Doyle Final

In this conversation, George from Of Mice and Men, Montag from Fahrenheit 451, and Biff from Death of a Salesman are talking about how the actions of your family can affect your future and your own actions.

George: Well boys, thanks for comin' in today.
Montag: You're welcome.
Biff: No problem.
George: So I know that y'all got some families that seemed to have fallen apart, same as me and Lenny. In the beginning of our stories, it seems like we got it good, but then a whole bunch of crap happens and we're stuck in completely different situations. I just wanted to talk about how our families play into that.

Biff: I'd like to start out saying that my family is great. I love them all to death, but sometimes their actions just seem to screw up my life. When I was a kid, my dad told me that I could do anything with a good smile and charisma. He blew up my ego so big that I seriously thought that I was better than everyone. Then when I found him with that other woman in the hotel, I was devastated.

Montag: How did that affect the rest of your life?

Biff: Well, I decided not to go to the college I got a football scholarship to, or any college for that matter. Then, I went out west and I’ve been floating all over the place since then. I never imagined that I'd be a nomad in a country with so much wealth. I always thought that I'd be a salesman like dad, but when I found out about the other woman, I never wanted to talk to that man again. Of course I couldn't do that because I still wanted to talk to mom and Happy. Then as dad got older and he started going crazy, I had to be there so my family wouldn't fall apart.

George: Boy, that's rough.

Montag: That's so crazy. You must've felt like the world was on your shoulders.

Biff: Yeah, and then everything just ended up falling apart in the end, anyways.

Montag: I know what you're feeling, when your family didn't support you. I was trying to save some of the books that I'd kept from burning, but when I showed them to my wife and she flipped out. I tried to tell her my reasoning which was that everyone needs their own opinions and we should save the past in the form of books, but she went and told Beatty, my boss, anyways. I felt completely betrayed and alone. But then I escaped the police and I found a group of professors that were trying to preserve books by remembering their contents. When I found them, it was like I’d found a new home.

George: Sometimes you just have to realize that it’s time to let the people you love go, right fellas?

Biff: I guess in some cases that would be true.

George: Like when I had to shoot Lenny. That man was like a brother to me, but when I found out that he’d killed my boss’s wife, I knew something had to be done before the other men got to him. I sorta see it like a mercy thing, too. If those other men had gotten to Lenny before me, I honestly don’t know what that fella would’ve done.

Biff: Sometimes you have to know when to stay and when to leave. I felt that my remaining family needed me after my father’s death, so I stayed. But like both of your situations, you had to leave your family in order to move forward from what had happened.

Montag: I felt totally betrayed by my wife when I found out that the firemen and I were going to burn down my house. I thought she was someone I could trust with my secrets, but she had conformed perfectly into the society where we live. See a book, burn it, tattle on the person with the book, and everything will be all better within a matter of minutes.

George: But sometimes you can see it coming, too, but ya just don’t wanna admit it. I knew that one of these days or another, something was gonna have to be done about Lenny, but I just didn’t want to admit it until something drastic really happened.

Biff: I knew that something horrible was going to happen with my dad, but I didn’t know how or when. But I had been in denial for so long, that when it actually did happen, I was surprised but also not, because I could see it coming.

Montag: I knew that if something drastic wasn’t done about the lack of independence in our society, then we would all fall into a pit of darkness, and I wasn’t sure how and when it was going to happen, but as I gathered my book collection, I knew something was coming.

George: Well boys, thank you all for comin’ in I really appreciate it. If y’all wanna come back and talk some other time, just lemme know and we can have a nice long talk. See y’all later.