Quotes from the play

Question 1

‘maybe it was the steering again’ ‘maybe it’s your glasses’

Answer 1

• Miller’s repetition shows Linda’s continuous lack of action is evident as she repeatedly deflects Willy’s cries for help
• she enables Willy to transcend further into his lack of reality

Question 2

Biff is a lazy bum
There’s one thing about Biff - he’s not lazy

Answer 2

• Willy’s contradicting comments about Biff represent the inner turmoil he is going through in his mind
• calls Biff lazy in the economical sense

Question 3

I’m tired to the death

Answer 3

• foreshadows Willy’s death at the end of the play
• his comment is ironic because he is actually close to dying
• it was intended to be an exaggeration of his everyday fatigue, but it is ironically accurate
• Miller introduces Willy as weighed down by his burdens using the props (cases) on stage to symbolise this

Question 4

strange thoughts

Answer 4

• a sign that his mental health is deteriorating right from the start of the play
• start of his slow unravelling of Willy Loman

Question 5

Biff Loman is lost

Answer 5

• ironic because Biff is the only one who is aware of the delusions his family holds, and attempts to escape the tyranny of his family’s beliefs and expectations
• Willy deflects instead of addressing his own inability to understand reality
• perhaps biff is ‘lost’ because of the affair, which mentally scars him and ruins his faith in everything willy has told him
• said by Willy

Question 6

Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. to come out number-one man. I’m gonna win it for him

Answer 6

• In the requiem Happy resolves to carry on Willy’s legacy by making as much money as possible
• Happy has interpreted a twisted misinterpretation of Willy’s death
• Miller is showing that the American dream will continue to consume people

Question 7

(an air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality)

Answer 7

• the stage directions set up the audience for Willy’s tenous grasp on reality
• the play is pervaded by dreams, the american dream, their fantasys
• Shows Willy’s shallow dreams of success which influenced Biff’s disillusionment and Happy’s shalloweness
• Willy is fuelled by fantasies and when he starts to lose grip on those fantasies it results in mental collapse
• Arguably the characters’ dreams which lead to the play’s tragedy

Question 8

(with a hopeless glance at Happy)

Answer 8

• The stage directions show Biff’s disappointment in Happy’s decisions
• Biff is the only one who broke the cycle of denial and deceptions
• He sees through the values that have corrupted him and so many others around him, including his own brother who vowed to succeed in place of his father, Willy

Question 9

a man who can’t handle tools is not a man. you’re disgusting

Answer 9

• shows the toxic masculinity present in the play
• Willy attempts to define things in term of how ‘masculine’ it is
• Willy disparages Charley because he ‘can’t handle tools’ but perhaps this is just a deflection off of his own self-worth in which he denies the job because he feels humiliated as a man that he can no longer make a living
• Willy feels as though his masculinity is threatened

Question 10

what’s the matter with you? I’ve got a job

Answer 10

• Willy feels as though his masculinity is threatened
• repeatedly claims he has a job even though we know he has just been fired
• Willy can’t take the job from Charley because he feels humiliated and his pride is too big to allow him to take the job
• Willy’s rejection of Charley’s Job offer stems partly from jealousy of Charley’s success
• Additionally, Willy knows that Charley does not like him much—his offer of a job thus fails to conform to Willy’s idealistic notions about business relationships.

Question 11

He’s liked but not well liked

Answer 11

• Willy is more concerned over Bernard being well liked than the consequences if Biff fails his exam
• Represents Willy’s obsessive need to be well liked that ultimately leads to his blindness to reality as he doesn’t understand that being well liked does not guarantee you a good job/life
• Blindness to anything is an element of tragedy and this is subtly interspersed within the story using quotes like these that show Willy’s false perception of reality

Question 12

‘I slept like a dead one’

Answer 12

• At the start of Act 2 Willy says this
• At the start of both acts Miller begins with references to death
• Miller is setting up the element of tragedy and furthering his downfall, preparing the audience for the tragic ending which we know is inevitable since death is a key element of tragedy

Question 13

This touchdown is for you Dad

Answer 13

• shows Biff values and idolises his dad

Question 14

So beautiful up there Linda, the trees were so thick and the air is warm

Answer 14

• show’s that Willy thrives in nature

Question 15

Towering angular

Answer 15

• describes the apartment blocks that prevent sunlight coming into his house
• represents american dream preventing this