Reference no: EM13850313

Read Death of a salesman, Arthur Miller and write a 250 words essay plan.

"Death of a Salesman" Monologue Assessment

Objective: Students will demonstrate their knowledge and thinking skills of the play, Death of a Salesman through a dramatic, memorized monologue.

Directions: Choose one of the following readings found below to perform and memorize.

Monologue Options:

-Willy Loman, "Business is Business"
-Biff Loman, ""Why I Had No Address"
Linda Loman, "Then Make Charley Your Father"

Biff Monologue-

You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was jailed. I stole myself out of every good lob since high school. And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! That's whose fault it is! It's goddamn time you heard that! I had to be boss big shot in two weeks and I'm through with it! Willy! I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my hand today. And suddenly I stopped, you hear me? And in the middle of that office building, do you hear this? I stopped in the middle of that building and saw - the sky. 1 saw the things that love in the world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke, and I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can't I say that, Willy? Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you! I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash-can like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it! A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! Pop, I'm nothing! it nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. It just what I am, that's all. Will you let me go, for Christ's sake? Will you take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?

Linda Monologue-

Then make Charley your father. Biff. You can't do that can you? I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever Ivied. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy, no; a lot of people think he's lost his balance. But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He works for a company thirty six years this March, opens up unheard-of territories to their trademark, and now n his old age they take his salary away. Are they any worse than his sons? When he brought them business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But now his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some artier to hand him in a pinch, they're all dead, retired. He used to be able to make six, seven calls a day in Boston. Now he takes his valises out of the car and puts them back and takes them out again and he's exhausted. Instead of walking he talks now. He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn't he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me that it's his pay? How long can that go on? How long? You see what I'm sitting here and waiting for? And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get the medal for that?