How was Linda instrumental in keeping Willy in the city? Why was Bernard so anxious to carry Biff's athletic gear? What two questions about Biff's youth did Bernard ask Willy? Who seemed determined to stick to the facts about the meeting with Oliver? Why did Willy feel his suicide would end Linda's suffering? What was Willy's impression of Biff's impression of Willy?
What paradox surrounded Willy's perception of his own funeral? Which Loman insisted on speaking the truth about their lives? Who seemed to be encouraging Willy to plunge into the abyss of suicide? Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above. If you are fuzzy on schemes and tropes, virtualsalt.
Get a free wiki Try our free business product. Willy accidentally calls Charley Ben. As Willy talks to Ben about the prospect of going to Alaska, Charley, seeing no one there, gets confused and questions Willy. Willy yells at Charley, who leaves. The younger Linda enters and Ben meets her. Willy asks Ben impatiently about his life.
Ben recounts his travels and talks about their father. As Ben is about to leave, Willy daydreams further, and Charley and Bernard rush in to tell him that Biff and Happy are stealing lumber. Although Ben eventually leaves, Willy continues to talk to him.
Back in the present, the older Linda enters to find Willy outside. Linda scolds Biff for judging Willy harshly. Biff tells her that he knows Willy is a fake, but he refuses to elaborate. Linda mentions that Willy has tried to commit suicide. Happy grows angry and rebukes Biff for his failure in the business world. Willy enters and yells at Biff.
Happy intervenes and eventually proposes that he and Biff go into the sporting goods business together. After more arguing and reconciliation, everyone finally goes to bed.
Act II opens with Willy enjoying the breakfast that Linda has made for him. Willy ponders the bright-seeming future before getting angry again about his expensive appliances. Linda informs Willy that Biff and Happy are taking him out to dinner that night. The phone rings, and Linda chats with Biff, reminding him to be nice to his father at the restaurant that night.
As the lights fade on Linda, they come up on Howard playing with a wire recorder in his office. Willy tries to broach the subject of working in New York, but Howard interrupts him and makes him listen to his kids and wife on the wire recorder.
When Willy finally gets a word in, Howard rejects his plea. Willy launches into a lengthy recalling of how a legendary salesman named Dave Singleman inspired him to go into sales.
Howard leaves and Willy gets angry. Howard soon re-enters and tells Willy to take some time off. Willy retorts that he has always thought the key to success was being well liked.
Exasperated, Charley asks who liked J. He angrily gives Willy the money for his insurance. Willy shuffles out of the office in tears. He assumes there is some secret to success that is not readily apparent. If he were not wearing the rose-colored glasses of the myth of the American Dream, he would see that Charley and his son are successful because of lifelong hard work and not because of the illusions of social popularity and physical appearances.
Willy believes so blindly in his interpretation of the American Dream that he has constructed a veritable formula by which he expects Biff to achieve success. Biff struggles with this formula in the same way that he struggles with the formulas in his textbook.
Charley refuses to relate to Willy through blustering fantasy; instead, he makes a point of being frank. Bernard tells Willy that, after Biff flunked Math in High School, Biff was more than willing to go to Summer school and re-do the class. Willy is shocked to hear this revelation. This is when we find out exactly what happened that day: Biff had gone to New England to vent with his father the fact that he flunked Math, only to realize that his Dad was there with a mistress.
The image of "The Willy Loman" that had fed his ego is now, officially, dead. In turn, Biff's own self-perception dies with it as well.
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