Quick Death of a Salesman Summary

Set in New York City, in 1949, the audience follows the Loman family through their psychological battle with the
American Dream. Willy Loman, the protagonist, is a traveling salesman, his wife, Linda, is a stay at home mother,
and his two sons, Happy and Biff, have grown up "yet to make something of themselves."
Early in the play, the two sons are home visiting, which causes Willy to reminisce about their childhood. Through a
series of flashbacks, the audience learns that Biff, the younger of the two boys, was praised by Willy for being athletic
and well-liked. Willy valued these attributes and believed they would help his boys go far. However, in reality, Happy
is in the business world, going nowhere, and Biff, unable to hold down a steady job, works as a ranch hand out west.
In another daydream, Willy is talking with Linda and then drifts to hearing his mistress’s laughter. It becomes clear
that, for some time, Willy was having an affair with an unidentified woman for whom he purchased silk stockings.
Although he tells Linda that his sales have been going great, things are quite the opposite, and he will soon be in
jeopardy of not paying his bills. In the flashback, Linda is seen mending her stockings; this makes Willy upset and
prompts him to tell her to throw them away.
More flashbacks reveal that Willy has lived a life of regret, filled with envy. He focuses on his neighbor, Charlie, a
wealthy business owner who worked hard and on his brother, Ben, who stumbled on a diamond mine in Africa and is
now wealthy. Now after years at the same company, Willy has become tired and old, he asks his boss to be put in
the New York office. Instead, he is fired. Later, his boys take him out to dinner. In the end, his delusions get the best
of him, and he kills himself in a car crash to provide his family with the $20,000 in insurance money.
At his funeral, Happy vows to prove that his father's life was not in vain and continues in the business. Biff realizes
that his father's life and focus were on the wrong dream, and he goes back to the ranch, determined to find
happiness in his work. Linda ends the play saying, "we are free".
 Essential Questions for Death of a Salesman
1. Why are dreams important in life? What are your dreams or goals?
2. Is there such thing as the American Dream or is it a myth?
3. What is the most important attribute in life?

The Farlex Grammar Book > English Grammar > Inflection (Accidence) > Conjugation > Speech

Speech

What is grammatical speech?

Grammatical speech refers to how we report something another person said. Depending on how we do this, we sometimes have
to inflect (change the form of) the verbs that we use.

Speech is usually divided between two types: direct speech and reported speech (also known as indirect speech). There are also other sub-
categories of speech, which we’ll look at a little later in this section.

Reporting verbs
Both direct and indirect speech use what are known as reporting verbs, the most common of which are say and tell. When we use tell, we need
to use another person’s name or a personal pronoun as an indirect object. Other reporting verbs include ask, instruct, explain, mention,
suggest, claim, and many more.

Direct Speech
Direct speech refers to the direct quotation of something that someone else said. It is sometimes known as quoted speech. Because the
quotation happened in the past, we put the reporting verb into the past simple tense, but we don’t change the verbs used within the quotation.
We also punctuate sentences in a certain way when we use direct speech in writing.

Punctuating direct speech

When used in writing, we indicate the quoted speech with quotation marks. (Note that American English uses double quotation marks ( “ ” ),
while British English typically uses single quotation marks ( ‘ ’ ).)

If we are quoting an entire sentence, we set it apart with one or two commas. For example:

 John said, “I’ll never live in this city again.”

 Mary told him, “I want to have another baby,” which took him by surprise.
 The other day, my daughter asked, “Mommy, why do I have to go to school, but you don’t?”

However, if we are quoting a fragment of speech that is used as an integral part of the overall sentence, then no commas are used. We still use
reporting verbs in the past tense, though. For instance:

 John said he feels “really bad” about what happened.

Direct speech before a reporting verb

We can also put direct speech before the reporting verb. Again, we usually use a comma to separate the quoted text from the unquoted text, as
in:

 “I can’t wait to see daddy,” my son said.

However, if a question mark or exclamation point is used in the direct speech, then we do not use a comma:

 “Where are we going?” asked Sally.

 “This is going to be great!” Tom exclaimed.

End punctuation — American vs. British English

In American English, a period or comma used at the end of direct speech always appears within the quotation marks.

In British English, however, if the quotation ends in a period or comma, it is usually placed outside the quotation mark, as in:
  The CEO said, ‘This is a great day for the company’.
 ‘I want to be a doctor when I grow up’, Susy told us yesterday.

Note that if a quoted sentence ends in a question mark or exclamation point that belongs to the quotation, it will appear withinthe quotation
marks. If the question mark or exclamation point belongs to the overall sentence (that is, it isn’t actually part of the quotation), it will
appear outside the quotation marks. This is the same in both American and British English. For example:

 Samantha asked, “How long will it take to get there?”

 But I don’t want to just ‘see how things go’!

Using multiple sets of quotation marks

If a sentence already uses quotation marks, then we have to differentiate between the quoted speech and the rest of the sentence. If we are
using double quotation marks, then we have to put the quoted speech in single quotation marks; if it is in single quotation marks, then the
quoted text is put into double quotation marks. The rest of the punctuation in the sentence does not change. For example:

 “They told us, ‘We don’t have the budget for more staff.’”
 ‘The prime minister is reported to have said that he is “in disagreement with the president’s remarks”, which prompted a quick
response from the White House.’

Reported Speech (Indirect Speech)

When we tell other people what someone else told us without directly quoting that person, it is called reported speech. (It is also sometimes
known as indirect speech or indirect quotation.)

We still use reporting verbs in reported speech, but we no longer use quotation marks because we are reporting a version of what was said. We
also do not use commas to set the reported speech apart, though we often (but not always) introduce it with the word that. For example:

 Janet said she would go to the station herself.

 He told us that he wanted to be alone.
Shifting verb tense in reported speech
The conventional grammar rule when using reported speech is to shift the verb tense one degree into the past. This is because we usually put
the reporting verb in the past tense (I asked, she said, they told us, he suggested, etc.), so the speech that is being reported must shift back as
well. In the table below, we’ll look at the way sentences in various tenses are shifted in reported speech according to this convention:

Non-reported sentence Verb shift Reported speech

I live in Germany. present simple tense shifts to past simple tense He said he lived in Germany.

I was a carpenter before I moved She said that she had been a carpenter
past simple tense shifts to past perfect tense
here. before she moved here.

She told us he was writing a letter to

He is writing a letter to our friend. present continuous tense shifts to past continuous tense
our friend.

He told me you had been

She was sleeping when you called. past continuous tense shifts to past perfect continuous tense
sleeping when I called.

She said she had been to Paris four

I have been to Paris four times. present perfect tense shifts to past perfect tense
times.

No shift in the first verb, because there is no tense further in the

The film had ended when I He said the film had ended when he’d
past. The second verb shifts from past simple tense to past
switched on the TV. switched on the TV.
perfect tense.

When she finally arrived, I had He said he had been waiting for over
No shift, as there is no tense further in the past.
been waiting for over two hours. two hours when she finally arrived.

He told me that he would callme

I will call you tomorrow. The modal verb will shifts to its past-tense version, would.
tomorrow.
It should be noted, though, that it is quite common to keep the verb tense the same in modern English. This is especially true in cases in which
the reporting verb remains in the present tense, or when the thing being reported is still currently true. To learn more about such nuances,
continue on to the Reported Speech section.

Other categories of speech

While direct and reported speech are the two main forms of grammatical speech, there are two other sub-categories that we use: free indirect
speech and silent speech.

Free Indirect Speech

Free indirect speech (also known as free indirect discourse) is used to indicate the thoughts or mental processes of a character; as such, it is
most commonly found in prose writing. It is most often used in the form of a question, rhetorically asking something about the character’s
situation.

We do not use reporting verbs to introduce or indicate free indirect speech, and, like reported speech, it is used without quotation marks. For
example:

 He had no money, no job, and no friends. How had his life arrived to such a desperate point?
 Janet had just learned that she needed to give a speech to the entire school in less than an hour. What was she going to do?

Silent Speech
Silent speech refers to a direct quotation that is said internally (i.e., silently) by someone to him- or herself. We still use reporting verbs, and we
often apply the exact same punctuation rules to silent speech that we use in direct speech. For instance:

 “I’m never coming back to this town again,” he murmured to himself.

 She thought, “What a beautiful country.”

It is equally common, however, to use silent speech without quotation marks (although we still use commas in the same way). To make the
quotation stand out from the rest of the text, some writers will use italics to indicate silent speech. Note that, if the reporting verb appears
before the silent speech, we generally do not capitalize the first word if we don’t use quotation marks. For example:

 It will be quiet around here when the kids go to college, Dan thought.
 She asked herself, how am I going to get out of this one?
Whether you choose to use quotation marks, italics, or nothing at all is entirely a matter of personal preference when it comes to silent
speech—the important thing is to be consistent.
Quiz

1. What type of speech is used to indicate an exact quotation by someone else?

a) Direct speech

b) Reported speech

c) Free indirect speech

d) Silent speech

2. What type of speech is used to indicate an internal quotation by someone?

a) Direct speech

b) Reported speech

c) Free indirect speech

d) Silent speech

3. What is the conventional rule for conjugating verbs in reported speech?

a) Shift the verb one tense into the future

b) Shift the verb one tense into the past

c) Always use the past simple tense

d) No verb shift is necessary.

4. In American English, when does the end punctuation in quoted speech appear within the quotation marks?
 a) Only if it is a comma or period

b) Only if it is a question mark or exclamation point

c) Never

d) Always

5. Identify the type of speech used in the following sentence:

He knew he had to find someone to cover his shift at work, but who would be free this late on a Saturday?

a) Direct speech

b) Reported speech

c) Free indirect speech

d) Silent speech

6. Identify the type of speech used in the following sentence:

She said had seen the movie already, but she would go again if I wanted to see it with her.

a) Direct speech

b) Reported speech

c) Free indirect speech

d) Silent speech
Death of a salesman vocabulary images

Idealist - enthralled
Incipient incarnate
Liable