From Ben’s departure through the closing scene
Summary
Willy’s shouts wake Linda and Biff, who find Willy outside
in his slippers. Biff asks Linda how long he has been talking to
himself, and Happy joins them outside. Linda explains that Willy’s
mental unbalance results from his having lost his salary (he now
works only on commission). Linda knows that Willy borrows fifty
dollars a week from Charley and pretends it is his salary. Linda
claims that Biff and Happy are ungrateful. She calls Happy a “philandering bum.”
Angry and guilt-ridden, Biff offers to stay home and get a job to
help with expenses. Linda says that he cannot fight with Willy all the
time. She explains that all of his automobile accidents are actually
failed suicide attempts. She adds that she found a rubber hose behind
the fuse box and a new nipple on the water heater’s gas pipe—a sign
that Willy attempted to asphyxiate himself. Willy overhears Biff,
Happy, and Linda arguing about him. When Biff jokes with his father
to snap him out of his trance, Willy misunderstands and thinks that
Biff is calling him crazy. They argue, and Willy maintains that
he is a “big shot” in the sales world.
Happy mentions that Biff plans to ask Bill Oliver for
a business loan. Willy brightens immediately. Happy outlines a publicity
campaign to sell sporting goods; the business proposal, which revolves around
the brothers using their natural physical abilities to lead publicity
displays of sporting events, is thenceforth referred to as the “Florida
idea.” Everyone loves the idea of Happy and Biff going into business
together. Willy begins offering dubious and somewhat unhelpful advice
for Biff’s loan interview. One moment, he tells Biff not to crack
any jokes; the next, he tells him to lighten things up with a couple
of funny stories. Linda tries to offer support, but Willy tells her
several times to be quiet. He orders Biff not to pick up anything that
falls off Oliver’s desk because doing so is an office boy’s job. Before
they fall asleep, Linda again begs Willy to ask his boss for a non-traveling
job. Biff removes the rubber hose from behind the fuse box before
he retires to bed.
Analysis
One reason for Willy’s reluctance to criticize Biff for
his youthful thefts and his careless attitude toward his classes
seems to be that he fears doing damage to Biff’s ego. Thus, he offers
endless praise, hoping that Biff will fulfill the promise of that
praise in his adulthood. It is also likely that Willy refuses to
criticize the young Biff because he fears that, if he does so, Biff
will not like him. This disapproval represents the ultimate personal
and professional (the two spheres are conflated in Willy’s mind)
insult and failure. Because Willy’s consciousness is split between
despair and hope, it is probable that both considerations are behind
Willy’s decision not to criticize Biff’s youthful indiscretions.
In any case, his relationship with Biff is fraught, on Willy’s side,
with the childhood emotional trauma of abandonment and, on Biff’s
side, with the struggle between fulfilling societal expectations
and personal expectations.
The myth of the American Dream has its strongest pull
on the individuals who do not enjoy the happiness and prosperity
that it promises. Willy pursues the fruits of that dream as a panacea
for the disappointments and the hurts of his own youth. He is a
true believer in the myth that any “well liked” young man possessing
a certain degree of physical faculty and “personal attractiveness”
can achieve the Dream if he journeys forth in the world with a can-do attitude
of confidence. The men who should have offered him the affirmation
that he needed to build a healthy concept of self-worth—his father
and Ben—left him. Therefore, Willy tries to measure his self-worth
by the standards of an American myth that hardly corresponds to
reality, while ignoring the more important foundations of family
love, unconditional support, and the freedom of choice inherent
to the American Dream. Unfortunately, Willy has a corrupted interpretation
of the American Dream that clashes with that set forth by the country’s
founding fathers; he is preoccupied with the material facets of
American success and national identity.
In his obsession with being “well liked,” Willy ignores
the love that his family can offer him. Linda is far more realistic
and grounded than Willy, and she is satisfied with what he can give
her. She sees through his facade and still loves and accepts the
man behind the facade. She likewise loves her adult sons, and she
recognizes their bluster as transparent as well. She knows in her
heart that Biff is irresponsible and that Happy is a “philandering
bum,” but she loves them without always having to like or condone
their behavior. The emotional core of the family, Linda demands
their full cooperation in dealing with Willy’s mental decline. If
Willy were content finally to relinquish the gnarled and grotesquely
caricatured American tragic myth that he has fed with his fear,
insecurity, and profound anxiety and that has possessed his soul,
he could be more content. Instead, he continues to chase the fame
and fortune that outruns him. He has built his concept of himself
not on human relationships that fulfill human needs but on the unrealistic
myth of the American hero. That myth has preyed on his all-too-common
male weaknesses, until the fantasy that he has constructed about
his life becomes intolerable to Biff. Willy’s diseased mind is almost
ready to explode by the end of Act I. The false hope offered by
the “Florida idea” is a placebo, and the empty confidence it instills
in Willy makes his final fall all the more crushing.
