Quote 1
Chris: I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. (1.541)
When he returns from the war, Chris suffers survivor's guilt. This guilt is informed not only by his own experience of war, but by his buried suspicion that his father is a war profiteer.
Quote 2
Chris: Yesterday they flew in a load of papers from the States and I read about Dad and your father being convicted. I can't express myself. I can't tell you how I feel – I can't bear to live any more. (3.162)
We learn from his letter that Larry takes the full weight of his father's guilt on himself. As Chris says in an earlier monologue, it's the really brave ones who never made it back from the war.
Quote 3
Chris: If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give myself to. Annie is in the middle of that. (1.219)
Chris hopes he can maintain a balance of making money and building a life he can believe in. His idealism prevents him from acknowledging the reality of the business he's inheriting.
Quote 4
Chris: George, you don't want to be the voice of God, do you? (2.238)
Like his father, Chris wants George to "see it human." Chris is a compromising moral relativist long before he realizes it at the end of the play.
Quote 5
Chris: I could jail him! I could jail him, if I were human any more. But I'm like everybody else now. I'm practical now. You made me practical. (3.124)
Again, Chris places the blame on his parents, who "made" him practical. He needs an out just as much as his father does.
Quote 6
Chris: Then what was Larry to you? A stone that fell into the water? It's not enough for him to be sorry. Larry didn't kill himself to make you and Dad sorry. (3.175)
We wonder why Chris wants his father to be punished so much. For the ideal of justice? To keep Ann? To cancel out his own complicity?
Quote 7
Chris: We've made a terrible mistake with Mother… being dishonest with her. That kind of thing always pays off, and now it's paying off
Keller: What do you mean, dishonest?
Chris: You know Larry's not coming back and I know it. (1.167-69)
A small foreshadowing of the moral positions of both Joe and Chris here. Chris acknowledges a reality but does nothing to address it; Joe pretends it doesn't exist.
Quote 8
Chris: Everything was being destroyed, se but it seemed to me that one new thing was made. A kind of… responsibility. Man for man. You understand me? – To show that, to bring that on to the earth again like some kind of monument and everyone would feel it standing there, behind him, and it would make a difference to him. (1.541)
Before Chris can give himself fully to Ann, he needs her to understand the conflict he feels between the idealism of the war and the practicality of daily life back home.
Quote 9
Chris: You killed them, you murdered them
Keller: How could I kill anybody? (2.533-4)
Joe can't identify himself as a murderer, and truly doesn't understand why Chris sees it this way.
Quote 10
Chris: For me! I was dying every day and you were killing my boys and you did it for me? What the hell do you think I was thinking of, the Goddam business? Is that as far as your mind can see, the business? (2.557)
Chris's wider vision of humanity is informed by the war. In his earlier monologue with Ann, he confesses that he feels it draining out of him. In some ways, All My Sons is a sad coming-of-age story for Chris.
Quote 11
Chris: I've been thinking, y'know? – maybe we ought to put our minds to forgetting him? (1.273)
While Chris may be the most idealistic character in the play, his gentle request to let go of the past doesn't stem from concern for his mother. He's preparing the stage to marry Ann.
Quote 12
Chris: I've been a good son too long, a good sucker. I'm through with it. (1.215)
Loyalty to his family is getting in the way of Chris's personal happiness.
Quote 13
Chris: I'm yellow. I was made yellow in this house because I suspected my father and I did nothing about it… (3.122)
OK, Chris is a very sympathetic character but look at the way he phrases his acknowledgement of cowardice here. "I was made yellow." Like his father, he shifts responsibility to someone else's shoulders.