CHRIS’ IDEALISM

CLASHING WITH KELLERS MATERIALISM

  1. “the business doesn’t inspire me… if I have to grub for money all day long at least in the evening I want it beautiful”

  • “i want it beautiful” shows Chris cares more about living a full life over materialism despite later showing materialistic values

  • abstract vs concrete lexis: “inspire me”- abstract transitive, dynamic verb; concrete noun

  • connotations of filth (grub), belief that capitalism/materialism is dirty (dirty cars) unlike K’s love for money- intergen. conflict

  • shows his idealistic views on society, priorities the abstract

  1. “they didnt die; they killed themselves for each other”

  • the celebratory and elegiac phrase reaches an axiomatic crescendo with christ claiming the birth, through the crucible of war, of a new ‘responsibility’

  1. “there was no meaning in it here; the whole thing to them was kind of a bus accident. I went to work with Dad, and that rat-race again.”

  • chris becomes mouthpiece for miller, showing his disgust at the moral state of america

  • meiosis of ‘bus stop’ shows lack of responsibility in america and they only cared about monetary gain

  • bathos?

  • rat race- explicit reference to the American dream

  1. “I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator”

  • asyndetic listing and repetition of ‘new’ creates a voice which he finds superficiality and a lack of substance in America upon Chris’ return home

  • lexis of materialism and disgust

  1. “Otherwise what you really have is loot and there’s blood on it”

  • all ww2 money is stolen and illegitimate, sense of criminality

  1. “You can be better! Once and for all you can know there’s a universe of people outside and you’re responsible to it.”

  • mouthpiece for miller

SECONDARY QUOTE: “Chris feel[s] a certain, almost vengeance upon his father… and feel[s] resentment and hatred for his father, to some degree” Miller himself