3.1.4

Key Events 7&8

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Act Two: Key Event Seven

We see the turning-point in Willy’s and Biff’s relationship, which is what the play has been building to.

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Key event seven

  • Willy relives the moment Biff discovers he is having an affair.
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Significance

  • This is the memory which Willy has been trying to suppress and the memory which the play has steadily built up to:
    • The moment where we see the turning-point in Willy’s and Biff’s relationship.
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Significance cont.

  • Miller later said that, on beginning to write this play, he only knew that if he could make Willy remember enough “he would kill himself”.
  • Willy has now reached that terrible moment.
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Quotation

  • “You fake! You phony little fake! You fake!”
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Explanation

  • These short exclamations see Biff almost spitting out these lines in disgust.
  • That Biff sees Willy as a “fake” and “phony” immediately connects this scene to the one moments earlier, where Biff had discovered his adult life had been based on a “lie”.
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Explanation cont.

  • Biff sees through his father, and through his father’s dreams.
  • The adjective “little” in Biff’s outburst often goes unnoticed, but helps to convey how diminished Willy has become to him, as if he has shrunk before his eyes.

Act Two: Key Event Eight

Willy's mental health continues to worsen and the inevitability of his suicide becomes increasingly clear.

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Key event eight

  • Willy, crushed by the events of the day, returns home.
  • He begins “planting the garden” by torchlight.
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Significance

  • The spectacle of Willy performing such a futile act in the middle of the night horrifies Biff, who cries out “Oh, my God!” when he sees it.
  • While planting, Willy speaks to Ben, asking his advice over the “guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition” he now sees as the only way he can leave something for his family.
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Quotation

  • “Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand.”
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Explanation

  • Willy’s words are full of dark symbolism.
  • The “diamond” is the $20,000 from his life insurance policy, the prospect of which entrances Willy with its “beauty”.
  • It is so close that Willy can almost reach out and “touch” it, but in order to do this, Willy has to enter “the dark”.
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Explanation cont.

  • Willy sees his death as something precious and magnificent (“he’ll see what I am, Ben!”), dreaming of his funeral, like Dave Singleman’s, being “massive”.

Jump to other topics

1Introduction

2Act One

3Act Two

4Extended Passage Analysis

5Character Profiles

6Key Themes

7Writing Techniques

8Historical Context

9Literary Context

10Critical Debates

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