1B - AMS example essay

 I have not proof read this and I did it in timed conditions.

This took about 35 minutes, so you have far longer to produce something similar.

What I found was that it really helped to know quite a few of these quotes in advance so that I wasn't wasting time searching through the book.

I think this is a good example regarding the amount written, the level of analysis and terms used, and links to context.

Have a read and see what you think...

‘All My Sons’, a mid-20^th century play by Arthur Miller, is a work which concerns itself with many themes which are often prevalent in American literature such as the fulfilment of the American dream, and what that means to the individual. Within this particularly important context of the post-WWII period, Miller uses his characters to explore how the war has affected the priorities of the characters within the play, and specifically utilises some of the father/son relationships to accentuate this theme. This scene comes at an extremely important part of the play as Joe’s misdeeds have recently come to light, exploding his introverted world that he had tried so hard to maintain, and it is here that we arguably see his true feelings and motives behind his actions. It is also significant as we can see how Miller uses Keller as a motif for selfishness and immorality, seemingly pointing his finger at the audience and getting them to consider their own values.

Within the extract, we can see that Joe displays a fickle nature concerning his relationship with his only living son, Chris, by essentially disowning him by saying, ‘Larry. That was a boy we lost.’ The use of the deictic adverb ‘that’ coupled with the dynamic past participle verb ‘lost’ show that he does not currently feel that Chris would affect him in the same way were he to leave. The use of the common noun ‘boy’ has an accusatory tone, implying that Chris is lacking in masculinity compared to his brother. Perhaps this is Miller’s way of showing how, to the older generation who lived through the economic boom of the 1920s, the American dream will always be synonymous with financial gain, and that Keller is far more loyal to this principle than to his family as it is the only thing he can relate to. This idea is cemented by Keller’s hyperbolic summary of Chris’ character when he says, ‘overcharge two cents and his hair falls out’. This metaphor portrays Chris as oversensitive and incompatible with the lifestyle which Keller knows so well. Perhaps Keller feels that it is easier to disown his son and stay loyal to his principles as disowning his principles would mean that he has to face his guilt.

This seems to be supported by the ambiguity in Keller’s statement that Kate and Chris are ‘all [Keller] ever lived for’, the determiner ‘all’ suggesting family loyalty, despite Keller’s earlier admissions that the business was always his biggest priority. It is clear that, at this point in the play, Joe is keen to limit damage to his own persona, proved by his imperatives to Kate – who has often shown herself to be far more domineering in the marriage – when he says ‘You’ll do that [tell Chris that she knows Larry is dead.’ The contracted form of the modal verb of certainty ‘will’ shows that Keller is desperate to preserve his own safety and freedom, even if it means destroying his wife’s hopes and losing his son. Perhaps this is Miller’s way of asking us to consider what we stand to lose by insisting in acting immorally.  Up until now, Keller has been adamant that he will carry on lying to Kate about this subject, but his repetition of the imperative, ‘You’ll tell him’ speaks of his desperation for self-preservation, showing that he would rather lose a son that go to jail. The fact that Joe allows himself to be interrupted, ‘Why should I…’ before resigning himself to the fact that he should ‘go in the house’ when ordered to, shows a shift in power. Kate’s use of imperatives shows that she is now in control, and that Joe is willing to follow orders if it means he does not hear anything uncomfortable such as the truth about Larry. This simply supports the idea that Joe would rather maintain an idealised view of his son as someone whose world ‘had a forty-foot front’ rather than admit that he and his son had fundamentally different morals. By including this, Miller once more accentuates how the older generation must alter to consider their responsibility to others.

This generational gap between Keller and Chris is constructed right from the start of Act 1, where Miller establishes the differences between Joe and Chris as Chris sarcastically apes and repeats his father saying ‘lot of books’ and ‘all different’, creating a patronising tone in relation to his father. Rather deliberately, Keller is introduced to us as ‘an everyman’, the compound noun suggesting that he lacks malice and could be quite similar to any one of us, and as an ‘uneducated man’, the affixed premodifying adjective suggesting that he is stuck in his ways . Through this, it seems that Chris is to be seen as the more progressive of the two, particularly when he says that he sees being ‘inspired’ as a necessity, the adjective connoting that Chris needs more than an introverted world where all he has is money. This seems to be contrary to Joe’s way of life in almost every respect. Later on in this act, we see tension rise between Keller and Chris where the stage directions concerning Keller showing him becoming aggressive at the thought of Chris leaving the business. Chris claims that ‘on this’ – the preposition and deictic adverb connoting his love for Ann – he would leave. Keller reacts visibly angrily to this ‘raising his fist’ to Chris’ jaw. The implication is here that this quite everyman is angered when presented with the possibility that all of his efforts to garner wealth will come to nothing. At this stage, we do not realise the extent to which he is simply protecting himself.

We see a total difference in the characters of Chris and Keller further on in Act 1 when he recounts his experience of war to Ann, saying it ‘takes a little time to toss that off’. The adjective ‘little’ and common noun ‘time’ showing how he is affected by the war all these years later. Chris has witnessed the love that can be expressed between friends first hand and we can see that he feels personal responsibility for their loss when he uses the active voice to say that he ‘lost’ them – the verb connoting his sense of responsibility. Unlike his father, Chris has been affected by the war and can see how one person’s actions can affect the destiny of another, saying, ‘They didn’t die, they killed themselves for each other’. The distinction made by Chris between the verb ‘die’ and hyperbolic phrasal verb ‘killed themselves’ shows how the selflessness of others has come to serve as a life lesson to him. We know, however, that the older members of the Keller family do not feel this responsibility as Keller confidently claims ‘Larry never flew a P50’. Here, Miller uses proleptic irony, counting on the fact that the audience will already have identified Keller as the tragic hero. It is likely that the watching audience will have come to the conclusion that Keller’s actions will have indirectly caused Larry’s death due to the symbolism of the broken tree right at the start of the play, and Keller’s utter refusal to take any responsibility for his actions – a key part of his personal hamartia.

Towards the end of the play, in Act 3, we see an extremely tragic conclusion of the relationship between Chris and Keller. Firstly, the ‘disownership’ shown earlier by Keller is reciprocated by Chris where he says to his father ‘I know you are no worse than any other man, but I thought you were better’. Like all literary father/son relationships, Chris has idolised his father throughout – the comparative adjective ‘better’ put into parallel phrasing is testament to this. However, perhaps Miller here is hinting at Chris’ personal bildungsroman that, having spent his childhood under the spell of his father’s American dream, he has now found this to be spurious and false. Instead, Chris uses interrogatives and metaphor to question his father’s thinking, saying ‘Who was flying those planes, pigs?’, the metaphorical plural noun connoting the notion that Keller sees people outside of this ‘unity of place’ as being so insignificant that they may as well be less than human. Ultimately, just like in classical drama which influence Miller so much, Keller pays the price for his misdeeds, meaning that his sins are not revisited on his son. Instead, Miller chooses to use Kate as a moral judge at the end of the play, when she uses minor imperative sentences to instruct Chris how to conduct the rest of his life. By saying ‘forget now. Live’, it appears that this is Miller’s way of instructing the audience that kindness and responsibility are the way forward, whereas the culmination of wealth can only end in disaster.

One other father/son relationship which it fraught within the play is that of George and Steve. Again, George is used as a character who seems desperate for justice and truth, having earlier disowned his father due to the criminal charges which were brought against him. Clearly George does not condone his fathers actions, referring to him as ‘a little man’, the premodifying adjective implying a sense of shame on George’s part. However, it cannot be ignored that Steve is serving his time, rightfully, for the crimes he has committed and, with this in mind, it appears that Keller wants us to see that this is the desired outcome for people who act irresponsibly. George is adamant that he wants Keller to pay the same price as his father, reminding Joe of his responsibility saying ‘you can’t take responsibility over a phone call’. The abstract noun ‘responsibility’ places blame firmly at Joe’s door, and gives George the righteous anger he needs to complete his ‘the same man’ speech, where he uses anaphora to repeatedly question the likelihood of his father making such an important decision alone.

In conclusion, there is clearly a deeper motive employed by Miller when revealing the relationships between the fathers and sons in his play. If we view Chris and Keller as a microcosm of society, for example, it seems that Miller wants to accentuate the differences between the generations in order to see how damaging it can be for someone only to care about their own ‘back yard’. The fraughtness in the relationship grows right the way through the play, shown through stage directions and dialogue, until the dramatic explosion of emotion shown in the latter parts. Through the resolution of the play with Chris being told to live, the audience are left with a moral message, that taking responsibility for each other is the option which should be taken wherever possible.