Willy's Delusion In Death Of A Salesman Act 2

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In the end of Act II, Bernard advises Willy “it’s better for a man to walk away” (Miller, 328). He says this because he sees that Willy is stuck in the past and because he thinks Willy needs to let go of his delusions. In this scene Willy and Bernard discuss what happened to Biff the day he went to talk to Willy after learning he had flunked math. We changed the setting to an airport instead of Charley’s office and we changed the relationship between the Willy and Bernard from old neighbors to being associated through sports. We made these changes to identify the extent of Willy’s delusion and desperation. In the scene between Willy and Bernard, they meet in Charley’s office and they have a discussion about Biff. In their conversation, Willy…show more content…
The reason we changed the setting to an airport instead of Charley’s office was because we wanted to show that Willy was desperate enough to track Charley down and meet him in a public place to get financial help. We also changed the setting to an airport because we made the scene take place in modern day. With the scene set in present day, it made more sense for Bernard to go to an airport instead of a train station since air travel is more common today than traveling by train. The airport setting gave Willy the opportunity to appear resourceful by telling Bernard that he was meeting with an athlete traveling in. Willy’s lie shows that he was willing to hide his true intensions to fool others into believing he was successful even in his most desperate moments. On another note, we changed the father and son relationships between Willy and Biff and Charley and Bernard to a manager and athlete relationship to fit with the tennis theme of our scene. Furthermore, we altered Willy and Biff’s association to emphasize how Willy viewed Biff. In the original play, Willy seemed to view Biff as an athlete, especially when Biff was a teenager. Our alteration to their relationship demonstrates that Willy defined Biff’s success by his performance. Also, our changing Bernard into a professional tennis player made it easier for Willy to compare Bernard to Biff by the fact that they were both athletes.
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