Death of a Salesman Act One Active Reading Notes

• immediately hit with personification and scenery "A melody is heard, played upon a flute. it is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. "
• brought into the house through imagery
• wholly?
• Like how this story is told as a play
• gives it that certain feeling to it(dont know how to describe it)
• The Salesman is Willy Loman 
• Flute noise have significance?
• Linda - wife of Willy
• "Im tired to the death" flute has faded away... forshadow maybe
• Willy has returned from Florida only to think he has to leave again even though he is exhausted
• Linda is very loving and cares for her husband
• Willy loves nature and daydreams while he is driving during his journey
• Happy and Biff are Willy's 2 sons
• It seems that they all straggling for money but too early to tell
• Willy loves his sons but criticizes them for their behavior
• Willy is definitely stressed out in the beginning of the play
• lilac? wistaria?
• The flute appears again
• seems to happen when hes calmer
• Biff is two years older than Happy
• Biff is the more hard worker and the handsome one than Happy 
• They both have very different interests
• they both are lost though but just in different ways
• Biff and Happy are very close
• Biff notices that Willy has been acting strange lately
• "I've always made a point of not wasting my life, and everytime i come back here i know that all i've done is to waste my life" (Biff)
• both idealists
• Its basically the life of an average working household
• Biff plays football 
• Willy is proud of his sons but wants to be a better dad and have a better job.
• Setting is still at home
• Happy is basically like the most popular kid at school
• direct characterization (Bernard enters in knickers. He is younger than Biff, earnest and loyal, a worried boy)
• indirect characterization Bernard can get the best marks in school, y'understand, but when he gets out in the the budiness world, y'understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. so bernard is book smart but not street smart
• Happy seems to need attention and approval from people 
• Indirect characterization (I know it when i walk in. they seem to laugh at me..., Im fat. im very - foolish to look at...) Willy is a very self conscious person
• Metaphor - There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines (Hyperbole probably)
• Direct Characterization - " He is a large man, slow of speech, laconic, immovable."
• "You sneeze in here, and in my house hats blow off"
• Metaphor - When a deposit bottle is broken you don't get your nickel back
• characterization - He is a stolid man, in his sixties, with a moustache and an authoritative air.
• stolid?
• authoritative air? - 
• Charley and Willy talk about traveling for most of their talk
• kind of confused on the whole who died part of act one
• Retohrical question - WILLY: You see what i been talking about? the greatest things can happen!
• Flute comes up again. symbolism but for what?
• Repetition - HAPPY is consistently telling the line: I lost weight, Pop, you notice?
• Once again Willy needs to prove himself to other people that are higher than him and this time by telling Ben that he is going to get his sons and rebuild the porch right away
• Ben is always telling the story of how he went into the jungle at 17 and came out 21. 
• Did he really go into jungle or is jungle just a word for the life of a new worker?
• Willy keeps talking to himself
• Simile - "He's not allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog"
• We find out that Willy has been trying to kill himself for a while now
• Happy comes up with an idea to open a sporting goods store and have the two brothers compete against each other for publicity
• imagery - Gee, look at the moon moving between the buildings.
• The Whole first act is barely even one day