The passage which the following essay analyzes is set at the middle of Act One, and it narrated the conversation between Chris, Ann and Kate Keller. Before this passage, Ann has been getting reacquainted with the Keller's house, and the passage hints at the tension between Ann and Kate that will develop in later acts and clues the audience into Kate's mental instability.
Firstly, Miller uses Ann's defiance of Kate to create tension in the passage. When Kate tries to persuade that "deep, deep in [her] heart [she's] always been waiting for him [Larry]", Ann responds "resolutely": "no Kate." Here, Ann openly defies Kate by answering her claim with decisiveness. Despite, Kate's efforts to convince Ann that she's still waiting for Larry, Ann is not sueded by her, thus showing both that Ann chooses to leave behind things that remind her of her family's past and her decision to form a life with Chris, regardless of whether Kate believed Larry was alive or not. Larry was her former lover, and, by choosing to believe he's dead, something which irks Kate later on when she speaks with "increasing demand" because it is an open defiance of her mental delusion that Larry is alive, Ann is showing she is willing to leave her past behind and destroy her relationship with Kate in order to stay with Chris. Ann's short evasive sentences and repeating rhetorical questions indicate a lack of desire to show any furtive emotions to Kate, as well as a desire to stand her ground, and she is thus showing how she tries to break the roles imposed by the familiar setting of the Keller's backyard; the rhetorical sentences show how she is consistently evasive, thus trying to show to Kate that she does not accept her idea that she is still waiting for Larry. This implies that Ann tries to get across the idea that she no longer wishes to be Larry's girl. She shows her strength and individuality, as she does not bow to resistance from Kate, even knowing that Kate will not accept Ann and Chris' relationship.
