BIFF DEATH OF A SALESMAN FREE

Like so many first-generation American (and Canadian) men, my father, born in 1926, scrambled to balance between the demands of the old world, embodied in their fathers, and the opportunities of the new world. “What am I doing in an office, making a contemptible, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!”

BIFF DEATH OF A SALESMAN FREE

“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?” Biff demands of Willy late in the play, trying to once and for all break free of his father’s expectations and be his own man. Chicken Chow Mein and Sara Lee Brownies were no more nutritious for the soul than they were for the body, and it was Biff, Willy’s lost and drifting son, in whom my father saw himself. Or at least he didn’t want to believe it. 'Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?' Biff demands of Willy late in the play, trying to once and for all break free of his father’s expectations and be his own man.Ī salesman at the time, trying to get local grocers to make room in their freezers for a strange new product - frozen dinners - my father didn’t know that either. “And the funny thing is that you’re a salesman, and you don’t know that.” “The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell,” Willy’s neighbor Charlie tells him. And rereading the play, I appreciate why. In his wrinkled shirt, with his rumbling voice and a single dismissive wave of his hand, Cobb seared that character into my father’s mind. Cobb played the protagonist, Willy Loman, in the play’s 1949 premier, which my parents saw on their honeymoon in New York. The two men never met, but Miller’s extraordinary play, 'Death of a Salesman,' ultimately helped to change the course of my father’s life. The centenary of playwright Arthur Miller’s birth last month evoked for me memories of my late father. Cobb shown in 1949 in his role as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's play 'Death of a Salesman.' (AP) This article is more than 6 years old. In a time when entertainment is abundant, it’s easy to lose sight of art’s power to transform outlooks and galvanize action.

Biff death of a salesman