Act 2 Part 2 Values

The standout false value in this play is in the definition of success as achieving popularity and money as preached by Willy. The real value seems to be placed on character as seen through Bernard and Charley’s relationship. There also seems to be some value placed on education, which is one big factor that lets Bernard “succeed” and Biff fail. This reminded me of the movie “An Education” starring Carey Mulligan, which touches upon similar ideas in 1960’s England. To me the play is a lot about dreams, aspirations, and plans for the future. What I related to most was the notion of planning for the future, hoping for the best, but not really executing the plans. We see it in Willy and Biff as they talk about all the possibilities ahead of them, then Happy realizes that they “didn’t settle much” (14). 

Act 2 Part 2 Past, Present, Imaginations

Miller combines scenes of the past and the present to demonstrate the idea that Willy is stuck in the past. Willy often remembers the past to be “good” and “better times” which overshadow the present. Willy’s imagination, for example his dialogues with his brother Ben, also shows different sides of Willy to the audience. One, it shows that Willy is thinking about what could have been- of how his life could have been much better had he listened to his brother and followed him to Alaska. The other side is that of Willy’s unstable mental health. This reminded me of Ken Kessey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in which the narrator is a patient of the mental hospital suffering from hallucinations, so the reader has to question whether his story is real or a figment of his imagination. For the most part I believed all parts of Willy’s story to be real and that Miller employed the imaginations to suggest that Willy was slowly losing his mind- so much so that he goes and takes his own life. 

Act 2 Part 2 Willy's Dream

Willy’s dream is to be successful- specifically to be well liked by those around him by making lots of sales and money. His other dream is to be loved by his family, more specifically, again, to be loved by Biff, with whom the audience knows he has had a rough patch with. Unfortunately, it takes more than just time for Willy to realize that Biff does love him as seen in his realization “isn’t that remarkable? Biff-he likes me” (106).  The important thing though is that Willy has this realization before his death, so in a way, his second dream had always been true. It’s hard to say and judge whether a man’s dreams are right and wrong, but I think it can be argued that Willy maybe didn’t prioritize them in the best way. It appears as if Willy was too caught up in  his business of selling and being well liked that his son slowly became a secondary concern, especially when Biff was away. For this reason, I don’t believe Willy is a born loser. He is more of a tragic hero because he goes through a lot to finally realize that Biff loves him, yet his poor mental health drives him to his death, disabling him from spending more time with his family 

Act 2 Part 1 Foreshadow

“I slept like a dead one.” (52) Here we see that Willy is talking about rest with the idea of deep rest. The simile illustrates the image of death, which the audience might guess could be something that occurs to Willy.

“You know that little rubber pipe I told you about” (56). In this monologue by Linda , which is a telephone conversation with Biff, we are reintroduced to the rubber hose and the notion of Willy trying to kill himself. The fact that the rubber hose was taken away by Biff shows that suicide is a definite concern to the rest of the family as well. This also seems to heighten the curiosity of the audience- “might Willy take his life in another way?”

Act 2 Part 1- Sports

As mentioned earlier, business does not have the best reputation in this play. Sports on the other hand, is a snippet of past pride that Willy had for the glorious Biff. The Ebbets Field game is significant in that it is the last “happy” occasion to occur to Willy, Biff and his family. After the football game, “ nothing good” happened to Biff in Willy’s eyes. As a flashback, the talk about the Ebbets Field game shows that sports was something important to Biff and Willy. Charley makes some jokes about the big game, which suggests that he doesn’t take sports as seriously as Willy does. Willy getting angry with Charley emphasizes the value that Willy put on sports.

To be honest I’m not too confident about what the significance of this might be. The one catch in sports is that it cannot last forever. An athlete can only perform for so many years until another athlete replaces him. In the same manner, there is the moment, like the Ebbets Field game for Biff, that will only come once and should be enjoyed and cherished. I think maybe this reveals certain characteristics of Willy and Charley. Willy appreciates things that receive a lot of attention, even though it might be momentary, while Charley doesn’t mind such things. 

Act 2 part 1- Franks Chop House

The name “Frank’s Chop House” can be seen as a symbol for a number of things. First and foremost, it represents the idea of broken promises. The first broken promise is made by Biff and Happy to their father, for a nice dinner together at the restaurant. The audience sees that Happy and Biff abandoned Willy at the restaurant as the two leave with some girls. Frank Wagner makes the other broken promise, father of Howard Wager, the current head of Willy’s sales agency. Frank had promised, in Willys mind, Willy a job at the New York office, which never comes true.

The greater significance and symbol of the name is that Frank’s Chope House represents the idea of business, especially its cutting, no-mercy, root. Like meat in a butchers shop, people in the business world are like products, only needed for certain parts and things. They are sold to make more money. In the play, Howard gives Willy “the chop”, and we see that all past ties, like how Willy “named” Howard or his relationship with Frank, is completely out of the picture when it comes to business. Miller seems to be criticizing the harsh business world and questions whether money is really more important than human relationships through the use of the name “Frank’s Chop House.”

In many ways what Miller shows us about the business world being ruthless holds true to today. We often hear about unethical conduct aimed at gaining more money. Perhaps then Miller is suggesting that we reflect on the way and why we conduct business in the first place… Should it be based on service? Providing goods? 

ACT 2 Charley& Bernard vs Willy& Biff

Willy and Biff are compelled by the notion of material success- being popular and being wealthy, more so than anything else. It can be argued though that Biff has the same attitude towards life as Willy precisely because of the great influence that Willy had on him and from the way Willy taught Biff. Willy especially consider “Business” to be the only legitimate occupation and of course, the more the money the merrier. Charley and Bernard on the other hand don’t care too much about what others think about them. Bernard valued education and finishing school. Miller pairs these foil characters together to pose the questions to the audience along the lines of- “what do you value?” “what is success to you?” By presenting Willy and Biff’s relationship in a dysfunctional light, Miller seems to suggest that what those characters value aren’t all that valuable in the long run after all. 

Act 2- Howard Wagner

The audience is positioned to feel a little bit of aversion towards Howard Wagner. For one thing, he isn’t completely engaged in the conversation when Willy is trying to ask him a serious favor. His focus is on the recorder that he had recently bought and showing it off to Willy. In a way a similarity between Howard and Willy is the consumerist mindset—both characters place value on man-made objects like machines. One characteristic we see in Howard is his love for his family, which is evident in the way he brags about his children’s talents. He is also seen cutting off Willy to let him hear his children- which further emphasizes the love he has for them as seen in “Sh! Get this now, this is my son” (57). “She is crazy for me”(57) referring to her daughter really shows that Howard is a family man. 

ACT 1- Willy

Act 1

Willy

He cares about his children as evident in the concerns he shows for Biff. From Willy feeling frustrated that Biff is only a “farmhand”(5) and  him yelling in fits of anger that Biff is “a lazy bum” (5) to Willy calming down to acknowledge that Biff is actually “such a hard worker” (6) we can see that Willy’s frustration stems from genuine love and care. What father would not want to see his son succeed? Willy is also old, and is “talking to himself.” This makes him the worry among his family members.

Standout quote from Willy:

“The way they boxed us in here”(6). Contextually, we know that Willy is referring to “bricks and windows” of the house, but it appears as though there is more that is holding Willy down, stuck. A big part of it is Willy’s attachment to the past as he often recalls the past and picks out the best parts of them to saying, “Remember those days” (8).  It could be that Willy is not only stuck in the past, but also stuck in the idea that the present is bad. It is obvious that he is not enjoying the present all to much as he is “tired to death” but at the same time, we don’t see him doing much about it in the first act, other than recalling better times.

ACT 1- First Impressions

Act 1

My first impressions:

One of the things that I noticed first about this play is that the visualization is a bit more difficult. This is mainly due to the breaking of the fourth wall, as there are moments of the past within the present scenes. Additionally, at times, characters like Ben, seem to only appear as a fragment of memory, in which his interaction and presence is not completely integrated with the other characters.

I think the element that I find most striking in the first act is the notion of plans and dreams; the hope for a better future coupled with a feeling of distress in the present. Even the stage notes at the beginning highlight this theme of dreams (plans, not sleep-experiences) as there is “an air of dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality,” Characters talk about doing this or that which will surely make their lives better. For example, the exchange between Happy and Biff to start the Loman Brothers sporting goods (46) is a romantic and “Million dollar” (47) idea. However, we see that there seems to be more talk than action occurring to realize anything. 

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This is where I'll post my thoughts on Arthur Miller's play:

Death of a Salesman

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-Sean