DOAS Flashcards
Act 1 - Willy: ‘Work a lifetime to pay off a house…
…and there’s nobody to live in it.’
A1 - 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’
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?’
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?’
A2 - 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 - 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: ‘‘Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go,
pick up a phone, and 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.’
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.’
