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Death Of A Salesman Quiz Analysis

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Death of a Salesman Quiz The passage I chose to analyze occurs at the end of act II during Biff and Willy’s argument. During this passage, Biff pours out to his father on his failures and Willy gets quite angry at him. This is true up until Biff breaks down in front of Willy and starts crying and pleading. Willy’s attitude shifts suddenly, stating things like “Isn’t that remarkable, he likes me!” (840). This occurs immediately after he calls Biff a “vengeful, spiteful mutt.” This sudden swing in emotion is very common for Willy, and occurs frequently throughout the play. For example, in the beginning of the play, Willy was talking about how he was driving home and “opened the windshield” (806) to his car. Then, on the next page, he exclaims …show more content…

One of the best examples is the one stated previously, when Willy is arguing with Biff. While his attitude completely shifts from blind rage to bliss, it’s also as if he completely forgot about everything he was mad at Biff for. One of the most glaring symptoms of Alzheimer’s is memory loss and confusion, which is exhibited with him forgetting why he was mad. This same scene also exhibits signs of bipolarism, as a symptom of that condition is severe mood swings. Besides this scene, another scene showcasing his bipolar mood swings occurs when Linda is talking to Willy on page 814 During this scene, Willy exclaims “You’re the best there is. Linda, you’re a pal, you know that?” (814). He goes from this to a screaming fight just a column over saying (referring to Biff) “I’ll whip him! Why is he taking everything?” (814). These outbursts would otherwise be very strange, if we did not assume that he had a bipolar disorder. Referring to his Alzheimer’s, he says earlier in the scene how “Chevrolet...is the greatest car ever built” (813), then later on the next column states “That goddam Chevrolet, they ought to prohibit the manufacture of that car!” (813). This only furthers the evidence for him to have a serious

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