Importance of Requiem
How important is the requiem to the play in content and mood? A requiem is a special ceremony to honour the souls of the dead. In the requiem we see Linda, Biff, Happy and Charley paying their last respect to Willy, who had died earlier on. In many ways, the play has a great significant, as it gives us the opportunity to assess the validity of what Willy said about his funeral and to an extent see the aftermath of his life. Willy believed that his funeral would be as the funeral of Dave Singleman, which was,"Hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral,"which is the way Willy expects his own funeral to be, as he said, earlier in the play,"But the funeral-Ben, the funeral will be massive."In contrary to what Willy believed his funeral wasn't "massive," there were only four people who attended it, Biff, Happy, Linda and Charley, there wasn't any "strange license plates." The belief that he was respected, liked and known becomes clearly unfounded.In some ways the simple funeral can act as a justification to Willy's life, which is based on his dreams of "making it big," was simply just a phony dream and imagination. His philosoph
" Biff seems to have a firmer grasp of reality than Happy, as Happy seems to be like Willy's carbon copy. Happy, as Charley seems to defend Willy's dream, but it seems, it's only because Happy possesses similar dreams, as he says,"It's the only dream you can have-to come out number-one man. " The motif of being all used up here closes the play. Unlike Willy, Biff had to undergo a spiritual journey through the play, and in a way has found himself, as he said in the requiem,"I know who I am kid"to Happy, suggesting that he didn't before. However, on the other hand, Charley argues that a salesman has to have a dream, as he implies that it is the nature of the job, when he said,"A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with territory,"It gives an impression as if Charley is still defending Willy's actions, even though Willy has died, and it also gives an impression, after what has happened, Charley still feels sympathetic to Willy. Biff also knew that Willy had the wrong dreams, as he says,"He had the wrong dreams. The fact that Willy is ordinary should give us a sense that the tragedy could . Willy, who believes in the greatness of the America dream, never realised that he was just ordinary, despite Biff saying, earlier on,"Will you take that phony dream, and burn it before something happens?"Willy, however remained to live in his dream world, and took Biffs love as a justification of Willy committing suicide. The requiem captures a feeling of sorrow, and sympathy for Willy, that he had spent his life dreaming an empty and useless dream. Biff has realised throughout the play that his life, under his fathers dreams and goal, had been a lie, and that he was ready to face the truth, without any "phony dreams. Willy's life has been all used up by the time that the house is paid for, as he had commented earlier on. Whereas Willy had spent his life trying to get something paid for before it was all used up, we now find from Linda that she has just made the payment on the house, but there is no one to live in it. We, as audience should be sympathetic to Willy, and should share that sorrow of Biff and Linda, even though Willy might not have been a successful, respected man he boast he is. It also gives a sense that the dream that Willy believed in so deeply, the American dream, doesn't apply top everyone, and that most of the people are just ordinary. Happy seems to be even more lost in his dreams, as lost as Willy, and doesn't seem to have acknowledged the truth of his father's death.
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Acceptance Essays
