Death of a Salesman (1949) A Pulitzer Prize–winning play by the American writer Arthur Miller. Willy Loman, a salesman who finds himself regarded as useless in his occupation because of his age, kills himself. A speech made by a friend of Willy’s after his suicide is well known and ends with the lines: “Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
Please help me to understand the highlighted parts.
Please help me to understand the highlighted parts.
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The rest of it means that a salesman has to dream...it's in his blood, it's part of the job, without it he would be useless.
Edit: I just googled enough of the line to see that there is no word between "nobody" and "blame".
If you look in the fine print here, you'll see that 'dast' is an archaic "Negro English" form of 'dare'.
Did you see this on the stage? Sometimes actors on the stage vary a little from the script as written.
Was the character saying this an African-American?
Clive
PS - Philip, I googled the 'dast' version. There are a number of sites that supposedly quote the line from the play, and include the 'dast'. Are there perhaps different versions of the script?
http://books.google.ca/books?id=vAr2T4Bh7nkC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=dast+-test+-course+-series+dare&...
Around the turn of the last century, the local entertainment of small New England towns often included "minstrel shows," and some of the old scripts were still in our music collections when I was a kid. "Dast" was very common. I also recall hearing it on the old Amos 'n Andy radio show.
He says the "dast" line is repeated, and also mentions "a salesman is got to dream."