Key Events 9&10

• The confrontation between Biff and Willy is the climax of the play, bringing its central conflict out into the open.
• Biff confronts Willy with the rubber tubing before breaking down in tears and, “exhausted”, heading upstairs.
• The confrontation between Biff and Willy is the climax of the play, bringing its central conflict out into the open.
• "WILLY: [He is choking with his love, and now cries out his promise] That boy - that boy is going to be magnificent!"
• Willy’s realisation that Biff loves him leads to a moment of discovery and understanding.
• However, this moment is short-lived.
• Almost immediately, Willy falls back on his old dreams for Biff, where his son is like Hercules - a conquering hero.
• Immediately after this line, Ben responds, “Yes, outstanding, with twenty thousand behind him”, showing how Willy links Biff’s golden future with the proceeds of his own life insurance policy.
• Biff conducts a post-mortem analysis of his father's character, concluding Willy’s tragic flaw was his blindness to who he really was.
• In the play’s short closing scene the Loman family, Charley and Bernard stand by Willy’s grave.
• The requiem acts as a Chorus in Classical tragedy, allowing those present to comment on the tragic hero, Willy.
• "He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.”
• Biff’s short, emphatic sentences, and his use of monosyllables and repetition help to give these lines their power.
• Biff, who has achieved some level of self-recognition, sums up Willy’s tragic flaw - his blindness to who he really was.