Excerpt
Death of a Salesman – a Story of Dreams
LINDA: Why didn't anybody come?
CHARLEY: It was a very nice funeral.
LINDA: But where are all the people he knew? Maybe they blame him.
CHARLEY: Naa. It's a rough world, Linda. They wouldn't blame him.
[…]
BlFF: He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong.
HAPPY, almost ready to fight Biff: Don't say that!
BlFF: He never knew who he was.
CHARLEY, stopping Happy's movement and reply. To Biff: Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
BlFF: Charley, the man didn't know who he was.
HAPPY, infuriated: Don't say that!
BlFF: Why don't you come with me, Happy?
HAPPY: I'm not licked that easily. I'm staying right in this city, and I'm gonna beat this racket! He looks at Biff, his chin set. The Loman Brothers!
BlFF: I know who I am, kid.
HAPPY: All right, boy. I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have — to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him.
BlFF, with a hopeless glance at Happy, bends toward his mother: Let's go, Mom.
(Miller 221-222)
[...]
- Quote paper
- Andra Stefanescu (Author), 2006, About Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". A Story of Dreams, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/91273
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