Posted By Heather Harvey '11
The next day, we went through the second act, which begins with the same feeling of hope as the ending of the first act, but it soon begins a rather sharp decline. Still in circular formation, we continued to delve into the cerebral nature of the text without much concern for blocking.
The second act reveals the truth about many of the implications made in the first act. The turning point in Willy and Biff's relationship is finally explained, which also illustrates Biff's issues in his career path. Much is set in place in the first act to be explained in the second, so we dedicated even more time to determining the hidden meaning in between the lines. As a result, we did not quite finish going through the second act.
There was so much to explore that is not written, but the beauty of the concept is that there is little to no need to alter the text. There are parallels in Miller's story between the experience of Willy Loman and any other man burned by his own capacity to dream.