Kate Keller of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Gertrude of Shakespeare’s Hamlet are both very different characters who share but very few similarities throughout the two plays. Ones knowing of their partner’s crime committed, one’s action of lying, and their different levels of intelligence, all prove that the two women are both different.
Incorporated in both Hamlet and All My Sons, are mysteries. In Hamlet of course, is the mystery of Hamlet’s father’s death. Who murdered him? Claudius, we know. However Gertrude did not know. There is no evidence that she had any idea of it, although Hamlet does accuse her, at one event in the play, of knowing that Claudius is a killer. Whereas Kate from All My Sons knows everything about what her husband Joe, has done. She knows he is guilty of the deaths of the pilots. It is evident from the beginning of the play that Kate is in fact guilty of something. When Ann shows up, her behaviour towards her is strange, and of course, she acts this way because she is afraid that Ann may know something that will bring the truth out. She will not let go of the possibility that Larry is alive, which brings in foreshadows. For example when she says to Joe, “You above all have got to believe, you…” (1.309-312)
Ann’s brother George goes by the house shortly after Ann arrives. He had just visited their father in prison, and has come full of rage. Kate notices, and quickly lures him in with her charm, and motherly characteristics to make him almost forget why he was angry, to protect her and Joe from the secret they have