Both Happy and Charley frame Willy Loman as a martyr figure, blameless for his suicide and noble in his aspirations, repudiating the humiliations that Willy suffered during the course of the play.

Happy and Biff interpret Willy's suicide in terms of these business dreams: Happy wishes to stay in the city and succeed where his father failed, while Biff rejects the business ethos that destroyed his father and plans to leave New York. For a salesman, there are only dreams and hope for future sales. However, the funeral rests primarily on Willy's status as a salesman: it is the character of a salesman that determined Willy's course of action, according to Miller. Only his family and Charley attend, while none of his other customers, friends, or colleagues bother to pay their respects.

Willy Loman's funeral is a cruel and pathetic end to the salesman's life. She asks why Willy did what he did, and says that she has just made the last payment on the house today, and that they are free and clear. Charley, Happy and Biff leave, while Linda remains at the grave. A salesman has to dream.īiff asks Happy to leave the city with him, but Happy says that he's going to stay in the city and beat the racket, and show that Willy did not die in vain. Charley says that 'nobody dast blame this man,' for Willy was a salesman, and for a salesman there is no rock bottom to the life. Biff says that Willy had the wrong dreams and that he never knew who he was. Linda says it is the first time in thirty-five years that she and Willy were nearly free and clear financially, because Willy only needed a little salary. Linda wonders where all of the people that Willy knew are. Deeply angered, Happy tells Linda that Willy had no right to commit suicide. Charley tells Linda that it is getting dark as she stares at Willy's grave.

Death of a salesman requiem script