George studied law in the hospital and became a lawyer, but when he got out he didn’t think there was much of a law. When Chris asked him how the law was, he replied;
‘I don’t know. When I was studying in the hospital it seemed sensible, but outside there doesn’t seem to be much of a law.’
Even though he owns his own office he still doesn’t seem to be getting much business because when his sister Ann asked him when he started wearing a hat he answered back;
‘Today. From now on I decided to look like a lawyer anyway’
Again this shows signs how disillusioned people who were at war actually were.
Chris is disillusioned by the business, he doesn’t like it much, but he is doing it for the sake of it.
Chris has lost everyone in the command. It has stayed with him.
‘I felt wrong to be alive, to open a bank-book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. I mean you can take those things out of the war, but when you drive that car you’ve got to know that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, you’ve got to be a little better because of that. Otherwise what you have is really loot, and there’s blood on it. I didn’t want to take any of it.’
Then Chris goes on to tell Ann about what his boys were like when he was in command,
‘You remember, over seas, I was in command of a company...Well I lost them…….it takes little time to toss that off. Because they weren’t just men. For instance, one time it’d been raining several days and this kid came to me, and gave me his last pair of dry socks. Put them in my pocket. That’s only a little thing-but…that’s the kind of boys I had. They didn’t die; they killed themselves for each other. I mean that exactly; a little more selfish and they would have been here today’
Chris couldn’t believe that know one had changed after the war, he said it was like a ‘bus accident’.
‘I came home and it was incredible. I-there was no meaning in it here; the whole thing to them was kind of a bus accident’
Friendship will never be the same as those during the war. The friendships in the war were so intense; there was tremendous loyalty and support.
Those who stayed at home were quite well off, they were prosperous, married and had families.
Frank was always a year ahead of the draft, so he couldn’t get to fight in the war. He stayed at home and got a job in harberdashing (making men’s and accessories), got married and had three children. Frank is happy the life he has got now unlike Jim who became a doctor and was in medical research studying a certain disease for two months and lived on bananas and milk. He loved it. But his wife Sue came to him crying looking him home so he went with her. But now he lives in the ‘usual darkness’ and he can’t find himself. He even said that it is
‘even hard to remember the kind of man that I wanted to be.’
Jim can go into medical research again but it only pays ‘twenty five dollars a week minus laundering the hair shirt’. As all Sue seems to think about is money she isn’t keen on the idea so she tells Ann that when her and Chris get married for them to find a place away from where her and Jim live, as Chris makes people ‘want to be better than it’s possible to be’.
In the 1930’s and 1940’s, Japan attacked and took over parts of China and south-east Asia. As punishment the United States stopped selling oil and other goods to Japan. The Japanese leaders resented this interference. They decided to stop America with military force. Their air force bombed the American naval base in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Nineteen US ships and 150 planes were destroyed and about 2,400 people were killed.
The next day, the US Congress declared war on Japan. Britain and India did the same. Three days later, Japan’s friends, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. For the second time in 25 years.
Why did the Crash start?
On 24 October 1929, some shareholders began to lose confidence and believing that the prices of shares could not continue to rise forever, decided to sell. A panic began, and so many shares were sold on that day that it became known as Black Thursday. The Wall Street Crash was under way. By Tuesday 29 October so many shares were being sold that the teleprinters could not keep up, share prices continued to fall, and people lost vast sums of money and were ruined.
Reasons linked to overproduction that led to the Wall Street Crash:
1. Companies were producing too many goods.
2. American goods could not be sold abroad because other countries had put tariffs (taxes) on them to make them more expensive.
3. When the demand for goods began to fall, workers' wages were cut and some workers became unemployed, which meant that they could no longer afford to buy the new consumer goods.
4. Farmers could not afford to buy the new consumer goods.
Service draft boards registered 31 million men. Including volunteers, more than 15 million men and women served in the Armed Forces during the war.
During the war the working force at home increased from over 46 millions to 53 million. (Lydia Lubey makes clothes in her house.)
Although 2 millions people suffered from sub-standard incomes, most families benefited financially during the war. Gross weekly wages rose from $25.20 to $43.39. However, the cost of living also rose and most workers had to pay income tax for the first time. Ann spent 3 weeks wages on a dress, which shows just how expensive life was in New York. The cost of living went up by 25% between 1939-1945. Personal income was more or less useless as the availability of goods and services was very low.
The government gave every family ration books, or food allowance. At food shops you could use stamps if you were given them to buy 450 g of sugar every two weeks.
America’s factories ran day and night. Americans made 300,000 warplanes at a cost of $45 billion.
When Steve shipped out those faulty cylinder heads, (Joe rang in and said he was sick with the flue) he knew what he was doing was wrong but there was so much pressure on him to get those cylinder parts out, people were shouting left, right and centre looking the deliveries that he had no choice but to send them on out in the hope that they would be okay and know one would notice they were faulty.
Joe said in the play that he had no choice but to ship them out or else he would lose his contract, so obviously during the war the businesses run on contracts.
‘I’m in business, a man is in business; a hundred and twenty cracked your out of business; you got a process, the process don’t work you’re out of business; you don’t know how to operate, your stuff is no good; they close you up, they tear up your contracts, what the hell is it to them?’
When Joe said this statement he finished it off, his voice cracking, with his more or less confessing that he had done it deliberately but didn’t think it would have such devastating effects.
‘I never thought they’d install them. I swear to God. I thought they’d stop ‘em before anybody took off.’
Chris is set to inherit his fathers business, he describes himself as a ‘kind of medium executive’, who is clearly living comfortably, having just returned home from war and gone
‘to work with Dad and that rat race again.’
Again the Kellers are living very comfortably indeed. They have a maid which Joe has ‘worked forty years’ to get. In the ice box Kate has ‘a ham and fresh strawberries’ as well as ‘avocados’. When they talk about going out its ‘to dinner a couple of nights, maybe go dancing at the shore’
Joe also wants to book champagne and steak, this again shows signs of prosperity.
‘I spoiled both of you. I should’ve put him out when he was ten like I was put out, and make him ear his keep. Then he’d know how a buck is made in this world.’
Joe said that statement to Kate, when she said that what Joe had done was wrong. Joe completely missed the point, he said that he had done it all for his family.
‘You wanted money, so I made money.’
Then he tried to make it out that Kate practically drove him to it, he When Steve shipped out those faulty cylinder heads, (Joe rang in and said he was sick with the flue) he knew what he was doing was wrong but there was so much pressure on him to get those cylinder parts out, people were shouting left, right and centre looking the deliveries that he had no choice but to send them on out in the hope that they would be okay and know one would notice they were faulty.
Joe said in the play that he had no choice but to ship them out or else he would lose his contract, so obviously during the war the businesses run on contracts.
‘I’m in business, a man is in business; a hundred and twenty cracked your out of business; you got a process, the process don’t work you’re out of business; you don’t know how to operate, your stuff is no good; they close you up, they tear up your contracts, what the hell is it to them?’
When Joe said this statement he finished it off, his voice cracking, with his more or less confessing that he had done it deliberately but didn’t think it would have such devastating effects.
‘I never thought they’d install them. I swear to God. I thought they’d stop ‘em before anybody took off.’
Chris is set to inherit his fathers business, he describes himself as a ‘kind of medium executive’, who is clearly living comfortably, having just returned home from war and gone
‘to work with Dad and that rat race again.’
Again the Kellers are living very comfortably indeed. They have a maid which Joe has ‘worked forty years’ to get. In the ice box Kate has ‘a ham and fresh strawberries’ as well as ‘avocados’. When they talk about going out its ‘to dinner a couple of nights, maybe go dancing at the shore’
Joe also wants to book champagne and steak, this again shows signs of prosperity.
‘I spoiled both of you. I should’ve put him out when he was ten like I was put out, and make him ear his keep. Then he’d know how a buck is made in this world.’
Joe said that statement to Kate, when she said that what Joe had done was wrong. Joe completely missed the point, he said that he had done it all for his family, but he still failed to notice that he had went the dreadfully wrong way about it.
‘You wanted money, so I made money.’
Then he tried to make it out that Kate practically drove him to it, he was putting some of the blame of her to try and lift his conscience a bit.
‘You wanted money so I made money. What must I be forgiven? You wanted money didn’t you?’
Joe referred to the factory during the war as a ‘madhouse’.
‘Every half hour the Major callin’ for cylinder heads they were whippin’ us with the telephone. The trucks were hauling them away hot, damn near.’
When the cylinder heads were still hot it just goes to show how much of a ‘madhouse’ it really was. It was so busy that there wasn’t even time for the products to cool down.
Frank is successful and he has achieved everything he has now through haberdashing. He stayed at home continuing in the business of haberdashing.
He would have done well in this sort of business because during the war there was a great demand on uniforms etc. so Frank would have done very well. There was a shortage of clothing in the shops so Frank could have charged a very high price for clothes and people would have no other choice but to pay it.
Frank represents those who have prospered even if they weren’t manufactured like Joe Keller.
Even though Frank was the same age as Chris and George there is an immense difference between them. Frank is settled down, married, has three children whereas George and Chris are single, unfulfilled and emotionally unstable.
George and Chris made a few comments about Frank;
George: He won the war, Frank.
Chris: All the battles.
Kate also made a comment about Frank, she said;
‘next door he never reads anything but Andy Gump has three children and his house paid off. Stop being a philosopher and look after yourself.’
Then Kate went on to lecture George on how he should off married ‘that girl (Lydia) and stay out of the war’.
Larry was out in war when he found out about the actions of his father, he sent a letter to his ‘then’ girlfriend telling her of his whereabouts and how he was feeling. He killed himself. He drove his plane of the west coast of China.
Joe always thought that Larry would have understood that what he had done was for the family but he was devastatingly mistaken and that mistake drove him to shoot himself. He couldn’t live with himself just as Larry couldn’t live with Joe’s actions.
In conclusion this play has given me an unambiguous insight into American society. This society seems to be happy, comfortable and prosperous. The ideal community.
But underneath the faultless society lies the heartbreak and hardship from the war. The families are forced to deal with the tension and unpleasant truths that emerge years after the conflict broke out.
This play shows just how close the boys were in the war and how close their friendships were; they literally died for each other.
And what Joe never realised was that the pilots he was shipping the cylinder heads out to were like his sons; and unfortunately he was their worst enemy.
I will end this piece of coursework with a quote from Arthur Miller himself;
''i think the essence of the tale remains what it always was, that there is a society out there and one has certain responsibility toward it if only on a purely human level, if one may speak in those terms.' Arthur Miller, January 13th, 2003
Laura Clinton 11a1