DOAS Flashcards
Willy: ‘Work a lifetime to pay off a house…
…and there’s nobody to live in it.’ Act 1
Willy: ‘The competition…
…is maddening’ A1
Biff: ‘Lotta…
…dreams and plans’ A1
Happy: ‘I don’t know…
…what the hell I am working for’ A1
Biff: ‘What the hell…
…was her name’ A1
Biff: ‘Every time I come back here I know that all I’ve done…
…is to waste my life’ A1
Biff: ‘Your hair…
…got so grey’ A1
SD: ‘silver…
…athletics trophy’ A1
Linda: ‘They got the biggest…
…ads of any of them’ A1
Happy: ‘The girl I was with tonight…
…is engaged to be married in five weeks.’ A1
Willy: ‘There’s more people! …
…That’s what’s ruining this country!’ A1
Willy: ‘I won’t have you…
…mending stockings in this house’ A1
Linda: ‘A small man can be just as exhausted…
…as a great man’ A1
Willy: ‘Ben, how should…
…I teach them?’ A1
SD: ‘towering, angular shapes…
…surrounding it on all sides’ A1
Linda: ‘He’s been trying to…
…kill himself.’ A1
Linda: ‘How can I mention…
…it to him?’ A1
Willy: ‘You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away…
…a man is not a piece of fruit!’ A2
Biff: ‘I never got anywhere…
…because you blew me so full of hot air’ A2
A2 - Linda: ‘He’s only a little…
…boat looking for a harbour.’
A2 - Willy: ‘you end up worth more…
…dead than alive.’
A2 - Willy: ‘I’d like to buy…
…some seeds.’
A2 - Ben: ‘The jungle is…
…dark but full of diamonds.’
A2 - Linda: ‘Why didn’t…
…anybody come?’
A1: Biff: ‘Because I know he’s a fake…
…and he doesn’t like anyone around who knows’
A1 - Willy: ‘Maybe I’ll feel…
…better in the morning.’
A1 - Linda: ‘Should I get you…
…an aspirin?’
A1 - Linda: ‘life is a casting off, …
…It’s always that way.’
A1 - Linda (SD): ’with infinite…
…patience
A1 - Happy (SD): sexuality is like…
…a visible colour on him’
A1 - Happy: ‘Boy there was…
…a pig’
A1 - Biff: ‘(you) suffer fifty weeks of the year…
…for the sake of a two week vacation, when all you really want is to be outdoors’
A1 - Happy: ‘Now weren’t they…
…gorgeous creatures’
What were Nietzche’s metaphors for Nihilism?
Twilight, the bottomless abyss, madness and death. Willy battles with all of these, and ultimately comes to embody the ‘will to power’ in his choice to kill himself.
A1 - Linda: ‘you’re the handsomest…
…man in the world’. (The woman’s laughter is heard)
A1 - Happy: ‘I just have an overdeveloped…
…sense of competition or something’
A1 - Biff: (Willy) ‘never had an ounce…
…of respect for you’
A2 - Willy: ‘be remembered and loved and…
… helped by so many different people?’
R - Biff: ‘There’s more of him…
…in the front stoop than in all the sales he ever made’
R - Biff: ‘He had the…
…wrong dreams.’
A2 - Willy: ‘I don’t have…
…a thing in the ground’
What links are there to Camus’ idea of absurdism?
- The absurd for Camus was the lack of meaning to life. He starts his book ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ by contemplating why we don’t just kill ourselves if life has no ultimate goal/inherent meaning. Willy’s choice to do so can be seen as a sacrifice to his primary false idol: reputation.
A1 - Willy: ‘I still feel - kind of…
…temporary about myself’
A1 - Willy: ‘There’s not a breath of…
…fresh air in the neighbourhood’
R - Biff: ‘He never knew…
…who he was.’
What does the use of the word ‘kid’ signify?
- In the requiem, Biff use it to address Happy. This cements the ideological divide between them now, Happy remains in his petulant state and Biff evolves past the mould his father has created for him.
R - Happy: ‘Willy Logan did not…
…die in vain.’
R - Happy: ‘He fought it out here…
…and this is where I’m gonna win it for him.’
R - Linda: ‘Forgive me, dear…
…I can’t cry’
R - Linda: ‘I made the last payment…
…on the house today’
R - Linda: ‘We’re free…
…We’re free…We’re free.’
A2 - Biff: ‘I realised what a ridiculous lie…
…my whole life has been.’
A2 - Biff: ‘I’m a dime a…
…dozen pop, and so are you.’
A1 - Biff (about Bernard): ‘He’s liked, …
…but he’s not well liked.’
A1 - Biff (to his friends): ‘Everybody sweep out…
…the furnace room!’
How does Willy portray his business trips to his sons vs Linda?
To Linda: ‘People don’t seem to take to me.’ ‘They seem to laugh at me.’ ‘I’m not noticed’.
Sons: ‘I went north to Providence. Met the Mayor.’
A1 - Willy: ‘I’m vital…
…in New England.’
Tragedy and the Common Man - Miller: ‘The pathetic is achieved when…
…the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.’
Miller: ‘The revolutionary questioning of…
… the stable environment is what terrifies.’
Biff: ‘We never told the truth…
…for ten minutes in this house!’ A2
Biff: ‘I am not a leader of men, Willy…
…, and neither are you.’A2
Happy: ‘It’s the only dream you can have…
… to come out number-one man.’ Req.
Willy: ‘There’s more people…
… that’s what’s ruining this country’ A1
SD: ‘“an air of the dream clings to the place…
…, a dream rising out of reality” A1
SD: “on a shelf over the bed…
…a silver athletic trophy stands” A1
SD: “The entire setting is wholly…
… or, in some places, partially transparent” A1
Happy: what the hell…
…was her name? A1
Biff: ‘your hair got…
…so grey’ (to Linda) A1
Willy: ‘Ben how should…
…I teach them?’ A1
Linda: ‘He’s going to…
…kill himself’ A2
Biff: ‘Dad I let…
…you down’ A2
SD: ‘She more than loves him…
…she admires him.’ (A1)
This is crucial, and it is what Willy desires above all else. The key difference between love and admiration is that the latter connotes a desire to be like them. Will has wanted to be someone else his whole life, he wants that to be reciprocated.
Willy: ‘Like Thomas…
…Edison’ (A1)
SD: ‘his mercurial nature, …
… his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties’ (A1)
opening SD about Linda: ‘longings which she shares but…
…lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end’ (A1)
Willy: ‘I’m tired to…
…the death’ A1
SD, describing how L talks to W: ‘very carefully, …
… delicately’ A1
Willy: ‘If old man…
…Wagner was alive I’d have been in charge of New York now’ (A1)
W: ‘But not enough sun…
… gets back there’ A2
‘How can he find himself…
…on a farm? Is that a life?’ A1
W: ‘Biff is a…
W: ‘That’s one thing about Biff, …
…lazy bum’
… he’s not lazy’ A1
Willy: ‘Remember those two beautiful…
…elm trees… They should have arrested the builder for cutting them down.’ A1
W: ‘You’re my foundation…
… and my support Linda’ A1
B: ‘when all you really desire…
… is to be outdoors’ A1
H: ‘sometimes I just want to rip my clothes off…
…in the middle of the store and outbox that goddam merchandise manager.’ A1
W: ‘The woods…
…are burning’ A1
SD: ‘He is utterly certain…
…of his destiny, and there is an aura of far places about him’ A1
W: ‘That’s just the way I’m bringing them up, Ben…
…rugged, well-liked, all round.’ A1
L: ‘He’s not the finest character…
…that ever lived. But he’s a human being and a terrible thing is happening too him’
B: ‘Because I know he’s a fake…
…and he doesn’t like anyone around who knows’
SD about Linda: ‘she has developed an…
…iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behaviour’
Could this perhaps suggest she knows about the affair
