ABSTRACT
WE'RE FREE . . . WE'RE FREE." THE LAST WORDS OF ARTHUR MILLER'S masterpiece, Death of a Salesman, are uttered, sobbing, by Linda Loman over her husband Willy's grave. Weary and penniless after a life of selling "a smile and a shoeshine," overwhelmed by feelings of emptiness and failure, yet mesmerized by the thought that his life insurance will provide his estranged son with the stake that might induce him to compete and "succeed," Willy Loman in his suicide famously symbolizes the tragic dimension of the relentless competitiveness at the heart of the American capitalist dream. "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong," this son laments at the graveside, even as his other son dedicates himself to "beat this racket" so that "Willy Loman didn't die in va in . . . . It's the only dream you can have-to come out number-one man." At the end Linda stands over the grave alone. Telling Willy that she had just made the last payment on their mortgage, a sob rises in her throat: "We're free and clear. . . . We're free. . . . We're free. . . ."1
