The whole speech evokes sympathy from and audience or reader for Willy due to the romanticised language Miller uses to illustrate Willy’s dream. He uses repetitions; ‘He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law,’ which hammer home the tragedy of this dream of Willy’s being crushed. Also, the comment about putting a bolt to a nut is somewhat ironic as we know that, from Biff, that Willy was better practically and Miller uses this irony to criticise the American dream for depriving people of finding their own identities and being consumed by mass markets and mass media. He also repeats the opening line ‘Nobody dast blame this man’ in order to emphasise how we should not necessarily blame Willy for his intoxication with a dream he never really could achieve, even if it did cause him to destroy everything around him, eventually himself.
The interaction between Biff and Happy in the scene is very representative of how their characters have changed over the play. Happy is angry with Willy. With the atmosphere being in such melancholy, Miller makes Happy angry so the audience can see his fallibility as a character. He has followed the same dream and Willy’s death and subsequent failure threatens his identity. This is because Miller uses Happy to represent the wrong way of going about life and, juxtaposed with Biff, you can see how Miller criticises the American consumer dream. Biff’s character has been enlightened and has broken free of the self-denial and lies Willy imposed on them through his upbringing, seeing what has happened to Willy and not wishing the same fate. Biff sees ‘There’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made’ and his fondly retrospective attitude in this scene will lead the audience to be more sympathetic and affectionate towards his character. This is because he has acknowledged the death of Willy and realised why. He understands now that he must follow his own dreams not the same dream as everybody else. He can see Willy would have lived a better life if he had done so and wants to no follow him down a similar path. Miller also does this, as he wants the audience to see Biff is a happy person without the money as he has realised the things he wants from life do not involve it.
Happy can be seen by the audience as a naïve character as he has not really changed during the play, despite everything he believes in failing before his very eyes. He still believes Willy’s failure was misfortune and he wants to show the world ‘he didn’t die in vain’ and he says ‘I’m gonna win it for him.’ The audience will be lead into believing he will fail though and go by the same way Willy did. Miller juxtaposes the brothers attitudes with Biff saying ‘I know who I am kid’ when Happy questions his loyalty to ‘The Loman Brothers!’ The dramatic effect of this is to show how the two characters have reacted to Willy’s death. Happy is still hiding behind lies and following the consumer dream whereas Biff seems to have seen the real picture. Miller shows the audience Biff’s maturity and power over Happy in his stage directions. Biff looks on Happy ‘with a hopeless glance’ which suggests to the audience that Biff maybe right.
In this scene, we can see Linda’s character, one that never seemed to sway or differ, seem the most confused and lost at the end of the play. All the other characters in the scene seem to have some sort of firm idea of the direction after the death of Willy but Linda does not. Miller here is perhaps showing the audience that Willy was her life and now he is gone she has nothing. The dramatic effect of Linda’s confusion and sadness is to gain the sympathy of the audience and create a sense of melancholy.
She also seems to not have realised much about Willy, his death and why it came about. After his failure, death was the only answer for Willy as he could never achieve his dreams but Linda fails to see this. She cannot understand why he killed himself and it seems to her like he is ‘just on another trip.’ Her lack of acceptance is representative of how Linda believed everything Willy said. She cannot understand why nobody came to Willy’s funeral and she feels she has to say goodbye. Her main speech draws on the sympathy from the audience and casts a sombre mood upon the play.
She emphasises her disillusion with Willy’s death by her repetition of ‘I can’t cry.’ She cannot understand as she has followed what Willy has said and wanted and tied herself to his dreams for so long that she knows nothing without him. The use of flute music plying behind her speech emphasises the sorrow and hammers home the tragedy. Linda also has finally paid the house off but ‘there’ll be nobody home.’ Miller is using Linda’s confusion to highlight that material possessions do not necessarily mean happiness, contrary to what Willy believed. Linda does not know what to do with her life after Willy’s death, quite simply as Willy was her life and in his death she has nothing. Miller is using this to illustrate Willy’s failure to acknowledge the love and acceptance he had in his family, when he was more interested in seeking recognition in the business world.
