As stated in other blogs, there are many parts of guilt. There is trying to blame someone else, saying that is was not your fault, that you did not do anything bad. Saying that there was no other choice. Those are all the negative parts of guilt. There is also a positive part in guilt. That comes when one realizes what they had done, and they try to make up for it. Now, this part of guilt can come at anytime, really, any of these parts can come at anytime. But the weird thing is, the one positive part of guilt can come before any of the negative parts guilt.
In the play All My Sons by Arthur Miller, the positive part of guilt comes before the negative parts of it. One of the characters in the play Joe Keller made 120 cracked engine-heads for P-40 jets, this resulted in 21 dead pilots. Instead of Keller going to jail, it was another character, named Steve who went to jail. Keller feels guilty about this, and mid way though the play he had the positive side of guilt. While talking to Steve’s daughter Ann, Keller said: “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'”(Miller 41). In this quote it is clearly seen that Keller feels guilty for Steve being in jail, and he wants to make up for it. He does this by offering Steve a job for when he gets out of jail.
But like said before, the positive part of guilt can come before the negative part of guilt. Towards the end of the second act, Keller’s son Chris found out about what Keller did, and Chris wasn’t happy about it. Keller’s other son was one of the pilots that died from the bad engines, but Keller claims that he was not responsible for Larry’s death by saying “He never flew a P-40″(Miller 58). Also, he goes on by saying “I never thought they’d install them. I swear to God. I thought they’d stop ’em before anybody took off”(Miller 59). These two quotes show that he thinks that it wasn’t his fault, instead the people who install the engines should be the ones to be blame. Lastly, Keller claims that he had no choice and what he did was for the best. He said “You wanted money, so I made money”(Miller 63). This quote says that his actions were the best because the family needed money so he made money.
The play All My Sons has a lot to tell on guilt, just from one character. All parts of guilt were shown in this play, really helping people understand guilt.
How does guilt affect a person? 