She tells them that Willy's been trying to kill himself. He agrees to stay and pitch in half of his paycheck, but before he can go upstairs to bed, Linda has one more confession to make to the boys. Biff says that Willy threw him out because Biff knew he was a fake, but Biff won't explain any further. She wants to know what turned him against his father he used to admire him so much and do anything to make him proud. He's spent his entire life working for the benefit of his children, and now they are both immoral failures.īiff, out of a sense of obligation to his father, agrees to live at home and find a job in the city, but Linda insists that he can't stay if he's going to be hateful to Willy. No one knows him any more, and he has to borrow $50 a week from Charley to pretend it's his salary so that Linda won't know he's been demoted. He drives seven hundred miles to Boston and back, and he makes no money on the trips because all the contacts he once had are retired or dead. She tells the boys that Willy is no longer a salaried salesman, but has been demoted to earning only commission, just like a beginner. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.' Act 1, Part 8, pg.

He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. He's not the finest character that ever lived. Biff insists that Willy has no character, that he's weak, and Linda again defends her husband. Biff can't understand why she's so quick to protect Willy when he's always wiped the floor with her, and Hap pipes up to defend his father. He's either got to pay him the respect a father deserves or not come back again. She tells him that she won't allow him to make Willy feel bad anymore. Every time he comes home, he and Willy fight, and she doesn't know what's come between them, but she doesn't want Biff around if he's going to treat his father poorly. Biff, touching her hair, notices that it's gray, that she's looking older, and she tells him that he can't keep coming home just to see her. Happy comes down the stairs not far behind him, and Linda gives them both a verbal lashing about the way they treat their father - they don't write or visit often enough, and they don't care enough about him to ask how things are going with him. Biff comes downstairs into the kitchen and asks Linda how long Willy's been this way. Despite Linda's urging him to come inside, Willy wants to go for a walk, so he disappears around the left corner of the house in his slippers, muttering the whole way. In his mumbling, he asks her what happened to the diamond watch Ben gave him, and she reminds him that he pawned it almost thirteen years before to pay for Biff's radio correspondence course. Linda comes downstairs in her nightgown and robe and sees Willy out in the yard talking to himself through the door, so she goes out to check on him.

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