Miller and Baldwin, Term Paper Example

Miller’s first theatrical success, “All My Sons and James” is a clear evidence of the centrality of the past to the Ibsenian stage world of Miller’s early career. The play depicts revelations about Joe Keller and his relationship to his family. As the long-hidden secrets disclosed bit by bit throughout the play and begin to fit together in a discernible causal chain, we learn that Keller had knowingly shipped out defective engine parts during the war and so is responsible for the deaths of twenty-one pilots; that he had allowed his business partner, still in prison as the play begins, to take the blame for the mishap; and that his older son, himself a pilot, had committed suicide after hearing of his father’s possible involvement in the crime. The first two of these secrets have been kept hidden by Keller and his wife, the third by Ann, the dead son’s fiancée. When all three secrets are exposed and the connections among them made apparent, Keller, unable to face the hideous consequences of his actions, follows his son in suicide. The play illustrates explicitly Miller’s perennial theme of individual responsibility for even the unforeseeable effects of one’s actions (Schroeder 76). The other story “If Beale Street Could Talk” is written by James Baldwin. The story depicts the saga of Fonny, a young black man from Harlem, who is falsely imprisoned on rape charges. The narrator is Tish, Fonny’s lover and Baldwin’s sole female narrator. Beale Street continues Baldwin’s lifelong examination of race and sexuality in America. However, it also marks a turning point in Baldwin’s career: he moves away from stories of interaction between black and white characters and focuses almost exclusively on African American life and history in a story about black heterosexual love.

Reality Vs Illusion

Both “All my Sons” and “If Beale Street Could Talk” are tightly composed household drama highly influenced by the style of the ancient Greek tragedies and of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen is one of the ardent proponents of the modern and realistic style of drama, which featured colloquial language, small casts and realistic portrayal of situations. From these realistic situations evolved archetypal, timeless emotions and conflicts. In context of reality vs. illusion – “All My Sons” and “If Beale Street Could Talk” manifests the frightening and cruel reality of people’s insensitivity, and their corrupted moral values. In the former play, the protagonist is purged with irrevocable and harsh self depreciated morale, which instigates the protagonist to divulge in erroneous illusions for covering up the tragic reality. While, in the latter, the protagonist is a man of caliber, honest and truthful to his self, but is a victim of racial discrimination and hatred. His reality lies in the condiments of racial prejudice of the white American and his illusion lies in the context of living in such a society where he is neglected, abused and arrested for false charges. Here, the reality versus illusion theme explores the distinctions and parallelisms in the plays. The subject of human values may be in contrast through the points of imagery, view and the life lessons of the two works.

All My Sons condemns immorality more directly then that present in If Beale Street could talk. Joe Keller irresponsible and selfish act to stop the shipment of cracked cylinder heads causes the deaths of innocent American soldiers. The harsh reality is that he sacrificed the lives of people who were defending him and fighting next to his sons to die, thus being perverse and selfish in his actions. He was only motivated by the intrinsic power of accumulating wealth at any means. (I’m in business, a man is in business; a hundred and twenty cracked, you’re out of business; you got a process/ you don’t know how to operate/they close you up, they tear up your contracts, what the hell’s is it to them” (All My Sons 146). His moral instincts had degraded him and his only realism was to accommodate his economic instincts (What could I do, let them take forty years, let them take my life away?) (All My Sons 146)

While Beale Street Could Talk published in 1974, was written from the perspective of nineteen-year-old Tish. She is pregnant and in love with Fonny. Their plans to marry are shattered when Fonny is imprisoned after being falsely accused of rape—having been set up by a vindictive white cop. Tish visits Fonny in prison and informs him they will have a child. When Tish thinks, “I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass” (While Beale Street Could Talk 4) her promise of a new generation serves as the sole source of hope in a country that seems bent on destroying the black family and keeping the two young lovers apart. On the surface, Baldwin’s novel presents a stymied love story where Tish’s romantic desire and Fonny’s inability to perform his masculine roles of protector and provider stands in for a plea for racial justice. Therefore, Tish’s subsequent narration of Fonny’s imprisonment helps her to make sense of US racism in a world that would not cherish their love. A racist policeman, Officer Bell, arrests Fonny on trumped up charges because Fonny had intervened when the officer threateningly approached Tish on the streets of Greenwich Village. Baldwin links frustrated black masculinity to the sexual exploitation of African American women. Tish’s family stands together. Held together with a strong love and mutual respect, they fight back to win Fonny’s freedom.

Fonny’s family, in contrast, has deteriorated, despite (or because of, Baldwin seems to be saying) his unloving mother’s strong religious faith. Baldwin’s point is, after all, that love is the key. This is an important book for it reveals the reality of living in a divided world; a world where a system of justice can be corrupted to trap an innocent young man because of the color of his skin, “ I’ve never come across any shame down here, except shame like mine, except the shame of the hardworking black ladies, who call me Daughter, and the shame of proud Puerto Ricans, who don’t understand what’s happened–no one who speaks to them speaks Spanish, for example–and who are ashamed that they have loved ones in jail (If Beale Street Could Talk 7). Here the protagonist is innocent and a victim of the society- he had the aspirations of building a congenial life and wants to fulfill his dreams in the American society.  His dream was an illusion in the societal and partisan attitude of the people. But his views and perspectives were different- it did not involve selfishness or cruelty.

Miller in his depiction had painted a protagonist who commits an offence, which was worthy of punishment. Yet his unscrupulous means and strategies could never land him in jail. Police and administration could never nail him. It was his two sons and family who acted as his moral judge to finally show him the truth and resolve his immoral vanity (What the hell are you? You’re not even an animal, no animal kills his won, and what are you? I ought to tear the tongue out of your mouth, what must I do?) (All My Sons 147) Thus, human court could not punish him in his lifetime- it was his conscience that finally gave him his desired destiny. While, Baldwin created the protagonist who had served jail though he was innocent, his reality was the extremes of fathom of creating a world admist cultural and societal ethos.

References

Schroeder, P “The Presence of the Past in Modern American Drama”, 1989

Miller, A “Collected Plays 1944-1961- All My Sons”, 2006

Baldwin, J “If Beale Street Could Talk”, 1974, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.