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UNIT 80 PLAY
Lesson 159 Death Of A Salesman (Ⅰ)
Arthur Miller (1915 -- ) is one of the most widely discussed
American playwrights since the Second World War. His masterpiece, Death
of A Salesman (1949), is the story of an ordinary American destroyed by
hollow values.
Main Characters in the play:
Willy Loman A salesman
Linda Willy's wife
Biff elder son
Happy younger son
The following scene is taken from Act One.
Light has risen on the boys' room. Biff gets out of bed, comes
downstage a bit, and stands attentively. Biff is two years older than
his brother Happy, well built, but in these days bears a worn air and
seems less-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger
and less acceptable than Happy's. Happy is tall, powerfully made. He,
like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never
allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat and is thus more
confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content.
Biff: Why does Dad mock me all the time?
Happy: He's not mocking you, he
Biff: Everything I say there's a twist of mockery on his face. I
can't get near him.
Happy: He just wants you to make good, that's all. I wanted to talk
to you about Dad for a long time, Biff. Something's -- happening to
him. He -- talks to himself.
Biff: I notice that this morning. But he always mumbled.
Happy: But not so noticeable. It got so embarrassing I had to send
him to Florida. And you know something? Most of the time he's talking
to you.
Biff: What's he say about me?
Happy: I can't make it out.
Biff: What does he say about me?
Happy: I think the fact that you're not settled, that you're still
kind of up in the air ...
Biff: There's one or two other things depressing him, Happy.
Happy: What do you mean?
Biff: Never mind. Just don't lay it all to me.
Happy: But I think if you just got started -- I mean -- is there any
future for you out there?
Biff: I tell ya, Hap, I don't know what the future is. I don't know
-- what I'm supposed to want.
Happy: What do you mean?
Biff: Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to
work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or
another. And it's a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway
on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping
stock, or making phone calls, or buying or selling. To suffer fifty
weeks out of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you
really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to
have to get ahead of the next fella. And still -- that's how you build
a future.
Happy: Well, you really enjoy it on a farm? Are you content out
there?
Biff: [with rising agitation:] Hap, I've had twenty or thirty
different kinds of jobs since I left home before the war, and it always
turns out the same. I just realized it lately. In Nebraska when I
herded cattle, and in Dakotas, and Arizona, and now in Texas. It's why
I came home now, I guess, because I realized it. This farm I work on,
it's spring there now, see? And they've got about fifteen new colts.
There's nothing more inspiring or -- beautiful than the sight of a mare
and a new colt. And it's cool there now, see? Texas is cool now, and
it's spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get
the feeling, my God, I'm not getting anywhere! What the hell am I
doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I'm
thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin' my future. That's why I come
running home. And now, I get here, and I don't know what to do with
myself. [After a pause:] I've always made a point of not wasting my
life, and everytime I come back here I know that all I've done is to
waste my life.
Happy: You're a poet, you know that, Biff? You're a -- you're an
idealist!
Biff: No, no, no, I'm mixed up very bad. Maybe I oughta get married.
Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that's my trouble. I'm
like a boy. I'm not married. I'm not in business, I just -- I'm like a
boy. Are you content, Hap? You're a success, aren't you? Are you
content?
Happy: Hell, no!
Biff: Why? You're making money, aren't you?
Happy: [moving about with energy, expressiveness:] All I can do now
is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I become
merchandise manager? He's a good friend of mine, and he just built a
terrific estate on Long Island. And he lived there about two months and
he sold it, and now he's building another one. He can't enjoy it once
it's finished. And I know that's just what I would do. I don't know
what the hell I'm workin' for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment -- all
alone. And I thing of the rent I'm paying. And it's crazy. But then,
it's what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of
women. And still, goddammit, I'm lonely.
Biff: [with enthusiasm:] Listen, why don't you come out West with
me?
Happy: You and me, heh?
Biff: Sure, we, we could buy a ranch maybe. Raise cattle, use our
muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open.
Happy: [avidly:] The Loman Brothers, heh?
Biff: [with vast affection:] Sure, we'd be known all over the
countries!
Happy: [enthralled:] That's what I dream about, Biff. Sometimes I
want to walk into the middle of that store and just rip off my clothes
and outbox that goddam merchandise manager, I mean I can outbox,
outrun, and outlift anybody in that store, and I have to take orders
from those common, petty son-of-bitches till I can't stand it any more.
Biff: I'm tellin' you, kid, if you were with me I'd happy out there.
Happy: [enthused:] See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that
I'm constantly lowering my ideas ...
Biff: Baby, together we'd stand up for one another, we'd have
someone to trust.
Happy: If I were around you --
Biff: Hap, the trouble is we weren't brought up to grub for money. I
don't know how to do it.
Happy: Neither do I!
Biff: Then let's go!
