I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw – the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!
– Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In Biff’s epiphany at Bill Oliver’s office, he rejects his father’s version of the American Dream and Willy’s attempt to live vicariously through him. Biff realizes that life as a salesman and working in an office is not for him. In his final confrontation with Willy, he tells him that after his failed interview with Oliver he ran down eleven flights of stairs with Oliver’s stolen fountain pen in his hand. The pen symbolizes Willy’s American Dream of material success. Biff tells how he looked out at the expanse of the sky and the great outdoors and saw the things he loves in this world. In that moment he dismissed his father’s false values as represented by Oliver’s pen. This is Biff’s moment of catharsis and transfiguration, his moment of clarity, a declaration of independence from city living and the world of business. Biff refuses to live a lie to please his father and wants to be true to who he is.