How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue.
Quote #1
Keller: Don't look at me like that, he didn't tell me any more than he told you. (1.286)
Not true, Joe! He knows full well that Chris wants to marry Ann. But out of fear of losing his wife's support, he evades confrontation with her.
Quote #2
Keller: That's the only way you lick 'em is guts! (1.446)
Joe has just recounted his version of the story of his crime, concluding with a victorious stroll back into the neighborhood after his exoneration. A kind of false courage. Real courage would have been acknowledging the wrong he did – or, in the first place, holding life more sacred than a profit.
Quote #3
Mother: All right, Joe. Just…be smart. [Keller, in hopeless fury, looks at her, turns around, goes up to porch and into house, slamming screen door violently behind him. Mother sits in chair downstage, stiffly, staring, seeing.] (1.623)
In this last line of Act 1, the stage directions give us an idea of how the Kellers handle extreme challenges. Joe throws a tantrum and goes in the house; Kate sits outside processing and preparing. She's the more intelligent and stronger of the two, as we come to see. Does that make her more or less guilty than Joe?
Quote #4
Ann: I wish we could tell her now. I can't stand scheming. My stomach gets hard.
Chris: It's not scheming, we'll just get her in a better mood. (2.25)
Chris is afraid of his mother's reaction and keeps making excuses to avoid telling her about the engagement.
Quote #5
George: You're not going to marry him.
Ann: Why am I not going to marry him?
George: Because his father destroyed your family. (2.233-235)
In comparison to the friendly, circuitous way that Chris and Joe approach things, George a straight shooter.
Quote #6
George: And my father, that frightened mouse who'd never buy a shirt without somebody along – that man would dare do such a thing on his own? (2.273)
George believes his father because he knows the characters of the two men involved. Joe's a bull, and Steve's a mouse. Steve never would have made a huge decision on his own.
Quote #7
Keller: As long as I know him, twenty-five years, the man never learned how to take the blame. You know that, George. (2.423)
Joe brings up a number of examples of Steve's cowardice to get George on his side. It's pretty insidious the way he (and Kate, for that matter) try to seduce George into complicity with their family.
Quote #8
Mother: You can't bull yourself through this one, Joe, you better be smart now. This thing – this thing is not over yet. (3.36)
Joe may see his bull-headedness as courage. But Kate understands the difference between stubbornness – Joe's go-to mode – and strategy. Strategy is what's needed now.
Quote #9
Keller: You have no strength. The minute there's trouble you have no strength.
Mother: Joe, you're doing the same thing again; all your life whenever there's trouble you yell at me and you think that settles it. (3.47-48)
Joe almost seems like a little boy in this exchange, deeply reliant on Kate's intelligence to solve his problems.
Quote #10
Chris: I'm yellow. I was made yellow in this house because I suspected my father and I did nothing about it… (3.122)
OK, Chris is a very sympathetic character but look at the way he phrases his acknowledgement of cowardice here. "I was made yellow." Like his father, he shifts responsibility to someone else's shoulders.