Death in "The Visit" and "The Man with the Flower in His Mouth"

Paper Summary:

Friedrich Duerrenmatt's "The Visit" and Luigi Pirandello's "The Man with the Flower in His Mouth" are allegorical plays in which certain characters confront death. The paper shows that the human - an allegorical figure of death - is, in both plays, a female character. In Pirandello's short piece she is the wife of a terminally ill man who follows him everywhere, but does not speak. In "The Visit", death comes in the form of Claire Zachanassian, the multimillionaire who returns to her hometown looking for revenge--or justice--for the sufferings she went through as a girl.

From the Paper:

"In this idea of waiting for death at home, with time "measured by the ticking of the big clock in the dining room," is the notion that death should become part of life, which is symbolized by the clock and the passing of time (6). His wife, or death, is attempting to get him to integrate death with the rest of his experience. But he sees them as two completely separate things. Death is not the culmination of life but a terrible interruption that has nothing to do with living."

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