A Brief Discussion of the American Dream in Arthur Miller's 'All My Sons'

Another post, this time rather delayed I fear. Anyway, here it is, a discussion of money, responsibility and the American Dream in Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons. I used the Penguin Modern Classics Edition and hope you enjoy reading.

“Money. Money-money-money-money. You say it long enough it doesn’t mean anything.” (page 73)

In Miller’s All My Sons, money and responsibility play a huge role as themes, as does loyalty. However, it is an obsession with the American Dream which not only drives the plot but also drives the characters (sometimes in to madness!). In a new, better educated America, the main character, Joe Keller, struggles to accept that his hard work and dedication to his business is not enough. Desperate to hand the business down to his son, Keller has committed awful sins against his nearest and dearest in order to keep it alive. His son, meanwhile, has dreams and desires of his own, ones which are perhaps not quite in keeping with those of his family. It is a combination of this rebellion and his father’s obsession that make this play so absorbing and fascinating.

Perhaps the most interesting character in All My Sons is that of Joe Keller, the self-made patriarch with a desperation to pass on his business to his son, but also a colder, more hardened ability to shirk blame and gladly hand it to somebody else. At the very beginning of Act One, we are introduced to Keller through the stage directions, which state that ‘When he reads, when he speaks, when he listens, it is with the terrible concentration of the uneducated man for whom there is still wonder in many commonly known things, a man whose judgements must be dredged out of experience and a peasant-like common sense. A man among men’ (pp.5-6). This element of Keller’s nature, his lack of education, is something which appears more than once during the play and has a particular significance. Keller is something of a self-made man, a hard worker with an almost exaggerated desire to pass on his business to his son, Chris. This burning need to achieve the ‘American Dream’ drives Keller to atrocious behaviour. However, this notion of the ‘American Dream’ has fooled him, it has tricked him into believing that in this new post-war world hard-work is all one needs in order to be respected and good.  He rails that “everybody’s gettin’ so Goddam educated in this country there’ll be nobody to take away the garbage[…] It’s gettin’ so the only dumb ones left are the bosses” (p.48). The sensitivity that Joe Keller has regarding his education is fairly clear here. Keller is unable to keep up with the times, struggling to understand how anybody could make money from old dictionaries – “All the kind of business is goin’ on. In my day, either you were a lawyer, or a doctor, or a doctor, or you worked in a shop. Now…” (p.7). Joe Keller has been blinded by his obsession with keeping his secret and his business. Throughout the play, the opinions of others are clearly of great importance to the characters, and for Keller, the thought of losing his business was too much to bear and he was willing to sacrifice literally anything in order to hold on to it. His only defence of his actions is a need to keep the business going, the business which has become his whole life. He explains to his son, “I’m in business, a man is in business[…] you got a process, the process don’t work you’re out of business[…] they close you up, they tear up your contracts, what the hell’s it to them? You lay forty years into a business and they knock you out in five minutes, what could I do, let them take forty years, let them take my life away?” (p.69).

Of course, the war is a strong undercurrent in this play, and the effect that it has had on its characters is of great interest. When Keller defends his actions, he argues that everything and everyone has been dirtied by the war, asking his son “Who worked for nothin’ in that war?[…] Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? Is that clean? It’s dollars and cents, nickels and dimes, war and peace, it’s nickels and dimes, what’s clean?” (p.82). Of course, it is Keller’s ‘dirtying’ with which the play is concerned. Aside from the initial dreadful decision which had such damning repercussions, there is Keller’s need to have his son inherit the business in order to give his own life meaning, and what this need drives him to. For example, he makes some effort to protect his wife from upset until his son intends to leave and turn down the business. In which case, Keller is willing to break his wife’s heart as it’s all “only for you, Chris, the whole shootin’-match is for you!” (p.17). Keller is cruel and manipulative, willing to appeal to his son’s pity if need be. He tells his son “Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I did it for you. I’m sixty-one years old, when would I have another chance to make something for you?” (p.70). Here Keller attempts even to lay blame on his son’s shoulders. Keller’s behaviour and actions were never driven by love for his son (although one cannot comment on whether or not he does indeed feel love for his son), but instead he is driven by an obsession with an ideal, with the American Dream, and with a fear of how he will be perceived by others.

As I previously pointed out, the appearance of oneself before others is a common thread in the play. There is even the ironic moment when Sue, a neighbour, says of the Keller family, “I resent living next door to the Holy Family. It makes me look like a bum” (p.45). The irony being, of course, that the family is anything but holy. Keller tries to seem like an understanding man, sympathising with his old partner, even though there is a more bitter irony in his words. “There are certain men in the world who would rather see everybody hung before they’ll take the blame” (p.64). This from him is incredible. One wonders if Keller is aware of just how much this statement applies to him, or if he in genuinely unaware. After all, Chris accuses his father of having “such a talent for ignoring things” (p.16).

The character of Keller’s son, Chris is an interesting one. In his physical description he is likened to his father, but he just lacks the lying ability, or the self-serving nature. He struggles with his own American Dream, saying “I don’t know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. My whole bloody life, time after time” (p.16). I believe that one could argue that Chris’ feelings stem from being a pawn in his father’s own dream – Chris has never had the opportunity for any individuality, or wants of his own. He and indeed his girlfriend Ann, are shackled by money and expectation. Sue points out to Ann that “he’s [Chris] got money. That’s important you know.” But Ann insists “It wouldn’t matter to me.” (p.44). It is this abandonment of expectation and financial concerns that ultimately frees the couple from the obsession that engulfed Joe Keller and was the ultimate downfall of Ann’s own father.

Joe Keller never accepts his guilt fully. He argues and he makes excuses and he even allows someone else to take the flack. This criticism of the American Dream, a notion used by the powerful to control those less so, is made all the more interesting when one considers that the playwright, Arthur Miller, was himself investigated by the House of Un-American Activities. This period of US history is worth studying in itself (in fact, this is my wife’s topic for her undergraduate dissertation!). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading and I will hopefully be back with something again soon.

-          K

The Agony of Gender Confines in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' by Tennessee Williams

“A hot tin roof’s ‘n uncomfo’table place t’stay on"

Believe it or not, this play was not deliberately chosen to follow on some sort of theme that I have managed to have going through my last posts. I was not even aware of Tennessee Williams’ homosexuality until I began my research for A Passage to India! It has, however, made my reading experience more interesting, as there has been a lot of thematic crossover between this play and the previous novel, not least when it comes to ideas of prejudice and gender expectations. I have to say, I am not Williams’ biggest fan; I appreciate he was a very good playwright, but there is just something in the style that I am not crazy about. Nonetheless, I believe I have found a few interesting things to pick out and take a look at.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered in 1955, when Tennessee Williams was forty-four. As with most of his works, critics tend to draw the conclusion that there is a strong link between the characters and events in Williams’ plays and the experiences he had within his own family. His father was an alcoholic travelling salesman and his mother was the archetypal Southern Belle, snobbish and, at times, verging on hysterical. Williams was particularly close to his sister, Rose, who suffered with mental illness throughout her life. The lobotomy she underwent is said to have horrified Williams profoundly. For much of his childhood, Williams’ main companions were his sister and his black nursemaid. I would question the assertion that it is this that caused his sympathetic treatment of female characters and suggest that it is a too simplistic conclusion, but this is, perhaps, a personal choice. Williams was sickly child and was apparently quite effeminate, something which his father was not happy about. Tennessee Williams, a gay man in a homophobic USA, struggled throughout his life with depression, alcoholism and a heavy dependence on prescription drugs. These experiences and circumstances, I believe, gave him a very unique insight into the struggles of the characters he created.

Gender expectations and boundaries is something that I again feel compelled to return to as a focal point. It is quite obvious that Brick does not fit the expectations of his sex from the offset, due to his probable homosexuality. He is weak, and in his weakness he is cruel. Brick is the archetypal alcoholic in this sense – selfish, needy when it comes to drink, even a little lost. He is not masculine in the traditional sense; he drinks, he does not take action when it comes to his marriage and he does not assert himself. Even his broken ankle is symbolic of his emasculated impotence. Interestingly, Brick fails to take advantage of the fact that his possible homosexuality could be accepted by both his wife and his father, the latter even going so far as to say, ‘“Always, anyhow, lived with too much space around me to be infected by the ideas of other people. One thing you can grow on a big place more important than cotton! – is tolerance! – I grown it.”’ – p. 78. All of the prejudice and disgust that Brick must contend with appears to come directly from himself: ‘“You think we did dirty things between us… You think Skipper and me were a pair of dirty old men?” – p.77. I would infer from this that Brick really did love Skipper, and that it pains him to think that the feelings he had could be summarised by a few sexual acts. 

Of course, the rest of the world would probably not have been as accepting, but it is easy to forget this when reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because the family is so close, it almost does not feel like there is an outside world – life on the plantations seems to be that oppressive. I believe one would find it difficult to avoid looking at the character of Brick through a ‘biographical lens’, as it were, as Williams’ own homosexuality and experiences as an effeminate child must have had some bearing on the creation of a character so unable to meet the gender expectations thrust upon him.

I personally found Maggie to be a far more interesting character than Brick. Her own challenging of gender confines is far more complex; on the one hand, she is child-like and naïve (‘“It was one of those beautiful, ideal thing they tell you about in Greek legends…”’ – p.42), while on the other hand, she is sexually aware and actually displays sexual needs of her own, such as when she challenges Big Mama, saying, ‘“Why don’t you ask if he makes me happy in bed?”’ – p.35. Maggie is, therefore, nowhere near to being the ideal ‘good’ woman. The following passage, again from Critical Theory Today, is possibly quite interesting to look at now:

‘… Patriarchal ideology suggests that there are only two identities a woman can have. If she accepts her traditional gender role and obeys the patriarchal rules, she’s a “good girl”; if she doesn’t, she’s a “bad girl”… “Bad girls” violate patriarchal sexual norms in some way…’.

I think it is important to consider this element of the play, even if it may seem a minor point to some other readers. It all comes back to an analysis of the strength of gender confines; Maggie cares for her own sexual needs but is unable to convince her husband to sleep with her, thus failing to be ‘sexually attractive’. In addition, Maggie has yet to conceive a child, which, in comparison to Mae and Gooper, means that both Maggie and Brick have failed to achieve something which is essential to their fulfilling their gender roles, albeit it in different ways. A woman’s femininity is partly expressed through her child-rearing, while a man’s masculinity is partly expressed through his virility and ability to ‘sire’ a child.

One final point I would like to touch upon is the question of who is responsible for one’s happiness. Brick’s failure to support Skipper, and his rejection of his friend, had an unfortunate result. Brick is obviously feeling very guilty, as though taking on a belated responsibility towards his friend’s happiness. However, he does nothing to make his father’s life easier and more comfortable and is, at times, actually cruel to his wife. Meanwhile, Big Daddy treats his own wife appallingly, while she herself still hangs upon his every word and whim to reach her own satisfaction. The entire dysfunctional family is so uncomfortably close to one another, while all the while plotting against, and failing to take any responsibility for, each other.

Ultimately, I understand the appeal of Williams’ work and his play was fairly enjoyable. I suspect it simply wasn’t to my own personal taste, and, after all, a play is generally written to be performed instead of read. I would be very interested to see what others have thought on the ideas I have mentioned so, as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

-      -  K