Three Viewings Response

In the play Three Viewings, I think that the interesting factor that connects all three monologues isn’t that the characters are all loosely connected, nor the fact that all three characters are at funerals. No, what interests me is the fact that each of the three characters seem indifferent to the fact that they are at a funeral. They are all at the funerals for different reasons, but none of them seem to be experiencing the emotions or thought processes that one would normally associate with funerals. For instance, Emil is a funeral director, and for that reason he is always at the funerals, but he is also trying to get Tessie to fall in love with him. At the funerals, he is nervous and anxious because he is trying to make his feelings for her known and trying to win her heart. In the second monologue, Mac is directly related to the deceased, but she isn’t upset about her grandmother’s death, at least not at first. She intends to steal a ring that she thought was rightfully hers, and has a vengeful, unremorseful attitude. This shifts, however, when she experiences a strange moment in which she believes her grandmother grabs her in the casket and gets angry at her for stealing the ring. In the end of her monologue, she is no longer vengeful, but still not necessarily saddened by the death of her grandmother. The third character, Virginia, is at her husband’s funeral, but she doesn’t seem sad either. She is being swallowed by her husband’s debt and upset that she can’t recall how she met him, but not sad that he is dead. She seems so preoccupied with everything surrounding his death that she doesn’t even really focus on the death itself. In the end of her monologue, she is relieved of all debt and finds out when and how she met her husband, but she still doesn’t seem sad about it.