Discussion Topic
Requiem's Role and Purpose in Death of a Salesman
Summary:
The requiem in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman serves multiple purposes, providing closure and reflection on Willy Loman's life and dreams. It highlights Willy's tragic pursuit of the American Dream, his failure to achieve success, and the impact on his family. The requiem reveals the stark reality of Willy's life, underscored by the sparse attendance at his funeral, contrasting with his dreams of grandeur. It also allows characters to express differing views on Willy's life, offering a final chance for understanding and redemption.
What is the purpose of the requiem in Death of a Salesman?
As with every requiem, the purpose of it is to honor the dead by remembering their life. It is, literally, the last first that the now deceased will be honored by the living, and it is often expected that only the good memories come up and happy thoughts are brought to the sad moment.
Unfortunately for Willy, we see that his disparate life has resulted in an equally disparate death; instead of the grand funeral that Willy once dreamed of having, the one that would be as big as Dave Singleman's, he had nobody show up with the exception of Charley, and of Willy's immediate family.
LINDA: Why didn’t anyone come?
CHARLEY: It was a very nice funeral.
LINDA: But where were all the people he knew? Maybe they blame him.
In a dramatic contrast to the funeral that celebrates a happy, or at least fulfilled, life, Willy's was mainly...
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another family quarrel where Biff downplayed all of his father's life. As a result, Charley has to explain to both Happy and Biff that the life of a salesman is thankless; that all a man has is his dreams when dreams are the basis of the job that you do. In other words, it is Charley who honors Willy's life as best as he knows how. That is the idea behind adding the requiem at the end. It is Willy's final chance at redemption even if it is merely for the sake of his funeral.
Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman is a tragedy. It is the story of a man, Willy Loman, who has lived his whole life in a perpetual state of regret. He regrets not going into business with his brother; he regrets the failure of his sons to grow as human beings and to succeed in the world; he regrets the fact that he has spent his life traveling around trying to sell; and, he regrets the stultifying environment in which his marriage has long-ago settled. He is tired and emotionally- and physically-exhausted. In his opening instructions to the cast and director, Miller describes Willy's initial entrance on stage with the following comment:
"He is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly. Even as he crosses the stage to the doorway of the house, his exhaustion is apparent."
The requiem that occurs at the end of Death of a Salesman might not have been necessary. Late in Act One, there is a touching scene in which Willy's long-suffering wife, Linda, passionately comes to her husband's defense following a tirade by oldest son Biff against his father. In her comments, Linda Loman provides a premature requiem for her husband:
"I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."
The requiem that ends Miller's play is a summation of a life lived according to certain unwritten laws that only Charlie, Willy's neighbor, friend and source of resentment, could fully understand. As Linda laments Willy's decision to deliberately crash his car so that his life insurance could be used to pay off the mortgage, she states, "First time in thirty-five years we were just about free and clear. He only needed a little salary." Charlie's response -- "No man only needs a little salary" -- illuminates the vast divide between those who purported to know Willy best and those who understood the demands of his mere existence. Willy, Charlie emphasizes, was a "salesman." Willy was defined by his profession, and it was a profession with a built-in shelf life. The requiem in Death of a Salesman serves to allow the characters a final opportunity to reflect on the titular figure. The heated exchange between Biff and Happy and Charlie's attempts at explaining the life of the man they just buried -- at a funeral to which nobody save immediate family and Charlie bothered to attend -- underlines the tragedy that was Willy's life.
What is the importance of the requiem in Death of a Salesman?
The importance of the requiem in the play Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is that it reinstates the main theme of the story, and explains (and forgives) the character of Willi Loman.
In this part of the play, we find Bernard, Charley, Biff, Happy and Linda standing together as Willy's only mourners. As usually happens in funerals, or wakes, people tend to look back and analyze the person who just passed. In this particular conversation Biff states his opinion that Willy just had the wrong dreams all along.
However, in defense of Willy, Charley counter argued Biff by stating that all the things Willy did were part of what makes a true salesman: Salesmen need to dream, envision, hope, and maintain a "go get it" attitude. He also stated how the salesman's life depends entirely of the ability to hope. Maybe Willy was more of a survivor than a wretch. He really never gave up being a salesman.
Therefore, the requiem helps us look back in the plot and conclude whether Willy is a hero, an antihero, or a victim. We can conclude, from what Charley stated, that Willy may have chased the wrong dream, but he never gave it up. He made a wrong decision but went with it until the end. This allows the reader to take a lot of the negativity of Willy's character away and, perhaps, it also prompts the audience to "forgive" Willy.
Discuss the Requiem for Willy in Death of a Salesman.
Linda: We’re free and clear. We’re free…
With Linda beginning and ending the Death of a Salesman, the play comes full circle. Arthur Miller sets Willy free from his pathetic life when he kills himself in a car wreck. In Willy’s mind, his death was going to help his son Biff by giving him the insurance money. As Willy said, he was worth more dead than alive. Even that may not be true; if the insurance company finds out that Willy committed suicide, they will not pay on the insurance.
The last scene of the play was titled the Requiem. Defined as a Mass for the rest of the soul of the dead, it is also is a musical composition to be played at the Mass. Both of these occurred during the last scene.
The Requiem for Willy happens at his gravesite. The three family members along with Charley linger after his funeral. Poor Willy would have been unhappy at the turnout for his funeral.
Linda: Why didn’t anybody come?
Charley: It was a very nice funeral.
Linda: But where are all the people he knew? Maybe they blame him.
Each of the remaining characters has a purpose at the Requiem.
Happy feels deep anger because his father committed suicide. He believes that it was unnecessary because they would have helped him. The reader has to wonder where Happy was when Willy was alive and needed him. Happy is going to become the best salesman possible to keep his father’s dream alive.
Biff thinks that his father did not know who he was. Remembering the times they worked on the house together, Biff wishes his father had worked with his hands. Trying to be more mature than before his dad died, Biff comforts his mother.
Charley represents Willy. It is significant that Charley defends Willy's suicide since Willy always felt jealous of Charley. Charley is Willy's only true friend in the play. Giving an elegy for his friend, Charley recognizes Willy's need for acknowledgment and appreciation. Just as he bailed Willy out when he needed money, so Charley bails him out when no one else understands his suicide.
In reality, what does Willy’s suicide accomplish? Willy denies Linda a husband to grow old with; Biff’s reconciliation with his father; and Happy’s role model. Thus Willy's refusal to accept life on its own terms results in nothing but confusion and dissension for those he loves most.
The Requiem for Willy ends with Happy and Charley elevating Willy to martyr status. They depict him as blameless for his suicide and gallant in his desire to help the family.
As at all Requiems, the service ends with the music of a flute playing in the background. Linda wants to say her good-byes. She appears unwilling to face the truth about Willy. Ironically, she talks to Willy’s grave and tells him that she made the last house payment. Linda will have the financial security that Willy worked thirty-five years for and never was able to enjoy it.
As Linda is drawn away by Biff, the reader feels the anguish that she feels. The flute continues to play, and the Requiem comes to an end.
Why is there a requiem in Death of a Salesman?
In the Roman Catholic Church, the Requiem Mass is the funeral mass for a deceased person. The word "requiem" may also refer specifically to a solemn prayer or piece of music offered in hopes of bringing the deceased peace in their passing.
In the case of Death of a Salesman, the requiem serves as a kind of post script, the means of bringing closure to the lives of the characters involved. Willy, the deceased, could certainly use prayers for peace and tranquility, given the life he lived and the manner of his death. His sons struggle to find peace but are left with questions: for Biff, the continuing struggle to find himself in the wake of Willy's unsupportive parenting; for Hap, the hope that he would succeed where Willy failed; the fear that he would ultimately also be a failure.
I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have—to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him.
Linda is left to deal with the suicide of her husband and the ironic freedom achieved from her abusive husband and from the financial burden of the house that they had shared.
I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and clear. We’re free. We’re free. We’re free.
The Requiem offers prayers for peace for the souls of all the Loman family members; they all are in need of those prayers.
Why is the requiem necessary in Death of a Salesman?
The requiem in Death of a Salesman occurs after the funeral/burial of Willy Loman. It is characterized by the manner in which Willy's dream is analyzed from the perspective of those who had to live with him through it, namely, Linda, Biff, Happy, and Charley.
Willy's dream is isolated in this part of the play, and exposed for what it is. Biff calls it the "wrong" dream,
He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong
while Charley defends it exclaiming that dreaming is, sometimes, all that is left to do.
He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine… A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
The basic premise of the requiem is to pay one last respect to Willy's aspirations, despite of all the character flaws that the audience witnesses. Willy's behavior, his mistakes, and his choices may have not been the best for his own sake. However, Charley's words are like a eulogy that shows respect and returns the dignity back to Willy's life. Even the way in which Charley presents these words is indicative of their seriousness when he says
“Nobody dast blame this man”
Therefore, the requiem does not answer any questions because it is not meant to serve as "the end" of the play. Instead, it is an added and separate component where Willy's life is viewed after his uphill battle in the quest of the American Dream has ended. Now that there is no more to hide, to seek, or to want for, Willy Loman can finally be seen as just another man wanting to do good for himself. Charley's words are quite emotional, making the farewell to Willy more respectful, and complete while Linda confirms that they all are now free because of Willy's sacrifice.
What is the dramatic function of the requiem in Death of a Salesman?
The requiem allows for a thematic closing statement in the play and also softens the ending, offering a continuation of "life" in the story after Willy's suicide.
Willy dies at the close of the last act, but the play goes on. This provides both a figurative and a literal continuation of life for the Loman family and helps to soften the brutality of Willy's death.
Also, the themes of the play dealing with the American Dream, illusion/self-deception, and the idea of success are given final voice in the requiem.
Linda speaks for the dignity of the average man. Biff speaks for the tragic lapse in judgement that characterized his father and which was rooted in a false dream of greatness. Happy speaks for the quality of the illusion that was instilled in him by his father and his father's country. The American Dream still holds sway with Happy, despite the fact that it essentially ruined his father.
In the end, all that Willy achieved was a quiet family life. Linda says that she has made the last payment on the house. According to Linda and Biff, that should have been enough for "success". Yet, Willy took this life for granted and wanted more. He did not know who he was, really, or what he actually had, as Biff says:
Willy "never knew who he was" and that he "had the wrong dreams."
Happy, for his part, defends Willy.
"He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have – to come out number-one man.”
The conflict between these views of Willy Loman articulates the conflict of and within Willy's character.
What closure does the Requiem provide in Death of a Salesman?
There are two possible ways to look at this. For one, Willie's dream of hundreds of buyers coming to his funeral, celebrating his life, comes to the end we all knew it would come to. No one comes; he is buried by his family and a couple friends. It's unclear whether Linda knew this was coming; she laments that no one is there, as though she somehow expected them to come. If there were ever any suspicion that Willie's dream may have had some substance to it, it ends at the Requiem.
The other thing that we are having a Requiem for is an idea, in a way Willie's idea, that the business world works on a handshake, that personality can carry the day, that being "well-liked" will get it done. Bernard is the new man; Bernard has no personality and Bernard is successful. This is (may be?) a new world, and it works on new principles. In Willie's old world, "a man is not a piece of fruit." In our world, he certainly is. You can eat the fruit and throw away the peel. Giant corporations, symbolized by the apartment houses that surround Willie's "world," relate to people differently than the corner store that might loan you money is you were short.
So we say goodbye to a man and to an idea ... all in one short act.
It provides a very bittersweet closure, in that during the funeral, Linda tells Willy that they were almost free and clear. This is referring to the fact that financially, it was almost to the point that they could stop struggling to make ends meet. They had just made the last mortage payment, and things were starting to look up. It just goes to show that Willy killed himself needlessly for the insurance money.
The funeral was also very lightly attended, with only the family really attending. After all those years of thinking he had hordes of friends, Miller shows that he had acquired no true friends except for perhaps Charlie, who looked after him knowing he was less than stable.
Perhaps the message here is that people do things needlessly due to the demands of the working world. Willy was chewed up, spit out, and used up for all that he had of value to his employers. Miller emphasizes this when Willy compares himself to an orange, saying you can't eat the flesh and throw away the peel. It was truly a telling ending, leaving the reader with a feeling of disappointment.
The setting of the brief Requiem at the play's conclusion is the cemetery following Willy's funeral. Through this scene, we experience dramatic closure in that we see the various characters' emotional reactions to Willy's death. In their concluding words and actions, several of the play's themes are finalized, with sad irony.
Happy shows no moral growth or increased self-awareness as a result of his father's death. He continues to make the same unrealistic, empty promises that have characterized his adult life. We leave Happy with no hope that he will ever grow up or behave responsibly or unselfishly.
Linda remains the same loyal, loving wife she has always been, still lost in denial--or not. Linda truly may be unable to grasp the reasons behind Willy's self-destruction, or she may be continuing to live as she has always lived, denying truths she cannot face. Linda's words are steeped in irony: "I can't understand it," she says. Her final words are equally sad and ironic: "We're free . . . We're free . . ."
A final thematic irony in the play is made complete in the Requiem. Biff continues to insist that Willy did not know who he was, implying, of course, that Biff knew who Willy was. It seems clear, however, that only Charley knew who Willy had been:
You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life . . . . He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back--that's an earthquake . . . . A salesman is [sic] got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
Biff may have come to understand himself and his own life in some negative and self-defeating way, but he never achieved a real understanding of his father, even though he believed that he had. Thus, at the play's conclusion, no one in Willy's family truly can appreciate his life--or his death.
The requiem scene in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman plays an important role for the closure of both the play and the life of Willy Loman.
During this part of the play, we come to find out that Willy's perception of his life was wrong all along, from the moment that he chose to become a salesman. We must not forget that, during one of his visions, he told his brother Ben that his funeral will have people coming from all over, and that his sons will be proud of him for that.
However, Willy was only re-creating what happened during the funeral of Dave Singleman, the man that inspired him to become a salesman.
We know that in the requiem scene, nobody shows up at Willy's funeral. Even his wife, Lydia, wonders what is going on,why no one is there. It is quite a horrid moment when death makes you realize the reality of life. Even his sons begin to make their plans for their own future as a result of their father's death. Therefore, not only does this scene helps us realize that Biff was right when he said that Willy followed the wrong dream all along, it also helps us understand the depth of Willy's self-deception.