Kidnapped Wife and the Dream

¶ … Kidnapped Wife and the Dream Helper, All My Sons and Long Time Since Yesterday

The logical vs. The moral order in the three stories.

In all the three stories, the protagonists are guilty of a crime they commit out of self-indulgence and selfishness.

The protagonists of the three stories refuse to take responsibility for the others.

The resolution of the conflict: the moral order is re-established only when the characters admit their mistakes and pay for their guilt.

A contrastive analysis of the two plays, All My Sons by Arthur Miller and Long Time since Yesterday by P.J. Gibson and the short story entitled the Kidnapped Wife and the Dream Helper by Susan Hazen Hammond, reveals that, despite the entirely different backgrounds, these three works share common themes. Responsibility and guilt are two of the major themes of the works under discussion. Thus, the main characters of the three stories are all confronted with the consequences of a past decision, for which they have to pay the price. In the maze of life, people are presented with options and choices at every step and this makes the delimitation of personal responsibility toward oneself and towards the others very hard to establish.

Thus, in Hammond's short story, the head of an Indian family is faced with a very difficult choice. The story begins when the man accompanies his wife and a group of other village women to a certain place where they go to pick berries. Although he goes with his wife because he wants to respect the wish she herself had expressed and despite his great love for her, the man deserts the woman in the hands of the enemies when another tribe attacks the group. Having to choose between his own safety and that of the woman he loves, the unnamed character decides it is better to save himself and leave the woman behind, knowing the enemies will spare her life when they will see her beauty. It is only after he goes back to the village and spends a few days in mourning with the other men that had lost their wives that the hero of the story realizes his mistake and determines to find a way to bring his wife back: "Finally, the man decided he had made a terrible mistake. He decided that no matter what happened, it was better to search for his wife than to sit home mourning her loss." (Hammond, 179) in the end, he manages to retrieve his lost wife with the help of wise medicine man who sends a spirit to bring her home. The story is obviously centered on the dilemma posed by one person's responsibility for the life of another. The matter is obviously complicated by the fact that the two characters are united by a special bond- they are man and wife. Although the man in the story is a very kind person and a loving husband, he falters when he is faced with the possibility of dying with the woman he loves. Moreover, the man has to make another choice when he realizes he can help only those women that have fast horses and therefore have a chance to escape the hand of the enemy by running away. These two decisions seem to be logical in the frame of the story, but the question that obviously comes to mind is whether this calculated economy can fit into the moral order of the world as well. Thus, the most salient problem that the short story tackles is whether what seems to be logical and economical (i.e. saving as many lives as possible) is also morally acceptable. The man in the story saves as many people as he can, including himself, but this circumstantial decision turns out to be against the principles of morality: his gesture is actually a betrayal of true love.

Miller's play is very similar with respect to its main theme. Joe Keller also makes an economical decision at one point in his life: being in charge of the military equipment of the Air Force planes during the Second World War he provides the army with 121 defective cracked cylinder heads. As a result, twenty one of the planes crash and all the pilots die. Thus, faithful to the American Dream of prosperity and wary of his family's finances, Joe knowingly ignores the possible consequences of his act. Years after this tragedy, Joe is still in denial, refusing to acknowledge any personal responsibility or guilt. Thus, the structure of the play is almost identical with that of the short story previously discussed. Joe refuses to take responsibility in two situations, not just one: first for the pilots, and then for the death of his own son, Larry who commits suicide out of shame for his father's immoral act. The self-interest and selfishness are also present in Miller's play. Relatedness is also present: the man and wife relationship was the main issue in the short story, here that between father and son is the central one. The weight of Joe's guilt is so great that it cannot be admitted by himself or his wife; it is almost the equivalent of a father killing his son: "As long as you live, that boy is alive. God does not let a son be killed by his father."(Miller, 75) the responsibility is even greater when the meaning of the title is disclosed: not only is Joe guilty for the death of his son, but he is also responsible for the death of the other pilots, who were all the sons of someone: "I think to him they were all my sons."(Miller, 79) Thus, moral responsibility is held up against an economic principle, just like in the short story: "Once and for all you can know there's a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it, and unless you know that, you threw away your son because that's why he died."(Miller, 83) the material problem is here even more poignant, since Joe kills so many people just to fulfill his American Dream of good wealth. In both texts, the wrong performed by the main characters is not an open, direct crime, but one committed out of self-indulgence and the refusal to take responsibility.