Sue Flashcards
“If Chris wants people to put on the hair shirt let him take off his broadcloth”
Hair shirt” = shirt made of horse hair, often worn by those who wish to torture their bodies to focus on spiritual contemplations, cause pain / discomfort / bleeding / scarring. “Broadcloth” = garment made of soft and light fabric. Chris adheres to high moral principles, through war he has learnt the necessity of social responsibility, and invests in an idealism which many of those who fought in the war sought to follow. He also expects others so follow these principles, as the social responsibility Chris wishes to establish cannot happen on an individual level. However, despite his principles, he lives and benefits from this self-serving capitalism which Miller seeks to critique. There is a sense of hypocrisy. The “broadcloth” symbolises his life of excess and comfort established in the stage directions, it protects him from the “hair shirt”, he is unable to face the realities of what he wants to bring to fruition, the physical and emotional pain. Sue sees him as being too realistic.
It seems to me that for ten dollars you could hold his hand
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