Key Events Seven and Eight

• The play returns to the present and Willy's current feelings of inferiority and shame.
• One memory now merges into another as Willy reacts to Linda’s attempts to comfort him.
• We begin to see how Willy is unable to control his memories and how they torment him.
• The guilty secret that Willy has kept from his wife for years surfaces and leads to an angry outburst.
• • “WILLY [angrily, taking them from her]: I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out!”
• Willy’s anger springs from two sources.
• First, there is a sense of wounded pride as he is not able to provide for his wife to afford new stockings.
• That Linda must mend them reminds him of his failure.
• The sight of silk stockings also provokes a sense of guilt as they remind Willy of his affair with the Woman in Boston.
• We are introduced to Willy's neighbour Charley and their simultaneously close and strained relationship.
• Charley, Willy’s friend and neighbour calls by, despite the late hour, worried about the noise he has heard.
• He and Willy settle down to a game of cards
• We see the difficult relationship between Willy and Charley.
• Willy feels able to open up to Charley, asking him for advice on how to deal with Biff, but he reacts angrily when Charley offers him a job.
• The squabble then moves on to Charley not being able to put up a ceiling.
• “A man who can’t handle tools is not a man. You’re disgusting.”
• Willy dismisses Charley as a “man”, perhaps because Charley does not share the Loman men’s ability to work with their hands but perhaps also because Willy is resentful of Charley.
• His pride is wounded by Charley being able to offer him a job and, on Willy’s side, there is a competitive streak looking for a way to put Charley down.