statement as an assessment of Joe Kellers character?
Joe Keller is a simple man, uneducated and practical who relies on experience to make his decisions. These aspects of his personality may have had an inuence on his decision to cover up the cracked cylinder heads and avoid the blame. Keller wants to be able to provide for his family and to do this he willingly ignores facts he does not want to acknowledge and will resort to underhanded tactics to protect his current peaceful life.
Keller sees the war as a nancial exercise where he can get more money for his family. He refuses to lose this opportunity so he does not take responsibility for the cracked cylinder heads. Wealth clearly matters to Keller, as he says that after the trials he built up his business again until he was a respected man again, bigger than ever. He uses the American ideology of capitalism to justify his actions, saying Who worked for nothin in that war?. Through Chris, Miller illustrates how capitalism and human morality often do not work together when Keller tries to excuse himself by saying, For you, a business for you!. Chris, furious at his father at this point, clearly disagrees with his father, questioning Kellers morality by saying Youre not even an animal, no animal kills his own. Although Keller may be viewed as a despicable murderer, feelings of pity are also created when Chris loses his temper as Keller faces condemnation from his own son. Pity is further developed when Keller realises that his eldest son Larry committed suicide because of his actions. Kellers referral to capitalist culture and how half the Goddam country is gotta go if I go highlights how Keller was not the only one to earn money in less than honest means in the war and raises the question of dirty money.
It has not registered in Kellers mind that his actions had consequences, the deaths of twenty-one men. To him, all that matters is that Larry never ew a P-40 and thus he is not the cause of his sons death. However, in reply to Kellers statement You know Larry never ew a P-40, Chris questions his father, So who ew those P-40s, pigs?. Through this, Miller shows how Keller narrow-mindedly only thinks about his family while Chris, who actively participated in the war uses his experiences to make a judgement on Steve, simply stating He murdered twenty-one pilots. This blunt statement enforces the fact that Kellers statement, I did it for you, does not excuse him from the responsibility of twenty-one deaths. It seems as if Keller has not only lied to the court, the community and his family but also himself, deluding himself that he is blameless for the entire affair.
Guilt and blame is a major theme in All My Sons with characters often trying to dump responsibility onto others. Throughout the play, Keller repetitively calls Steve a little man who could never take the blame but it is revealed that Keller is the one that avoided the charges. By Kellers actions, Miller demonstrates how people abandon their ethics when put under pressure. Subconsciously, he knows what he did was wrong, as shown by his stubborn obstinacy that Steve is still a decent man, still human, reecting the underlying guilt he feels about the jail issue. His arguments make the readers unable to fully despise Steve and later Keller himself as although we may say that we would never commit such immoral acts, we ourselves might have done the same as Steve and Keller if we were put into the situation.
Miller contrasts practicality and optimism by using the idealistic Chris and showing how, when faced with proof of his fathers crimes and their consequences he states that he is practical now, unable to jail his father. Personally, I feel that Joe Keller is greedy, deluded and small, but these characteristics were only revealed due to the circumstances he was in as many people would do the same if put in the same situation. Nevertheless, he should not have disregarded his responsibility to the greater community and allowed the damaged cylinders to be shipped out, knowing that they could cause planes to crash. Twenty-one men died, all of them probably having parents, siblings, wives or girlfriends grieving for them, all due to the actions of one man who wanted more money for his family.