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Marks in the book
No write-up. Lunstrum wants ink on the page so she can make you talk. Read through p. 44 and stop when Ben arrives. If Ben is already telling the jungle story, you went too far.
Every note should hit one of her questions. What does this person think success is. Is that even possible. Who taught them. Do you like them, and what is broken.
Page numbers drift by edition. Ben walking in is the real stop.
Leave the rubber hose and "attention must be paid" alone. Those are later in Act 1.
Success is being well liked. Personality over skill. "The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead." He needs Biff to prove the formula still works.
It is already dead on arrival. He is 60, talking to himself, lying about the Hartford numbers, and he cannot keep a Chevy between the lines. He says he is vital in New England in one breath and that people laugh at him in the next.
Who taught him. An absent father with a flute and a suitcase, and the myth of Ben, the brother who walked into the jungle and came out rich. Ben is the other America. Grab it, get out, get paid. Willy chose the smile-and-sell version and is watching it fail in real time.
I feel for him. I do not like him. He is cruel to Linda about the stockings, cruel to Charley for being steady, and he has already cheated. The sad part is he believes the ad.
At 34 he was supposed to be the proof. Football, UVA, a man people remember. What he actually wants is a ranch and work he can do with his hands. The suit version of success makes him feel like a thief and a bum. That is Willy's voice, not his.
The ranch is the only dream in this chunk that could happen. The businessman one cannot. He already steals. Bill Oliver's basketballs. The football. He still half-believes he was destined for something huge because Willy told a child that being well liked beats being Bernard.
Easiest one to like, because he is the first person in the house who suspects the story is fake. Still a mess. He will not stay, and he will not fully quit the myth either.
Success is the title. Merchandise manager. An apartment. Women. Being number one in a store that does not actually need him. "I don't know what the hell I'm workin' for" is the honest line. Everything after it is performance.
He sleeps with buyers' women and his bosses' fiancées as a way to feel bigger than the men above him. That is the well-liked gospel turned cheap. Willy taught it. Happy is the only son still running the play.
Hardest one to like. Biff is lost. Happy is fine with the lie as long as someone notices his weight.
Her success metric is not a title. The house gets paid off. Willy comes home. The boys still love their father. She is the only one who can do the actual arithmetic. Refrigerator. Chevy. What he really earned versus what he told her.
Paying off a house is realistic. Saving Willy with pep talks is not. She learned the dream from him and then had to become the person who keeps the lights on while he sells it.
I like her the most and that is also the problem. Loyalty this hard is a flaw. She will not let the boys say the true thing, and she mends stockings while he is giving new ones to The Woman.
Miller puts the slogan next to the bills. Charm is supposed to be the ticket. The house is supposed to mean you made it. The sons are supposed to outrun the father. The West, the ranch, the hands, that is the older dream peeking through the suit.
First act already shows the crack. The car. The fake commissions. Biff at 34 in his old bedroom. Happy's empty apartment life. A neighbor who actually has money because he showed up and did the work. Then Ben walks in as the fantasy that skipping the smile and taking the jungle was the real win.
One short note at each of these. She is going to point at a page and wait.
Write whether you like the person on that page, in your words. If you only copy this sheet she will hear it.
From Lunstrum's Canvas prompt for Wed Sep 23. Sundberg Lunstrum, E period. Stop when Ben arrives.