Jim Flashcards
“Money-money-money-money. You say it long enough it doesn’t mean anything.”
Jim deconstructs the very thing which motivates so many others throughout the play.
He acts as the chorus throughout the play, and signals the superficiality of what the Keller’s fight for, not wealth for basic necessities and survival, but Joe has been blinded, and instead seeks excess and a life of opulence.
Repetition of “money” used to make the word seem unimportant.
“We all come back… These private little revolutions always die. The compromise is always made”
Jim represents a faded idealism. Juxtaposition of “little revolutions” = “revolution” would suggest great upheaval and societal shift, yet “little” undermines this (as well as “always”) belittling the conflict throughout the play. Serves as a reminder, that for Chris, as well as the audience, change cannot come from an individual level, but a society wide level. “The compromise is always made.” - Miller perhaps critiques centrist, and capitalism compliant politics, in this “compromise”, capitalism till exists and continues to exploit the labour and people of the working class. “Always” reinforces his hopelessness.
