Death of a Salesman: Requiem

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      Before the curtain goes down, the audience is shown Linda, Biff, Happy and Charley at Willy’s grave. It is getting dark and they are discussing Willy. Happy thought that his father was a martyr to his dreams. Charley justifies Willy’s having dreams because he was a salesman. Linda is emotionally attached to Willy, because he was her husband. It is only Biff who realizes that it was because Willy had wrong dreams, that he had to face such frustration, failure, despair and agony. We see and can feel that Willy’s death has made real difference only to Linda. For others, their concern ends only with verbally sympathizing or justifying Willy and his dreams. For Linda, the world is a gloomy dark place now. Her world has been tom apart to pieces. She is lost, bewildered, surprised and shocked. She cannot comprehend the total reality; she cannot understand why possibly did Willy have to die. She is lonely and her grief is too deep for words. She is trying her level best to come to grips with the situation. “Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry. I don’t understand it. Why did you ever do that? Help me, Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you do it? I search and search and I search and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home...” At this point she begins to break down. In an emotion choked voice she speaks out the last words of the play:

“We’re free and clear...We’re free....
We’re free...We’re free”

      This last utterance of Linda (and also the last words of the play), who has been a loyal wife always, are loaded with irony that is poignantly tragic. “She’s free”, she says. Yes...definitely she is free now. She is now deprived of her dearest possession. She’s too free to exist, now. She is all vacuum and emptiness. She is now living in a vacuum enveloped by unfathomable mystery.

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