Furthermore, Willy reinforces the notion that Biff is immune to boundaries that bind other members of society. When Willy sanctions Biff's theft, he emphasizes the idea that it is permissible to break the rules to get ahead. The fact that Willy reprimands him and then praises him for stealing only leads to further confusion and disorder later in Biff's life. His goal is to please Willy, but he goes about it the wrong way. He steals the ball to practice so that he can play well during the Ebbet's Field game. Biff's action reflects his own struggle for order within his life. Willy immediately disapproves however, he defends Biff when Happy criticizes him. Happy reveals that Biff has stolen a football. This is an example of disorder even in Willy's orderly memories. Scene 3 presents the audience with the first example of tension between Biff and Happy. The punching bag is the ideal gift because it represents the physical strength and dominance that Willy and the boys achieve through physical labor. This job is a pleasure because Willy and the boys delight in manual labor. He also plans to trim the tree branch over the house. Everything that Willy says or does is perfect, and he is an authority figure within the scene, instructing the boys on the proper technique to polish the car. This scene is one of Willy's cherished memories because, in it, his children idealize him. This is important because the audience is observing the events as Willy remembers them. Scene 3 is the first scene that takes place entirely in the past. He imagines a grand entrance with Biff and Happy carrying his sample cases into the stores. Willy also promises to take the boys with him on business trips during the summer. He shares a secret plan of owning a business so he will no longer have to travel. Willy tells the boys about his recent trip to Providence, Waterbury, Boston, Portland, and Bangor. Willy is pleased and excited at the thought of telling everyone in Boston about the game. Willy disapproves and instructs Biff to return the ball, but then he defends Biff's action and praises his "initiative." Biff is nervous about the upcoming football game but promises to make a touchdown for Willy, even though he has been instructed to pass the ball. Biff shows Willy his new football and admits that he stole the ball from the school locker room. Happy mentions he is losing weight and asks if Willy has noticed. He also surprises them with a punching bag. Willy coaches Biff and Happy as they polish the old 1928 Chevy. Willy is actually in the kitchen, drinking a glass of milk however, the action that he observes is in the past. While both qualify as "boy-men" by their own admission, is football the culprit in their developmental issues? This paper explores that question in some detail as well as offering an educated conjecture on what each play's ending suggests about Biffs and Brick's ultimately "surviv football," as James Dickey once put it in "For the Death of Vince Lombardi.Scene 3 shifts back in time. Literary athletes qualify as well, such as the "stars" of North Dallas Forty, The Last Season, That Championship Season, or "The Eighty-Yard Run." However, this essay takes up two dramas normally not considered part of the sport-centered canon, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, yet each drama has a former football hero centrally positioned, Biff Loman and Brick Polliti. Psychologist Tom House coins the term "Terminal Adolescent Syndrome" as a useful label for behaviors recorded in the sports section by Mickey Mantle to Pacman Jones. In "The Short Happy life of Francis Macomber," British safari guide Robert Wilson describes his client as one of "he great American boy-men," a descriptor that applies to many American athletes, both real and imagined.
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