Biff death of a salesman age8/7/2023 He made a fortune in the African jungle by the time he was 21 years old. He works as an assistant but exaggerates his position and his authority. Happy is a womanizer driven by his sexuality. Biff is the only member of the family who knows about Willy's affair, and he resents his father bitterly. Biff has been estranged from Willy for over 15 years, during which time he has not been able to hold a steady job. She will protect Willy at all costs, even if she must perpetuate his fantasies and deny his suicidal behavior.īiff Loman The Lomans' older son. She is Willy's champion and takes it upon herself to reconcile her family. As the play progresses, Willy loses the ability to distinguish between the present and his memories of the past. He suffers from depression and anxiety as a result of his dissipating career, his estranged relationship with his oldest son, Biff, and his guilt over an extramarital affair. If you’ve enjoyed reading this review, please be sure to hit like, and while you are here, do check out some of my other recent book reviews.Willy Loman An aging salesman. If you would like to read this book, you can purchase it here: Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays) It takes only a few more pages for this revelation to completely sink in for Willy and for Willy to kill himself. Furthermore, it’s evident that everyone whose opinion Willy cares about now has little to no respect for him and Willy has finally realized that. This escalates the argument between father and son that basically ends when Biff says “Why did I go? Why did I go! Look at you! Look at what’s become of you!” (page 95) and Willy shuts down and forces himself into another flashback.įrom there, we see Willy remembering the moment that Biff found out about his affair and it appears that at that point he realizes that he never actually had Biff’s respect. Biff, Happy, and Willy are having an argument about Biff’s future when Biff brings up the balls and pen that he stole, while referring to Willy as “kid” (page 95). This inevitably sets Willy up for what I would argue is the tipping point of the book, page 95, when he realizes that Biff no longer respects him either. First his boss (Howard), then the next door neighbor’s kid (Bernard), and finally one of his closest friends (Charley). Willy begins to lose respect from the people whose opinions he values in his community. Several characters, including Bernard, who is the same age as Biff, and Charley, who still appears to be younger than Willy, refer to him as “kid” in later scenes (pages 80 and 83).Īll of the characters who refer to Willy as “kid” are younger than him and their use of the word seems to consistently be in a derogatory manner as if they are acknowledging that he’s going old and senile and have begun to treat him differently. And this isn’t the only place where we see this pattern. This seems especially derogatory for Howard to be using, not only because of the age gap between him and Willy but also because from what Willy says, we learn that he’s “put thirty-four years into this firm” (page 71), which is significantly more than anything Howard could have contributed. And he does all of this while referring to Willy as “kid”. The interaction between these two characters begins with Howard consistently cutting Willy off mid-sentence when he begins to talk about the purpose for his visit, and escalates when Howard seems to dismiss everything Willy says, from his anecdotes to his need to be able to provide for his family. What’s significant about this particular scene is that Howard is almost an entire generation younger than Willy, which we know because Willy brings up the fact that he helped name Howard, and this fact goes undisputed. The most significant of these is the scene with Howard (pages 67-73) when Willy is asking him for a job change and he ends up getting fired. However, in Act 2, in the short span of 30 pages, Willy is spoken to and referred to as “kid” about 10 to 15 times, and all of these times are by people younger than him. In Act 1, the word “kid” was only used when Biff was speaking to Happy (twice) or when Willy was speaking to his wife (twice). While reading Act 2 of the play, one thing stood out to me in particular. The Use of “Kid” as A Derogatory Term towards Willy (the father) in Act 2 of Death of A Salesman Here is my literary analysis for the book! *Warning: spoilers ahead!* I admit to being the latter, but still acknowledge that the play is extremely well-written and has a lot to offer with a fresh perspective. While the play is praised as one of the best in American literature, my teacher warned us that there would be some people that it would profoundly impact while others would remain confused as to why such a play had gained so much attention. This was one of the more recent books that we read in my English 11 class.
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