The Visit: Act 2 Summary & Analysis

The act opens with a view of Claire’s balcony at the dilapidated Golden Apostle Inn, foregrounded by Ill’s general store opposite what seems to be the Policeman’s office.

These three locations are visually linked by Roby and Toby ominously carrying wreaths and flowers across the stage to place on the empty coffin Claire brought with her to Güllen. Ill anxiously looks on through the window of his shop, worrying that the ritual will remind Gülleners of their option to kill him, but he reassures himself that the town is on his side.

Ill momentarily turns his thoughts away from the price on his head and speaks briefly with his son and daughter. They announce that they will head to the railway station and Labor Exchange, respectively, in search of work. Ill sees them off.

As Ill’s children leave the shop, a townsman enters looking to buy cigarettes—a more expensive brand than usual. When Ill alerts him of the additional cost, the man asks Ill to charge the purchase to credit. Two more customers (the First and Second Women) enter, and buy richer milk and butter than usual, and even indulge in bread and chocolate. Like the man before them, they make their purchases on credit.

Meanwhile, Claire’s entourage tries to appease their demanding mistress: Boby the Butler searches for her prosthetic leg, while Roby strums folk tunes she requests on guitar. Claire contemplates her upcoming wedding, not a week after her divorce from Moby. This leads her to recall her former husbands. She expresses particular admiration for her first husband—the oil tycoon Zachanassian whom she met when she was a prostitute—after whom she modeled her own persona. She also derisively pities “poor Moby,” and mockingly “honors” him by smoking a cigar made with tobacco from the plantations she acquired from him during their divorce.

Ill and his customers look on, condemning Claire for sitting high and mighty on her balcony and smoking such expensive cigars. “Conspicuous consumption,” they call it. “In full view of destitute humanity.”

Another customer then enters the shop, prompting Ill to comment on the unusually high number of customers he’s had this morning. The customers all assure him that they are visiting his shop in solidarity with him against Claire’s offer—he is, after all, the most popular man in town, and Güllen’s Mayor-to-be!

A half-naked girl—Miss Louise—suddenly bursts across stage, playfully pursued by Toby. The lady customers in Ill’s shop momentarily turn their derisive gaze from Claire to Louise, continuing to eat their chocolate all the while.

Back at the Golden Apostle, we see Claire’s soon-to-be eighth husband join her on her balcony. (A stage direction allows the same actor that played Husband VII to play Husband VIII.) Claire can hardly stand him. He comments on the apparent nervous energy of the Gülleners, unaware of Claire’s plan and the anxiety it has caused.

The play cuts back to the shop, where Ill has suddenly noticed that all his customers are wearing new yellow shoes. This development, on top of his customers’ exorbitant purchases on credit, alerts Ill to an economic fact that might spell his own doom: the greater the Gülleners’ debts, the greater their need to kill Ill for Claire’s money.

A nervous Ill rushes out of his shop to the Policeman, demanding that he arrest Claire for inciting his murder. The Policeman downplays Ill’s concerns, assuring him that no one in town is taking Claire seriously. But when Ill notices that the Policeman is himself wearing the same new yellow shoes—and sporting a new gold tooth—he recognizes that the Policeman, like the customers, has succumbed to the lure of material gain (if not yet the willingness to murder for money). An exasperated Ill challenges the officer, but the Policeman abruptly ends their conversation, explaining that Claire’s black panther has escaped and that he must hunt it down. “The whole town has to hunt it down,” he adds.

Only more desperate after his disconcerting conversation with the Policeman, Ill heads for the Mayor’s office. When Ill arrives, he notices the bureaucrat casually handling a revolver. The Mayor explains away the gun, indicating that he has only armed himself in case Claire’s escaped panther approaches him. Ill remains suspicious of the Mayor (whom he notices is also smoking a more-expensive-than-usual brand of cigarettes and wearing those same ominous yellow shoes), but nevertheless Ill pleads with the Mayor for protection. The Mayor dismisses Ill’s concerns and chides him for his faithlessness: "You forget that you're in Güllen. A town with a humanist tradition. […] If you’re unable to place any trust in our community, I pity you.” The Mayor goes on to chastise Ill for his perjury during Claire’s paternity trial, and informs him that he has been disqualified from running for Mayor on account of this crime. When Ill notices a blueprint for a new building on the Mayor’s wall, however, he interprets the Mayor’s admonitions as yet another sign of the tide of public opinion in Güllen turning against him.

As Ill downheartedly takes leave of the Mayor’s office, we cut once again to the balcony of the Golden Apostle Inn, where Claire is having breakfast with her fiancée. He dolefully shares that Güllen depresses him: it lacks “grandeur” and “tragedy,” he says. There is no drama or discomfort to make life there interesting; the town has “none of the ethical calling of a great age.”

We shift back to Ill, who has now come to plead with Güllen’s Pastor. The Pastor, like the Mayor, totes a shotgun with which to defend himself from Claire’s panther. When Ill shares his concerns about the potentially malevolent intentions of the townsfolk, the Pastor suggests that Ill is merely imputing to others the guilt and disdain he feels toward himself for having abandoned Claire. The Pastor encourages Ill not to worry, but to find peace with himself. Ill starts to reiterate his concerns about the Gülleners’ outrageous spending, but is interrupted by the toll of a new bell the Pastor has bought for the church. With that, Ill realizes to his horror that even Güllen’s spiritual guide has been seized by an earthly desire for wealth and luxury, and may therefore agree to Claire’s terms.

Suddenly, two shots are fired and the startled Pastor briefly recovers his moral clarity. He urges Ill to leave town before he and the Gülleners commit some greater treachery than buying new shoes or cigarettes or bells. His exhortations of “Flee! Flee!” are drowned out by the reverberations of the gunshots, which apparently finished off the escaped panther.

Claire mourns her pet, and the Gülleners assemble before her balcony to offer their condolences. But before the townspeople have the opportunity to sing their dirge for the panther, Ill interrupts them, paranoid that they are singing the funeral song for him. He dismisses the other Gülleners from the scene, leaving him alone with Claire. He is below on the street, and she is above on her balcony. Claire recalls that their love began in a similar way: she was also on a balcony the day that Ill first laid eyes on her. His stare was intense, she remembers—“almost sinister, almost evil,” yet “full of love.” Her memories fail to charm Ill, who only wants to know if Claire’s bargain of his life for a billion dollars is serious. He asks. She does not answer.

The next morning, Ill heads for the railway station with his suitcase, intending to catch the next train out of town. As he waits for his train, he notices first that the station has been updated a bit, then that the citizens of Güllen have begun to approach him from all sides. They overwhelm him with questions and comments obviously meant to discourage him from skipping town. But when Ill once again expresses his suspicions, the townspeople assure him that no one will harm him. As the train pulls up to the station, the Gülleners bid Ill farewell, but continue to crowd closer and closer around him. Intimidated, Ill finds himself unable to board the train, convinced that someone would hold him back if he did. He collapses as the train departs and fatalistically cries, “It’s all over!”