Biography of a Salesman
The assignment was to write the biography of WIlly Loman (from Death of a Salesman) from his pov, his son biff's or his wife's.
Biff sits at the kitchen table after the funeral. The sun is fading to the twilight right before full dark and the only light hangs overhead, leaving his faced shaded. His mother and brother are talking in the background as if static on the radio and are only dimly seem as almost a reflection. A Rheingold sits on the table and it is obvious from his demeanor that beer is solace, a balm for the unforgiven soul. He is talking to no one in particular and the world that betrayed his father. Charlie sits across from him at once both an instigator and confessor.
My father was a man of many faults who never gave up hope in the American Dream. He was frustrating and bullheaded. An ox that happily wore the yoke of hard work even when the soil was rocky and the sun couldn’t filter down to the earth. He loved his family and tried to build a life around the possibility that something better was just around the corner.
My mother loved my father through all of his mishaps and what can be a better testament to the character of a man but that a good woman loves him? She supported him every time he tried to grow food in the backyard. She stood by his side during the lean years and never stopped believing that he would make good on all of his promises. She protected and defended him until the end because he was a good man.
How could he have known that he was everything we ever wanted? The man we saw promised us stars and meant every word.
He was happy when he was building our home. Tinkering in the garage his smile seemed to fit his face. He wanted so much to follow his brother but he knew that needed to stay with us, to keep us safe, to see us grow and to provide a life where we could do anything. Maybe he chose wrong but he stuck to that dream. Blinded by shiny trinkets that promise salvation in 12 monthly installments he believed more than he should have and most times fell short.
He was not perfect, though none of us are, but we cannot blame a man who loved his family so much that he was led to a life he wasn’t suited for. In the end he lived a small life that he imagined a blaze of glory and in the final frame, Willy Loman was a noble, kind, flawed man, and though they know it not, the death of this salesman will be mourned as the last of his kind.
Biff sits at the kitchen table after the funeral. The sun is fading to the twilight right before full dark and the only light hangs overhead, leaving his faced shaded. His mother and brother are talking in the background as if static on the radio and are only dimly seem as almost a reflection. A Rheingold sits on the table and it is obvious from his demeanor that beer is solace, a balm for the unforgiven soul. He is talking to no one in particular and the world that betrayed his father. Charlie sits across from him at once both an instigator and confessor.
My father was a man of many faults who never gave up hope in the American Dream. He was frustrating and bullheaded. An ox that happily wore the yoke of hard work even when the soil was rocky and the sun couldn’t filter down to the earth. He loved his family and tried to build a life around the possibility that something better was just around the corner.
My mother loved my father through all of his mishaps and what can be a better testament to the character of a man but that a good woman loves him? She supported him every time he tried to grow food in the backyard. She stood by his side during the lean years and never stopped believing that he would make good on all of his promises. She protected and defended him until the end because he was a good man.
How could he have known that he was everything we ever wanted? The man we saw promised us stars and meant every word.
He was happy when he was building our home. Tinkering in the garage his smile seemed to fit his face. He wanted so much to follow his brother but he knew that needed to stay with us, to keep us safe, to see us grow and to provide a life where we could do anything. Maybe he chose wrong but he stuck to that dream. Blinded by shiny trinkets that promise salvation in 12 monthly installments he believed more than he should have and most times fell short.
He was not perfect, though none of us are, but we cannot blame a man who loved his family so much that he was led to a life he wasn’t suited for. In the end he lived a small life that he imagined a blaze of glory and in the final frame, Willy Loman was a noble, kind, flawed man, and though they know it not, the death of this salesman will be mourned as the last of his kind.