Explore the way in which Miller makes this a moving and appropriate ending to the play 'Death of a salesman'

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Name: Mai Tran

Explore the way in which Miller makes this a moving and appropriate ending to the play.

Miller makes Requiem a moving and appropriate ending in many appealing ways. This ending of his reveals the even more strenuous situation of Willy. Although the audiences have known him as a salesman with no glorious achievement in life but with a conclusion like this, the funeral highlights the focus on Willy’s isolation and failure. Furthermore, it also issues the doubt in the vague American Dream of our departed salesman.

It appears that at Willy’s funeral, there was only his loyal wife Linda; his two beloved sons: Biff, Happy; and Charley with his boy Bernard. Yes, his only friend who’s at the funeral was Charley-the man that was yelled, swore at by Willy throughout the whole play. However he ended up being the only one Willy can go to and ask for help, for money. It is shown that Charley is the one who cares and keeps on offering Willy a job but what he gets is always rejection. In this final scene, Miller clarifies to the audience about how much Charley comprehends the job of a salesman in this kind of world, especially the one like Willy. Specifically, Charley says: “For a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life”. The connotation of “rock bottom” is the lowest level. This suggests that for a salesman like Willy, it doesn’t matter what his social status is, he just have to get down low and serves his job. “He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine” The color blue means hope. This indicates that Willy was a person with the desire of reaching success. But to do that “a smile and a shoeshine” are what it takes. A smile refers to the fact that he must always be delighted and satisfies what customers need in order to sell his products. “Shoeshine” is the act of polishing one’s shoes. To many people, this job is low and “cheap”. Link back to the salesman’s circumstances, his position is low, the lowest; all of this highlights Willy’s sacrifice just so his dream would come true. However, “it comes with the territory”, the unavoidable result. Maybe Willy just was not in luck. Or maybe he was just a little man, unable to handle such gigantic pressure. That’s life, with the reckless society, which only place strain on our shoulder.

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Charley is not the only one who understands Willy’s predicament, but so does Biff. He appears to be wiser, more sagacious and sensible through his words. Biff knows precisely his father’s situation: “The man didn’t know who he was.” – he said. As the audience, we are already aware of that all the way through the story. Biff signifies that Willy “had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong”. While it is beyond doubt that Willy’s destination, where he aims to is the wrong way. However it is vague to no one but him. He kept on heading blindly so this ...

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