All My Sons โ€“ Act 3

Now, the dusk arrivesย but Chris is stillย not back. Kate awaits his return anxiously when Joe entersย the scene. She remonstrates with him andย asks him to go to jail if Chris so desires.

He refuses claiming that he only did what was right for the family and aย prison sentence would not solve anything. They areย joined by Ann who hands Kate the final she received from Larry. It was dated the same as the day his plane disappeared.

The letter tells aboutย the guilt Larry felt after reading his fatherโ€™s crime and the factย that he was going to take his own life to end the pain of such guilt. He also asked Kate to move on in life and find someone else to love.

Now, Chris enters the house. He declares that he had decided to leave his family as he could not face his own father. He expresses no intention of jailing his own father though and therefore cannot marry Ann.

He believes that Ann will forever resent him for not turning his father to the authorities even after learning of his crime. Ann asserts that she did not want that to happen and hands him Larryโ€™s suicide note.

Chris reads it before his father who now knows that his greed and misdeed led to his sonโ€™s suicide dive. He blamesย himself for the death of the pilots who died and confesses his desire to come clean to the police.

He goes to his room to change. Kate asks Chris to stop his father from turning himself in to the police as it was too late in the dayย to achieve any sort of recompense.

Suddenly, they hear a loud gunshot. Joe commits suicide to atone for his and other young pilotโ€™s death. Chris is distraught as he never thought his father would end his life but Kate offers him sage advice even in the chaos.

She asks him to not let this stop his life and to drop any morsel of blame that he might bear for his fatherโ€™s death (much like his father carried for Larryโ€™s death).