A Level English Literature > Willy Loman Key Quotes > Flashcards

Willy Loman Key Quotes Flashcards

(144 cards)

Study These Flashcards
1
Q

Act One

‘[Willy] is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly.’

Stage Direction

A
  • Old, obsolete
  • ‘quietly,’ unheard, unnoticed and unsuccessful. –> a failure and victim to capitalist ideologies.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Act One

‘his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties.’

Stage Direction

A
  • ‘mercurial’, Willy Loman is unpredictable and unstable.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

“The car kept going off onto the shoulder”

A
  • Willy can’t control the car just like he can’t control commercial expectations and societal pressures.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Act One

‘I’m tired to death.’

A
  • Objectification of workers as machines instead of human beings.
  • Personal feelings and needs are not considered by the system as long as they can contribute to the economy.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Act One

‘I have such thoughts, I have such strange thoughts.’

A
  • Suicidal thoughts, Willy Loman cannot live in his life of failure.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

‘They don’t need me in New York, I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England.’

A
  • Blindness, Willy cannot accept the fact that he is not ‘vital’
  • Willy’s self-definition is built upon his career. –> Drives him to suicide. Self-worth and legacy is measured on his reputation.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Act One

‘But that boy of his, that Howard, he don’t appreciate.’

A
  • Constently shifting blame for the cause of his failures. Lack of accountability.
  • Expects promotion based on the relationship between him and Howard’s father instead of work ethic. –> Arrogance, assumptious.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Act One

‘Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it.’

A
  • Dramatic Irony + Cataphoric reference.
  • Willy commits suicide just as he pays off the morgage on his house.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

‘I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?’

A
  • Willy Loman is a microcosm for 1940s American society. With the rise of capitalism, consumerism and meritocracy, wealth is pioritised as it directly corresponds with an indivduals amount of power.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Act One

‘[worried and angered]: There’s such an undercurrent in him.’

A
  • Willy has failed as a father.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Act One

‘How can he find himself on a farm?’

A
  • Capitalist ideology: The need for profit is pioritised over an individuals actual skills and interests.
  • Commentary of society, Creativity is stifled by the need to be successful.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Act One

‘But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!’

A
  • Importance of money.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Act One

Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!

A
  • Social expectation to have your life sorted out when you are young. Unrealistic expectations.
  • Ironic, Biff who prefers to work on a farm and in nature - primal human activities - has ‘found’ himself more than Willy who has stifiled his own creative passions (building, working with his hands) for the promise of prosperity promised by a society that values the hollow value of material success.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Act One

The trouble is he’s lazy, goddammit!

A
  • Meritocratic ideolgies,
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Act One

‘Biff is a lazy bum!’

A
  • ‘Bum’ colloquial slang for homeless person.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Act One

‘Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world, a young man with such - personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff - he’s not lazy.’

A
  • Display of patriotism –> ‘Greatest country’ Irony, he holds pride in the country that has failed him.
  • ‘Not lazy,’ –> By denying Biff’s laziness, Willy is able to hold onto the hope that Biff will someday fulfill his expectations of him.
  • Willy’s imposed dream of Biff being successful as a sportsman and then businessman conflicts with his actual strengths and his dream of working in nature.
  • Although Biff does recognise the falsity in the dream, his conditioning as a child leaves him to unable to progress in life as he feels obligated to achieve dream his fathers dream.
  • Also suggests Willy’s myopic outlook. Willy perceives Biff’s enlightenment as an “insult” and “spite” to him, as is said in Act 2.
  • Biff’s self insight thus created a defensive reaction from his father who even failed to sell the American Dream of hope to his son, another reminder of his failure as a salesman.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Act One

‘The way they boxed us in here. Bricks and windows. windows and bricks.’

A
  • Surplus, over-population –> 1940s American society.
  • Willy feels confined by his home which represents his wealth ergo his success. Therefore, “boxed” illustrates the societal boundaries that imprison Willy as a “common man” .
  • “They” , ambigious, represents capitalism and the repercussions of consumerism which cause Willy to continually feel that he is underachieving.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Act One

‘The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighbourhood. The grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the backyard.’

A
  • Plant, Growing, Nature imagery represents the oversaturation of consumerism & capitalism.
  • Willy has no room to achieve any success anymore, he is surround by a community alike to him. Willy is ‘a dime a dozen’ where everyone is wroking to achieve the same goal.
  • Miller’s comment on the futility of the American Dream.
  • Alludes to Levittown and other Suburban development. Everyone has moved to the Suburbs in pursuit of reaping benefits from the post-war prosperity.
  • Ironic, America represents the Land of the Free and Opportunity yet Willy is both constricted in his environment and his opportunity.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Act One

‘There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening!’

A
  • Willy shifts blame
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Act One

‘You’re my foundation and my support, Linda.’

A
  • In reality, Linda is unable to be an authoritative “foundation” to “support” Willy due to her constraints as a wife within a society.
  • This is due to the ‘glass ceiling’ which prevents women from reaching men in the hierarchy.
  • Therefore, Linda could not acquire the voice needed to be the support for Willy as her role as “Quintessential housewife” contradicts this.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Act One

‘Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas…

A

Edison, I think. Or B. F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf.’

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Act One

‘The way Biff used to simonize that car? The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it.’

A
  • Exaggeration in his families personal achievements to deflect from his personal failures as father and a business man.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Act One

‘Too young entirely, Biff. You want to watch your schooling first.’

A
  • Willy does not enforce the importance of school on his son beyond these words and arguably encourages Biff’s poor behaviour.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Act One

[Light rises on the kitchen.]

A
  • Time shift from the present to the past.
  • Light rising on the kitchen signifies the hope still held by the Loman household in the past.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
# Act One [Willy is gradually addressing - physically - a point off stage, speaking through...
the wall of the kitchen, and his voice has been rising in volume to that of a normal conversation.]
26
# Act One ‘Never leave a job till you're finished.’
- Irony
27
# Act One ‘I saw a beautiful hammock. I think I’ll buy it...
next trip, we’ll hang it right between those two elms.’
28
# Act One ‘It's got Gene...
Tunney's signature on it!’ - Gene Tunney: Famous boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1926 to 1928, and the American light heavyweight title twice between 1922 and 1923.
29
# Act One ‘That's because he likes you. If somebody else took that ball there'd be an uproar.’
- Willy teaches his sons about life and society poorly.
30
# Act One ‘Someday I'll have my own business, and I'll never have to leave home again.’
- Irony, audience know Willy is still working away from home in the present day. - Pathos, Willy is still working and struggling.
31
# Act One Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not - liked. He's liked, but he's not - well liked.
- Reputation takes precedence
32
# Act One ‘America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people.’
- Display of patrotism
33
# Act One ‘I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own.’
- Arrogant.
34
# Act One ‘What do they say about you in school, now that they made you captain?’
- Leadership, power, status and success are important to Willy.
35
# Act One ‘Oh, wait’ll tell this in Boston!’
- Only cares for how his sons will make him look. Not the sons themselves. - Nuclear family, another thing which was expected from Willy and another thing he failed at.
36
# Act One ‘Hey, looka Bernard. What're you lookin' so anaemic about, Bernard?’
- 'Amaemic': pale, faint, stressed - Willy does not recognise the importance of education on Biff's future which perpetutates his later mental state when Biff inevitably fails.
37
# Act One 'Don't be a pest, Bernard! [To his boys] What an anaemic!'
Willy does not recognise the importance of education on Biff’s future which perpetutates his later mental state when Biff inevitably fails.
38
# Act One ‘Bernard is not well liked, is he?’
- Idolisation of reputation
39
# Act One ‘That's why I thank Almighty God what you're both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead.’
- 'Adonises,' reference to Greek Mythology.
40
# Act One Chevrolet, Linda, is the greatest car ever built.
- Mirrors capitalist ideologies. -
41
# Act One ‘[in reference to the broken refrigerator] But it's brand new.’
- Miller is criticising how big conglomerates pioritise profit and mass consumption over quality and
42
# Act One ‘I'm very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don't seem to take to me.’
- Conflicting dialogue. Willy is well-liked but people don't seem to like him? - Reflects Willy's inner turmoil and insecurity.
43
# Act One ‘They seem to laugh at me.’
- Willy's insecurity
44
# Act One [Willy moves to the edge of the stage.]
- Front of stage, closest to the audience and where Willy is more vunerable
45
# Act One ‘I don't know the reason for it, but they just pass me by. I'm not noticed.’
- anaphora; 'Dressed quietly' - Willy is a microcosm for the common man. -
46
# Act One ‘A man oughta come in with a few words. One thing about...
Charley. He's a man of few words, and they respect him.’
47
# Act One ‘I'm fat. I'm very - foolish to look at, Linda.’
- Willy's insecurity at his own image and success.
48
# Act One ‘… as I was going in to see the buyer I heard him say something about - walrus. →> And I - I cracked him right across the face.’
- Mercurial nature. - Insecurity
49
# Act One ‘You're the best there is, Linda, you're a pal, you know that? On the road I want...
to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you.’
50
# Act One ‘[slapping her...
bottom]’
51
# Act One ‘[He suddenly grabs...
her and kisses her roughly.]’
52
# Act One ‘[moving to the forestage, with great...
agitation]: You'll give him the answers!’
53
# Act One "Where is he? I’ll whip him, I’ll whip him."
- Resortion to violence and aggression.
54
# Act One "Why is he taking...
everything?"
55
# Act One 'What is he stealing? Hes giving it back, isn't he? Why is he stealing? What did I tell him? I never in my life told him anything but decent things.'
- Ironic, Willy has taught him all the wrong lessons.
56
# Act One ‘Why did she have to wax the floors herself? Every time she waxes the floor she keels over. She knows that!’
- Willy's guilt at not being able to financially provide for his family and pay for such menial tasks to be done for them.
57
# Act One ‘Why didn’t I go to Alaska with my brother Ben that time! Ben! That man was a genius, that man was success incarnate! What a mistake! He begged me to go.’
- Past regrets.
58
# Act One ‘There was a man started with...
the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines?’
59
# Act One 'Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he's...
rich! The world is an oyster but you don't crack it open on a mattress!'
60
# Act One ‘The woods are...
burning! I can't drive a car!’
61
# Act One ‘Don’t talk about something...
you don't know anything about.’ - Irony
62
# Act One ‘A little trouble...'
with the car.’
63
# Act One ‘Don't insult me.’
- Willy is easily insulted, sensitive
64
# Act One ‘I got nothin' to give him, Charley, I'm...
clean, I'm clean.’
65
# Act One ‘A man who can't handle tools is...
not a man. You're disgusting.’
66
# Act One ‘If I'd gone with him to Alaska...
that time, everything would've been totally different.’
67
# Act One [as though to dispel his...
confusion he angrily stops Charley’s hand.]
68
# Act One ‘If you don't know how to play...
the game I'm not gonna throw my money away on you!’ - microcosm for capitalism
69
# Act One ‘[looking straight up]: Gotta break your...
neck to see a star in this yard.’
70
# Act One ‘They laugh at me, heh? Go to Filene's, go to the Hub, go to Slattery's, Boston.Call...
out the name Willy Loman and see what happens! Big shot!’
71
# Act One ‘If you get tired hanging around...
tomorrow, paint the ceiling I put up in the living-room.’
72
# Act One ‘personality always...
wins the day.’
73
# Act One ‘And if anything falls off while you're talking to him - like a...
package or something - don't you pick it up. They have office boys for that.’
74
# Act One ‘Because you got a greatness in...
you, Biff, remember that. You got all kinds a greatness...’
75
# Act One ‘Like a young god. Hercules - something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. [...] And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out - Loman, Loman, Loman! God...
Almighty, he'll be great yet. A star that magnificent, can never really fade away.’
76
“I’ll start out in the morning”
- Alternative interpretation: Alludes to Willy’s determination and redemption. - Miller illustrates Willy as a Tragic victim due to his strength to continue even with failures which demonstrates his heroic qualities to provide for his children.
77
“I’d be in charge of New York now!”
- Willy’s sanity only survives in his dream world built on self-delusion. - Therefore, his claims of success only exist in hypothetical possibilities where he can defend his competencies as a “salesman”
78
# Act Two “When you finally paid for them, they’re used up”
- Same could be applied to Willy as once he has “paid for” the house and his commodities, he himself is “used up” due to the hardship he has endured from being a “small man” in a competitive society.
79
'Take a... | Act Two
breath.'
80
'I'd like to buy... | Act Two
some seeds.'
81
'He'll just have to... | Act Two
take me off the road.'
82
'I told you we should've bought a well-advertised machine. Charley bought a...
General Electric and it's twenty years old and it's still good, that son-of-a-bitch.'
83
'Whoever heard of...
a Hastings refrigerator?'
84
'Once in my life I would like to own...
something outright before it's broken! I'm always in a race with the junkyard.'
85
'All the cement, the lumber, the reconstruction I put in this...
house! There ain't a crack to be found in it anymore.'
86
'If only Biff would take...
this house, and raise a family...'
87
'I will never get behind...
a wheel the rest of my life!'
88
'Will you stop mending stockings? At least while I'm...
in the house. It gets me nervous. I can't tell you. Please.'
89
'Maybe beets would... Linda: [laughing]: But you've tried...
- grow out there. - so many times.'
90
'Can we...
talk a minute?'
91
'Lots of times I'm on the road, and I think to myself...
what I must be missing on the radio!'
92
'H: Don't you have a... W: Well, yeah, but who ever...
- radio in the car? - thinks of turning it on?'
93
'I've come to the decision that I'd...
rather not travel anymore.'
94
'God knows, Howard, I never asked a... But I was with the firm...
- a favour of any man. - when your father used to carry you in here in his arms.'
95
'[with increasing anger]: Howard, all I need to set...
my table is fifty dollars a week.'
96
'When I was a boy- eighteen, nineteen...
I was already on the road.'
97
'We've got quite a little...
streak of self-reliance in our family.'
98
'And I almost decided to go when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was...
Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he drummed and merchandise in thirty-one states.'
99
'Put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and...
call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living.'
100
'When he died, hundreds of...
salesmen and buyers were at his funeral.'
101
'Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four into twenty or...
thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remember and loved and helped by so many different people?'
102
'In those days there was...
personality in it, Howard.'
103
'There was respect and comradeship...
and gratitude in it. Today, it's all cut and dried.'
104
'There's no chance for bringing...
friendship to bear - or personality.'
105
'They don't know
me any more.'
106
'You can't eat the orange and...
throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit!'
107
'I can't throw myself...
on my sons. I'm not a cripple!'
108
'Three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky's the limit...
because it's not what you do, Ben. It's who you know and the smile on your face!'
109
'I regard you as a very...
brilliant man, Bernard. I value your advice.'
110
'You big...
ignoramus,'
111
'I'm not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods...
are burning, [...] There's a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today.'
112
[ABOUT LINDA] 'Because the woman has waited and...
the woman has suffered.'
113
'If you hadn't flunked...
you'd've been set by now!'
114
'You were doing a crossword puzzle...
and accidently used his pen!'
115
'Don't you want...
to be anything?'
116
'You don't want to be...
anything, is that what's behind it?'
117
'[strikes Biff and falters away from the table]: You...
rotten little louse! Are you spiting me?'
118
'I'm so...
lonely.'
119
'This is Miss Francis, Biff, she's a buyer. They're...
painting her room. Go back, Miss Francis, go back...'
120
'Now stop crying and do as I say. I gave you...
an order. Biff, I gave you an order? How dare you cry?'
121
'Now look Biff, when you grow up you'll...
understand about these things.'
122
'She's nothing to me, Biff. I...
was lonely, I was terribly lonely.'
123
'Biff, come back here...
or I'll beat you!'
124
'Come back here!...
I'll whip you!'
125
'I've got to get some seeds, right away...
Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the ground.'
126
[ABOUT LINDA] 'Cause she's suffered, Ben...
the woman has suffered.'
127
'A man can't go out the...
way he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something.'
128
'I've got nobody to talk to, Ben...
and the woman has suffered, you hear me?'
129
'How can they dare refuse? Didn't I work...
like a coolie to meet every premium on the nose? And now they don't pay off! Impossible!'
130
'I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard, and...
rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand.'
131
'Ben, that funeral...
will be massive!'
132
'I am known! Rhode Island...
New York, New Jersey - I am known, Ben,'
133
'[He is broken...
and desperate]'
134
'You can't see nothing out here!...
They boxed in the whole goddamn neighbourhood!'
135
'May you rot in hell...
if you leave this house!'
136
'You're trying to...
put a knife in me'
137
'I am not a dime a dozen!...
I am Willy Loman and you are Biff Loman.'
138
# [](http://) 'Biff - he...
likes me!'
139
'When the mail comes...
he'll be ahead of Benard again!'
140
'Oh Ben, I always knew one or another...
we were gonna make it, Biff and I!'
141
[ABOUT WILLY] 'There's more of him in that...
front stoop than all the sales he ever made.'
142
[ABOUT WILLY] 'He was so...
wonderful with his hands.'
143
[ABOUT WILLY] 'He never knew...
who he was'
144
[ABOUT WILLY] 'He had the...
wrong dreams. All, all, wrong'
A Level English Literature
flashcards
Decks in class (81)
# Cards
Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2026 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions