Status Updates From Death of a Salesman

You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. ‘‘Willy Loman is here!’’ That’s all they have to know, and I go right through.
BIFF: Did you knock them dead, Pop?
WILLY: Knocked ’em cold in Providence, slaughtered ’em in Boston.

BIFF is two years older than his brother, . but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable . . .. HAPPY is tall, powerfully made. . . . He, like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat and is thus more confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content.

...his wife, has stirred in her bed ... Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behavior—she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end.]