The third quote is another showing that Willy is not a well-respected salesman and not ‘well liked’ as he tells his sons.
Linda remains as the typical housewife whom is portrayed in the American dream as being on her husbands side and does nothing but stick up for him and take care of the house and shopping, but Linda has a much more important role than this, Linda seems to be the character that unlocks Willy’s subconscious - for the audience to know about his breakdown and money problems.
Willy not only has dreams about what his is and what he wants to be, but has dreams about the past as well. These flashbacks inform the audience what the Loman family was like and what happened since then to have the current situation.
It is through the flashbacks that we find where Willy’s happiness used to be, it was with his sons, when Biff was a popular footballer and was going to go to university. Willy often dreams about those times when all the family was happy.
It is also through the flashbacks that the incident which inevitably caused Biff to not attend University and for him to have a bad yet more truthful image of his father.
This encounter is when Willy has his final mental lapse in the restaurant, he dreams about an affair with another woman, and Biff finding out after he visits his father to ask him to try and stop his teacher ‘flunking him’ in maths.
Biff is distraught, he is upset and angry with his father and realises the truth, the truth about everything, the lies, his father and where they really belong;
Biff: Don’t touch me, you-liar!
Willy: Apologize for that!
Biff: You fake! You phony little fake!
This incident in the restaurant explains why Biff has been so negative towards his father compared to the dreams that Willy has about the past.
Biffs feeling about his father, bother and where they should be in life is clearly shown in this quote, when Biff vomits out his true feeling at once.
“ I don’t care what they think! They’ve laughed at dad for years and you know why? Because we don’t belong in this nuthouse of a city. We should be mixing cement on some open plane, or-or carpenters.”
For Biff, the dream is dead and the reality of everyday life must be faced.
Unlike Biff Happy is completely oblivious to what his father is and has been doing, not even reacting when he finds out that his dad has been borrowing money from Charley and claiming it was his earnings, or when Willy tells them that he lost his job.
Happy is very much like his father, he wants to be successful, and tries to impress people by lying to them, even to and about his own father;
About Willy to some girl in restaurant; “no that’s not my father he’s just some guy”
Happy also claims to this girl that he is a champagne seller, just to impress her;
“ why don’t you bring her – excuse me miss, do you mind? I sell champagne…”
Happy goes on to chat the girl up with lies, and then talks about Biff being a very famous football player. When Willy arrives at the restaurant, Biff had prepared to tell Willy the truth about not getting an interview with Bill Oliver. Happy interrupted Biff, changing Biffs attempt to telling his father the truth to something his father would prefer to hear, when Biff tries to interrupt and overrule Happy whom is dreaming for his father Willy would not listen, telling him to shut up, knowing he did not want to hear what Biff wanted to say.
Biff : Yeah, he gave me a couple of – no no!
Happy: (cutting in) He told him my Florida idea.
Willy : Don’t interrupt (To Biff). How’d he react to the Florida idea?
At the beginning of the above dialogue Biff was getting led astray by Happy and started to go with the flow, but then quickly snapped out of it “… no no!” only to get cut in by Happy again whom pleased his father by what he said.
That night after Biff manages to tell Willy the truth about the job, Willy commits suicide, the downfall of a man who set both his sons and himself such high standards that they could not live up to them
Biff: “you blew me so full of hot air I never could stand taking orders from anybody”.
Willy eventually committing suicide to provide the family with enough money.
Happy after Willys death still insists on carrying out Willys dream and follow in his footsteps as he denies to realise the actual truth about himself and his father;
Happy: I’m staying right here in this city, and I’m gonna beat this racket!… The Loman Brothers! … I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream.
The words from happy ‘he had a good dream’ signify that Happy adopted his fathers dream and agrees with it, although it was a failure, unrealistic and not the dream that ‘men built like Adonis’ should be having. Unlike Biff Happy is going to follow his fathers footsteps and has not realised that the Lomans never belonged in a city, they, especially Willy had the ability to be craftsmen, it was reality and Biff realised this.
It was not that Biff had the wrong dream, but that Willy led the Lomans to the wrong dream that and Biff realised this at the same time as losing respect for his father and losing his confidence, motivation but unlike his family he found himself and although he might not have found his perfect job he has found where he and his family do not belong, the American Dream.
