The Death Of Salesman
The salesman, Willy Loman, enters his home dressed in a dark gray business suit and carrying two large sample cases. He appears very tired and confused, a sixty-year-old man with calluses on his hands. Linda Loman, his wife, puts on a robe and slippers and goes downstairs. She has been asleep. Linda is mostly jovial, but represses objections to her husband. Her struggle is to support him while still trying to guide him. She worries that he smashed the car, but he says that nothing happened. He claims that he's tired to death and couldn't make it through the rest of his trip. He got only as far as Yonkers, and doesn't remember the details of the trip. He tells Linda that he kept swerving onto the shoulder of the road, but Linda thinks that it must be faulty steering in the car. He had to drive ten miles per hour to get back home safely. She tells him that he needs to rest his mind. Willy tells her that he was driving along looking at the scenery, and that suddenly he was going off the road. Linda says that there's no reason why he can't work in New York, but Willy says he's not needed there. Linda worries that Willy is too accommodating and that he should tell his boss that he must work in New York. Willy claims that if Frank Wagner were alive he would be in charge of New York by now, but that his son, Howard, doesn't appreciate him. Linda tells him that Happy took Biff on a double date, and that it was nice to see them shaving together. Linda reminds him not to lose his temper with Biff, but Willy claims that he simply had asked him if he was making any money. Willy says that there is an undercurrent of resentment in Biff, but Linda says that Biff admires his father. When Biff finds himself, both of them will be happier. Willy wonders how Biff can find himself as a farmhand. He remarks that it is a disgrace that a thirty-four- year-old man has not "found himself." Willy calls Biff a lazy bum and says that he is lost, but then contradicts himself and says that he is...
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