Death of a Salesman Diamond Quotes

There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines!…The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of 21, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is envious of his brother Ben becoming rich by discovering a diamond mine in Africa at the youthful age of 21. Ben is a symbol of the American Dream for Willy. In this conversation with son Happy, Willy uses the metaphor of the world as an oyster to describe how Ben succeeded in cracking it open to find diamonds not by sitting "on a mattress" but through hard work.

BEN: I was going to find Father in Alaska…At that age I had a very faulty view of geography, William. I discovered after a few days that I was heading due south, so instead of Alaska, I ended up in Africa.
LINDA: Africa!
WILLY: The Gold Coast!
BEN: Principally diamond mines.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy’s brother Ben is already dead as the play begins and only appears as memory flashbacks or hallucinations, or maybe a mixture of both. In this exchange we learn how Willy’s father abandoned them to go to Alaska. The adventurer Ben went to find him but took a wrong turn and ended up in Africa, where he discovered diamond mines. The story sounds so wild and far-fetched that one wonders if there ever was a Ben, or what parts of his character is Willy just inventing.

WILLY: Whatever happened to that diamond watch fob? Remember? When Ben came from Africa that time? Didn’t he give me a watch fob with a diamond in it?
LINDA: You pawned it, dear. Twelve, thirteen years ago. For Biff’s radio correspondence course.
WILLY: Gee, that was a beautiful thing. I’ll take a walk.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. After having a flashback about his brother Ben, Willy asks Linda what happened to the diamond studded watch fob Ben gave him. We learn that he pawned the family heirloom to pay for one of Biff’s courses that led him nowhere – his son failed to graduate from high school after failing math.

Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do. It’s who you know and the smile on your face! It’s contacts, Ben, contacts! The whole wealth of Alaska passes over the lunch table at the Commodore Hotel, and that’s the wonder, the wonder of this country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked! (He turns to Biff) And that’s why when you get out on that field today it’s important. Because thousands of people will be rooting for you and loving you. (To Ben, who has again begun to leave) And Ben! When he walks into a business office his name will sound out like a bell and all the doors will open to him! I’ve seen it, Ben. I’ve seen it a thousand times! You can’t feel it with your hand like timber, but it’s there.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. A hallucinating Willy imagines that he is talking to dead brother Ben in this rant about rising star Biff. He deceives himself into believing that a glorious future awaits young Biff, the high school sports hero, because he looks good and is well liked. Willy’s creed is that these, and not hard work, are what bring prosperity and material success. He is unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. In this speech Willy uses diamonds as a metaphor for wealth and success. There are also two examples of similes. Biff’s name being spoken is compared to a bell that will open doors for him in the future. Willy talks of success as something real, even though you cannot grasp it in your hand "like timber." The sad irony is that Biff will not have a successful and prosperous career, but will fail math and won’t graduate from high school.

BEN: It’s called a cowardly thing, William.
WILLY: Why? Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?
BEN (yielding): That’s a point, William. (He moves, thinking, turns.) And twenty thousand – that is something one can feel with the hand, it is there.
WILLY (now assured, with rising power): Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like – like an appointment! This would not be another damned fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects. Because he thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me. But the funeral – (Straightening up) Ben, that funeral will be massive! They’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the oldtimers with the strange license plates – that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized – I am known! Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey – I am known, Ben, and he’ll see it with his eyes once and for all.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy, talking to his hallucination of Ben, fantasizes that he will achieve the success in death that he failed to reach in life. He has fallen short of his American Dream of acquiring material success while alive. But he believes that the twenty thousand dollars life insurance money his family will receive after his suicide will make up for that. In a simile Willy compares this money to a diamond, diamonds being the symbol of wealth used throughout the play and associated with brother Ben. Willy deceives himself into believing that his funeral will be massive and attended by many of the people who knew and worked with him. His estranged son Biff will realize how wrong he was wrong about his dad by the size of the funeral, he believes. Willy’s words turn to be ironic, since nobody outside the family apart from two neighbors turns up for the funeral. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.
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