How does Arthur Miller convey the tone of characters Kate and Joe on pages 162-163 through secondary text, language, punctuation and sentence structure?
On pages 162 and 163, Arthur Miller conveys a variety of emotions through characters Kate and Joe. Through dialogue, secondary text, language, punctuation and sentence structure. Joes is depicted as guilty but doesn’t actually want to admit it and Kate is depicted as scared of telling the truth to Joe.
Arthur Miller conveys Joe’s emotion of not accepting his guilt on page 162 through primary text when he says “Then what do I do? Tell me, talk to me, what do I do?”. In this quote we see a repetition of word “I” and “me”, which shows that he is confused, he knows that he is guilty but doesn’t want to accept it. This was Joe’s reaction when Kate blames Joe because Chris suddenly leaves. She blames Joe because he tried to escape trouble all his life. The reason Joe reacted this way was because he knew that he is guilty, a normal person wouldn’t have reacted this way.
Also, Joe is shown as confused on page 163 through language and repetition. This is shown when Joe says: “Goddam, if Larry was alive he wouldn’t act like this. He understood the way the world is made. He listened to me. To him the world had a forty-foot front, it ended at the building line. This one, everything bothers him. You make a deal, overcharge two cents, and his hair falls out. He don’t understand money. Too easy, it came too easy.” In this quote the word “Goddam” is quite strong, it shows us that Joe is quite confused at what Chris just did. Another that shows that Joe is confused is his choice of words, when he says “forty-foot front” it almost feels like his choice of words are odd. He wouldn’t have said this, readers feel like he wants to say the “F” word but he controls himself.
Arthur Miller conveys Kate’s emotion of being the person that has to tell Joe the truth through ellipses and secondary text. This shows on page 162 when she says “Joe… I’ve been thinking this way. If he comes back -” shows that she is almost scared of telling the truth to Joe. She is trying to not upset, so there is a long pause after “Joe…”. Also the fact that she is scared of telling the truth to Joe is shown through secondary text. Arthur Miller gives directions to the actors when Kate says “{a little fearfully}: I mean if you told him that you want to pay for what you did” shows us that Kate is frightened to tell the truth to Joe, because he doesn’t know the way he will react.
Also, Kate is conveyed as a strong woman that is trying to control Joe’s actions through language. This is shown on page 163 when she says “You stop that!” shows us that she is no more scared of Joe. She transforms from a woman that is afraid to tell the truth to her husband to a woman that is no more scared of her husband. In this quote we can see that Kate wants to help her husband, she gets into a role of a typical mother, trying to help everyone.