The biggest consequence which Keller has to face up to due to his lies is the suicide of his son, Larry. The revelation of this suicide comes from a note and is what emotionally forces Keller to open up and to admit that the cylinder head incident was his fault. Keller had a strong relationship with his son Larry, one closer than with his other son Chris. Keller felt that Larry had the same view that a person only has the responsibility of there family and nothing else, this can be seen by the use of a metaphor relating to this view on page 73 ‘To him the world had a forty-foot front, it ended at the building line.’ , with the forty-foot front being his house, and the great responsibility he had for it, with this responsibility ending at the end of his front lawn. The suicide not revealed to Keller that actually his son, Larry, didn’t have the same selfish outlook which he did, and therefore since Keller now knows that it his him who led to the suicide of his son, he then decides to kill himself by a shot in the head. This death is ironic as it links to the quotation which Keller said earlier on ‘‘I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s something bigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head.
Miller creates a lot of deceit within mother, the mother deceives herself by not believing anyone else. When Keller tells her that Larry is dead, she cannot accept it, she still feels that he is alive and well and will come home. Chris also tries to convince his mother that Larry is dead, but again she doesn’t accept Chris view either. She is so desperate for hope that she refers to astrology with Frank’s help. She finds out that Larry supposedly died on his favourable day and learns that there is one in a million chance of a person dieing on there favourable day. As a result she sticks to the belief that her son is alive and well. She is mentally distressed and rejects any rational thinking which both Chris and Keller say, it has been 3 years since any word from Larry so it would make sense that he is never coming back but still she refuses to believe this. Her thoughts are shown clearly on page 65 when she hears about Chris’ plans to marry Anne, ‘You have nothing to say. Now I say. He’s coming back, and everybody has to wait’ and Chris with his rational thinking replies ‘How long? How long?’ and again Mother very forceful, ‘Till he comes; forever and ever till he comes! As you can see is she is very distressed as she is willing to wait for the rest of her life for her son to come back home. She has deceived herself and his living in her own little world. Mother’s rational thinking starts appearing when she learns the fact that Larry actually committed suicide due to her husband’s actions. She decides not to show the letter to Keller rather than confronting him with it as she knows what it would do to Keller mentally if he finds out that he is responsible for his son’s death. More rational thinking is seen by mother when she says to Chris ‘Don’t dear. Don’t take it on yourself. Forget now. Live.’ She is telling Chris not to deceive himself like she did, so it is now revealed that in actual fact she did deceive herself.
Chris is a character in which the audience can really relate to, the audience only knows what Chris knows, both of them don’t know the real truth. Miller uses Chris to convey the real message out of this story. Chris a character who believes his father and is a very innocent in the beginning of the play. The truth of the cylinder heads effects Chris so much because the people who Keller killed were like brothers to him. Chris refers to the soldiers in war as his brothers because the war experience to him was very moving for him, Chris was amazed to see the courage and love which each soldier gave to each other, and how he was shocked to see that the same courage and love wasn’t seen back at home after the war. On page 66, he calls the soldiers as ‘his boys’ which is a reflection of how much he cared for them. Miller uses Chris to show how businesses made profit out of the war, how they wrongly used innocent soldiers to profit from. . Such as on page 61 when George says how Steve would like to get every man who made money out of the war, Chris replies ‘He’ll need a lot of bullets’ so agreeing with him. Miller is very anti-capitalist, and he makes Chris anti-capitalist as well, he want to make Chris a person who attacks people who want to make money out of doing wrong, that is why he didn’t want his name on his dad’s business. Miller wants to use Chris to show how corrupt the American dream really is.
Chris can be viewed at being a character who never deceives himself or others, however this isn’t entirely true. On page 76 he admits that he suspected that his father was responsible for the soldier’s deaths but still lies and deceives himself to George, ‘‘I suspected my father and I did nothing about it’.
Miller dramatises the theme that sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost very well. He does it very effectively and uses a variety of techniques which makes it effective. If you refer to the word ‘when’ in the actual theme, relates to the point that eventually the consequences of actions are going t come back to haunt the character. This idea of something appearing later on in the story engages the audience who wait to see what the other character reactions are to emerging consequences.
Another way in which he makes the dramatising effective is by stopping us in particular parts in a crucial conversation which is likely to give us the vital information which we need to make full sense and understanding of the play. The stopping in a middle of a heated conversation is known as a diversionary tactic, Miller uses them by introducing new characters who stop a engaging conversation between two of the main characters in the play. An example of the use of a diversionary tactic is shown on page 53. This is where George has entered the scene with Anne and Chris, at first the tension is very low and the conversation is very light-hearted, but it soon switches when George asks Anne whether she has married Chris yet. The topic of marriage increases the tension in the scene, and is aided by the short and sharp verses which both George and Chris say. The argument escalates even further when Keller is brought in to the topic of conversation, ‘Your Dad took everything we have’. The audience become more engaged with the conversation as George demands to see Keller, so that the confrontation which the audience have been wanting for can now happen but Miller holds the audience back and uses a diversionary tactic by introducing mother. Mother quickly reduces the tension and relaxes the atmosphere by referring to George in an informal and friendly way, “Georgie”. George decides to change the topic of conversation which he previously had with Chris and start talking light-heartedly to Mother, he decides to be more friendly as he doesn’t want to alarm or upset such a fragile and disturbed women.
Another effective technique which Miller uses, is the use of stage directions, they are used to portray a characters positions and reactions. They are used to enhance the suspicions within the audience, examples of them are ‘Crossing to them rapidly’, ‘They wait’ and ‘Shaken and therefore angered’. These specific examples are used just before George enters the scene, and makes the audience question to why the other characters have those stage directions.
Miller sometimes makes the audience within the play to question what they should believe in, there are times in the play in which the audience think about what the truth is and what isn’t. An example of this is the two conflicting stories about who is to blame for the cylinder head incident from George and Chris. George proclaims that his father, Steve is innocent and that Keller is the one to blame for this incident, he says that his father was too fragile to ship out the damaged cylinder heads. On the other hand Chris says the exact opposite, he says that Steve is responsible for the cylinder head incident and that his father is innocent, he uses the argument that Steve was so scared to accept the blame for the incident that he blamed it all on Keller in the court room. At this moment in time the audience do not know which story to accept as the truth, but it is likely that the majority of them will believe Chris’s account as Keller mentions in the play how untrustworthy Steve was by giving an incident in which Steve caused problems for him. The story consisted of Steve letting a heater burn without water, Steve denied that it wasn’t him and as a result Chris had to call in a mechanic to fix it. Since there has already been a given example where Steve has shifted the blame on somebody else, it is likely that the audience are not going to believe George’s account in which Steve says that it was Keller’s fault for the cylinder head incident. Miller wants us to believe Keller and put our trust in to him, so that when he admits that he lied to Chris in Act 2 the audience feel that they have been deceived as well and a greater effect is created and the audience instantly show hatred and pity towards Keller.
Miller has a great structure in the play, he specifically introduces different characters at different times to enhance the suspicion of the audience. An example of this is the introduction of George, he doesn’t appear until later on in Act 2, so before then the audience will have there own suspicions about the play as they have not been given the answer to the questions in there mind. With these clouded uncertain suspicions, they are surprised even greater when they learn the truth from George and when Keller openly tells the truth about the incident.
Miller enhances and creates dramatic tension by revealing things towards the end but giving hints earlier on in the play. An example of this would be the telephone call, the audience know that the telephone call seems to be important as they can see the reaction of the character while the person on the other side of the line speak to him, though the contents of the conversation are only revealed later on which creates questions and suspicions within the audience to wander what it could be about. Another way in which tension is created is the use of the letter. We can see that the letter has a big effect on Mother by her reactions to reading it, “Oh, Oh my God”. Thought the contents of the letter are not revealed until later on. The letter is kept hidden from Keller until the end of the play as it is him who will receive the most damage from reading it, which makes the audience say to himself ‘what is he reading’?
In conclusion to this essay I can say that Miller effectively dramatises the them of ‘sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost’ He makes past actions which the characters committed come back to resurface in the play as consequences. Miller shows that nothing can be hidden and that what you thought you did hide will come back even worse. The secrets and lies in the play can only be fully understood by watching the whole play, as more and more information is revealed by Miller as the play progresses. Miller plays with the audiences mind and diverts the from the truth using several techniques, which he does very effectively. Miller keeps the biggest secret till the end which when revealed gives the greatest impact, the suicide of Keller.
