CHRIS KELLER

Subdecks (1)

Cards (69)

  • 'CHRIS: i kissed you...
    ANN: like larrys brother. do it like you chris.' pg35

    Survivors guilt - living in the shadow of the hagiography of the dead
    Ellipsis = detachment, attempting to understand feelings.
    Reformulation?
    Syntactic parallelism / imperative ‘like Larry’s brother. Do it like you Chris’ positions Ann as the dominant figure in their relationship, due to the overwhelming survivors guilt felt by Chris he is weakened at the face of Ann, who he continues to see as ‘Larrys girl’.
  • pg35
    Anecdotal speech
    Sees them as his children, the compassionate act of giving, sheer devotion, sacrificing his comfort for the liken of Chris.
    Double ellipsis = he doesn't have the language to express his trauma, so deep and beyond words
  • 'they didn't die; they killed themselves for eachother.' pg35

    Die = empty and pointless, without meaning
    To chris, their deaths were more than dying, they were a sacrifice.
    Like Jesus, they gave up their lives for the betterment of eachother, and America. Chris imagines his soldiers are sacrificing themselves for the purification of the world.
    Sacrifice is a choice, they made it so they = good, chris = bad.
  • 'otherwise what you have is really loot, and theres blood on it.' pg36

    Sacrifice leaves a pressure on the surviving to live up to the hagiography of the dead, otherwise they have criminality.
    Miller addresses the criminality (lexical field of criminality) of the war profiteering, corrupt. Stresses the immorality of it.
    Guilt felt living off the money soldiers died for
    Stealing the 'loot' from the bodies of the dead
  • A critic of the American economic boom that would be impossible without the shedding of blood from the 400,000 men who died in the war, who sacrificed themselves for America.
  • 'i like to keep abreast of my ignorance.' pg12

    Low frequency = educated speech, unlike Keller.
    Sophisticated register
    Sense of humility,
  • 'i have to pull back because other people will suffer. My whole bloody life, time after time after time.' pg16

    pre modifier 'bloody' emphasises his tiredness and fed up
    fed up of pleasing, doing things for others.
  • pg17
    American Dream = to 'get out', the suburban neighbourhood is like a prison, rather than something to aspire to.
    Criminality of the Keller's.
    New York = idealism, inspiration, new, young
    His AD contrasts Keller, the root of their conflict.
  • 'Ann, i love you. i love you a great deal [finally] i love you.' pg34

    Love and relationships = release of love.
    Keeping it secret to please his mother, to not steal from the dead.
    Done behind his mothers back, could the relationship be a rebellion rather than true love?
  • 'a little more selfish and they'd've been here today.' pg35
    Survivors guilt - calling the livng selfish for not giving their lives to save america.
  • 'A kind of... responsibility. Man for man.' pg35

    Hedged by ellipsis, nervous.
    Social responsibility was the norm in the war, his comradeship.
    Anti-capitalist viewpoint shamed = ellipsis
    Abstract noun contrasts to concrete nouns.
  • 'but if chris wants people to put on the hair shift let him take off his broadcloth. he's driving my husband crazy with that phony idealism of his.' pg45

    Hairshirt = pain Broadcloth = smart
    Behaving like a saint, but needs to ditch the business man job he currently has - listen to own self.
  • 'nobody's afraid of him here. cut that out!' pg51

    denial of fathers guilt - he is involved in it if father is
    generational guilt
    loyalty
    increased aggression as the tension rises
  • 'are you through now?...what're you going to do, George?... rot?' pg54-55

    At the face of threat from the Deevers, Chris adopts his fathers frequent use of interrogatives as a defence mechanism - fear of truth rising.
    Chris is all talk and no do.
  • 'the voice of god!... what the hell has that got to do with it?' pg56

    mocking tone
    religious / biblical language
    nemesis = george
    stichomithia = tension
  • 'you killed them, you murdered them.' pg69

    stative declarative, he has known all along but now it is confirmed he is raging.
    syntactic parralelism: profound anguish and outrage over the betrayal, emotional intensity is high
    moral judgement
  • 'then explain it to me. what did you do? explain it to me or i'll tear you to pieces!.' pg69

    zoomorphism
    maternal rag - metaphorically / semantically keller has killed the sons of chris, so he becomes a lion
    desensitised by war experience
    anaphora - desperation
  • 'i was dying everyday and you were killing my boys and you did it for me?' pg70

    continuous tense - 'dying' and 'killing' = ongoing process
    chris is still dying, the pain is ongoing
    ‘dying every day’ every time one of his boys died, he died.
    Keller is still making money, still killing them
    Never-ending
    possessive use of 'my' is extremely sad - highlights the youth + the family his soldiers became - each others light in the darkness (darkness caused by kellers actions)
    chris effected directly by fathers actions
  • 'i could jail him! i could jail him, if i were human anymore. but im like everybody else now. im practical now. you made me practical.' pg80
    short assertive sentances convey sense of urgency and conviction - directness
    repitition = inner turmoil - it underscores his internal conflict between his desire for justice and his sense of resignation
    emotive language, personal pronouns
    practical = human, business orientated, conforming, what it means to be human.
  • 'this is the land of the great big dogs, you dont love a man here, you eat him! thats the principle, the only one we live by - it just happened to kill a few people this time, thats all... this is a zoo, a zoo!.' pg81

    explosive anger let loose.
    metaphoric comparisons = conveys the brutal and cutthroat nature of society and the selfish nature of capatalism
    zoo = chaos, disorder and lack of control
    inversion - canabalism, miller making a comment on the lack of humanity in post war american society.
    zoomorphic language / 'land' = alien, monsterous
  • 'theres a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it.' 

    social responsibility.
    espansive scope of human society, and the Keller family is only a small part of it, yet they reflect the behaviour of all of america.
    complex web of relationships that exist beyond the confines (poplar trees) of the Keller family: the world Keller has shut himself of too.
    themes of moral responsibility, interconnectedness, and the complex dynamics of human society.
  • pg40
    Stage direction suggest Chris is insistent on wiping the memory of Larry so he can move forward with Ann in their engagement.
    Once again Miller draws audience attention to the tree: the symbol of grief that is positioned in an unavoidable position: america cannot avoid their grief.
    Past permeating the present (Ibsen) - 'chickens coming home to roost' (Miller)
  • pg70
    dehumanization - his father is a monster
    the question 'what are you?' whilst Chris is full of questions his mind is already made up - he will never forgive his father for what he has done.
    it goes beyond the cruelty of the animal world: his father truly is the 'beast' he defends himself against being.
  • pg70
    Chris is ashamed of the selfish + money hungry behaviour of Keller.
    all Keller wanted to do was protect his business + reputation
  • Is he a coward? He attacks his father savagely when Joe's guilt is revealed, calling him lower than an animal. But after a night of thinking about it, Chris still can't bring his father to justice, he fears his mother and cannot be honest with Ann.
  • Guilt-evading language: "I was made yellow" and "you made me practical." Far from a paragon of moral responsibility, like a little boy blaming a broken teacup on the wind.
  • Chris's idealism stems from an unordinary situation, and his tragedy is rooted in the fact he has not realized this - and he will never get along with Keller because of this.
  • Even though he adopts a high moral tone and energetically indicts his father for his criminal irresponsibility, Chris knows that his words ring hollow because he has long suspected his father’s guilt but deliberately avoided confronting the truth— again for purely selfish motives