impact on society. The poet feels useless and feels like his poems are completely pointless compared to the important work his father does. Stallworthy Junior feels he is in the shadow of his better and more talented father. He again uses the word dance as personification, but to describe his own hand writing with a pencil. He describes his fathers hand as fast, while his as slow, this contrast enforcing an unfavourable comparison, making himself sound like a bit of a lazy bum while his father is the superhuman lifesaver. The tone is that the poet is jealous of his father, and feels useless in his current profession