Money and Family versus Moral Integrity

If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something that I can give myself to.

This line of dialogue happens early in the play when Chris confronts Joe about Chris’s desire to marry Ann. Chris’s words reveal that he acknowledges that money will play a role in his life since he is a businessman like Joe but that he cares about something bigger than money. Chris cares about building a life that he can be morally proud of, that can sustain him in ways beyond material satisfaction. Chris draws a line between work and family, between daytime work and evening beauty, a line that Joe has never drawn. At the beginning of the play, Chris is an idealist who holds on to lessons he learned during the war. By the end, he has compromised some of his idealism and calls himself “practical” instead.

I don’t know what you mean! You wanted money, so I made money. What must I be forgiven? You wanted money, didn’t you?

This line, spoken by Joe to Kate early in Act Three, reveals that Joe associates money with Kate’s desires and casts part of the blame for his crime on her. Kate has just suggested that the way to make their lives right would be for Joe to turn himself in and be willing to go to prison to earn Chris’s forgiveness. Of course, Joe refuses such a suggestion. Instead, he continues to yell that he’s spoiled his family and that they don’t appreciate the value of money and hard work. Joe has always been able to focus on money and family at the cost of moral integrity. His words here explain why to himself, his family, and the audience.

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?

These questions, posed by Joe to Chris near the play’s violent conclusion, express Joe’s belief that everyone who did business with the military during the war did exactly what he did. They cut corners, made compromises, and served the golden calf. Prior to this outburst, Chris suggested that Joe’s money is dirty, something to be ashamed of, but Joe believes that it was all dirty and that if he goes to prison, then half the country should go, too. Chris’s response to this idea is to say that he thought Joe was “better” than other men, that he had moral integrity. However, Chris is wrong.

Taking Responsibility for One’s Actions

Everything was being destroyed, see, but it seemed to me that one new thing was made. A kind of . . . responsibility. Man for man. You understand me? To show that, to bring that on to the earth again like some kind of a monument and everyone would feel it standing there, behind him, and it would make a difference to him.

Late in Act One, as Chris tells Ann about his own experience during the war, he muses about the relationships he had with his fellow soldiers. He tells her about a time when a soldier gave him his last pair of dry socks and how those socks symbolized the deep connection he had with the company he commanded. This connection was sacred and palpable, like a monument, but Chris goes on to say that when he came home, that connection vanished. No one back home felt this kind of responsibility, especially people like Joe, who was part of the rat race. Chris felt ashamed of this lack of responsibility. He felt like there was blood on the money that Joe earned. Ironically, despite the fact that the war destroyed so much, Chris felt like something fundamentally good was made: mutual responsibility for everyone’s safety and happiness.

He suddenly gets the flu! Suddenly! But he promised to take responsibility. Do you understand what I’m saying? On the telephone you can’t have responsibility! In a court you can always deny a phone call and that’s exactly what he did.

In the middle of Act Two, George tells Chris about the conversation he had with Steve while visiting him in prison. Steve told George exactly what happened on the fateful day that they caulked and shipped the defective engines, including the phone call that he had with Joe about what to do. Both Steve and Joe were found guilty at first, but the court believed Joe’s lie in the appeal, and he was exonerated. However, Steve makes it clear that Joe agreed to take responsibility but didn’t. Joe denied the phone call and lived out a lie. Words in a phone call meant nothing in court in 1946. It was Joe’s word against Steve’s word. Later, Chris reveals that Joe was always the strong partner, the man of action, and that Steve was always weaker and submissive. Steve took responsibility because he had no choice, not because he accepted it.

“You can be better! Once and for all you can know there’s a universe of people outside and you’re responsible to it, and unless you know that you threw away your son because that’s why he died.”

This is the last line of dialogue in the play before the gunshot that signals Joe’s suicide. Here, Chris replies to Kate’s plea, “What more can we be!” These words reflect the crux of the play’s theme about responsibility. Joe was not simply responsible for his own son, Larry, or for those twenty-one pilots. His responsibility was far greater than that. Joe was responsible for the whole universe of people, to everyone, and Chris believes that this is the ideal that all the “sons” fought for in World War II. Kate’s answer is agreement. Joe’s answer is the gunshot.

Parents as Role Models

I’ve been a good son too long, a good sucker. I’m through with it.

About halfway into Act One, Chris admits to Joe that he’s questioning his own role in the family and the family business. When Chris calls himself a sucker, he means that he is gullible and easily deceived. He has just threatened to leave the business and relocate with Ann in a place such as New York City, and Joe reacts with disbelief. Chris stays put out of a loyalty to Joe but also because he’s afraid to leave, afraid of the unknown, and not quite strong enough to be independent. Also, Chris has yet to accept Joe’s guilt in the munitions crime, so he clings to the belief that the family business is clean and ethical. When he says, “I’m through with it,” Chris simply wants to hurt his father. He has not yet decided to carve his own path in life.

You’re in love now, Annie, but believe me, I’m older than you and I know—a daughter is a daughter, and a father is a father. And it could happen. I like you and George to go to him in prison and tell him . . . ‘Dad, Joe wants to bring you into the business when you get out.’

Early in Act Two, Joe tells Ann that when Steve gets out of prison, he will come to her with hate, and that hate will threaten their family. When Ann denies this possibility, Joe insists that he knows more than she knows about parents and children. He claims that Ann’s loyalty to her own father may supersede her love for her husband because Joe believes that blood ties are always stronger than marriages. Joe believes that nothing is stronger than the connections between parents and children, but this belief, like so many others, is shattered at the play’s conclusion. When Joe offers to hire Steve back into the business, he acts not out of generosity but rather out of self-protection.

Honest to God, it breaks my heart to see what happened to all the children. How we worked and planned for you, and you end up no better than us.

In the middle of Act Two, soon after George has appeared at the Kellers’ home, Kate welcomes him by observing how he’s aged into an old man, thin, gray, and ghostly. Her comment, although specific to George’s appearance, echoes the play’s title and the broader theme of generational relationships. According to Kate, no progress has been made. Despite the American dream, the war has caused great harm to the children, especially the sons. All of Joe’s hard work, including his crime, has not gained his desired outcomes. George, Chris, and Larry are broken men who are imprisoned in their own unhappiness and shame. They are no better than their parents. In fact, in many ways they are worse because their own dreams have been shattered, too.

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