BIFF: Oh, Pop, you didn’t see my sneakers! (He holds up a foot for Willy to look at.)
WILLY: Hey, that’s a beautiful job of printing!
BERNARD (wiping his glasses): Just because he printed University of Virginia on his sneakers doesn’t mean they’ve got to graduate him. Uncle Willy!
WILLY (angrily): What’re you talking about? With scholarships to three universities they’re gonna flunk him?
BERNARD: But I heard Mr. Birnbaum say…
WILLY: Don’t be a pest, Bernard! (To his boys.) What an anemic!
– Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman, Act 1. At the beginning of the play young Biff’s University of Virginia sneakers are symbolic of the promising future he has before him. The star of his high school football team, a proud Willy boasts that Biff has scholarships to three universities and there is little standing in the way of his success. But it is the misplaced pride of a deluded father, who deceives himself into believing that Biff’s popularity rather than hard work is his springboard to success. A young Bernard, son of Willy’s friend Charley, makes his first appearance in this flashback of Willy’s. But Willy ignores the studious boy’s warnings that Biff’s high school teacher is threatening to fail him at math because he is not studying. Bernard’s role in the play may be minor one, but it is a significant one. His warning to Willy is foreshadowing of Biff’s failure to graduate from high school.