The Visit

Claire travels with “an elaborate black coffin,” which she casually tells the Mayor she “may need” (24). The coffin is carried to the hotel with Claire’s mountain of luggage, comical at first, but becoming more macabre once it’s clear that the coffin is for Ill. The specter of the coffin looms large over the action, always asking the question as to when and how it will be filled. Claire has prepared Ill’s coffin and his mausoleum in Capri because it’s easier for her to think of Ill as “a dead love in [her] memory, a gentle ghost haunting the wreckage of a house” (89) rather than the man who broke her heart and callously destroyed her life. Claire creates a conflation between weddings and funerals. Each day, she brings in more flowers and wreaths, either to decorate the coffin or for her elaborate wedding. Roby and Toby adorn the coffin with the flowers that arrive. It’s a threat, but it is also a promise of death. Ill’s funeral is already happening, and he just needs to show up. Claire’s weddings aren’t the beginning of a couple’s life together, but the start of the ticking timer counting down the end of the relationship, which will occur abruptly and without warning, much like death.