Choose two flashbacks from Miller's Death Of A Salesman. What effect do the flashbacks have?

Death Of A Salesman Question 1

Choose two flashbacks from Miller’s Death Of A Salesman. What effect do the flashbacks have? Consider –

Relationships
Themes
Dramatic Effects

The author of the Death Of A Salesman, Arthur Miller, produces a lot of flashbacks throughout the book involving the main character Willy Loman. I am going to talk about two of the flashbacks that he writes about in the book. These are when Willy talks to ‘the woman’, and the other one is when Willy talks to Uncle Ben. Both of these flashbacks occur in Act One of the book.

The first flashback that I have picked is when Willy talks to ‘the woman’. This is the first appearance of the woman in the book. The scene is very short and only has two characters – Willy and The Woman. Although I have classified it as a flashback, it is not really clear whether it is a flashback or just Willy’s thoughts at this stage in the book. But as the book draws to an end, it becomes much clearer that the scene is a flashback from Willy’s past. Before the flashback begins, Willy is talking to his wife Linda. But as the conversation proceeds, Miller converts the scene into a flashback with only Willy and The Woman. When the flashback starts, both Linda and The Woman’s laughter blend in together to produce a visual and dramatic effect as the audience is cast away toward the flashback. In the theatre, the producer could brighten the area or produce smoke to show the audience that there is a flashback that is starting to occur.

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I think that Miller put this scene into this specific place in the book because of a very important reason and it was done purposely. This reason is to portray that the relationship between Willy and his wife Linda is not so good at the moment because they continue having arguments both before and after this scene about very small issues, such as when Willy shouts at Linda for mending her stockings. So this may suggest that the flashback that Willy had with The Woman was that he might have been having an affair with her in the past due to the nervous relationship with Linda. Willy does not really like the atmosphere that he is currently in with Linda, Biff, and Happy. He is not satisfied with both his family life and his work life, so he might have wanted an affair to cool and relax himself.

Throughout the scene between Willy and The Woman, Miller portrays to the audience two different aspects of Willy’s life. He shows the veracity of the two contrasting lives that Willy leads. The first one is when Willy is with The Woman, and the second one is when Willy is with Linda. Throughout the scene with The Woman, Miller shows Willy as being a flirty man, such as when Willy slaps The Woman’s bottom. But then when the flashback ends, Miller purposely puts Linda in there to have a conversation with Willy to show the boringness of Willy’s life when he is around Linda. When he is around The Woman, he gets livened up and gets excited, but then he is back in the dull mode when he is surrounded by his family. This thus shows the two contrasting aspects of Willy’s life. The scene also connects with The American Dream. He is not satisfied with his family and work life, so he does not have The American Dream.

The second flashback that I chose is when Willy talks with Uncle Ben after the scene when Willy is with The Woman. There are six characters involved in this scene. These are Willy, Uncle Ben, Charley, Linda, Biff, and Happy. The scene starts as Charley and Willy are playing cards, but this escalates into both of them having an argument. As they shout accusations at each other, Uncle Ben enters the scene, and the flashback starts. Although there are three people involved in the flashback at the start, only Willy and Uncle Ben talk to each other, with Charley wondering what is going on. Charley cannot see Uncle Ben because Uncle Ben is dead, but Willy can see him due to the flashback. But Willy is in both the flashback and in the present time, so it can be called a semi-flashback. Therefore, Charley gets confused due to the conversation between Willy and Charley, because Charley thinks that Willy is talking to him, but really he is talking to Uncle Ben.

As the scene continues, Linda, Biff, and Happy also enter the conversation with Willy and Uncle Ben, although Charley walks off due to the argument between him and Willy. So, only five characters are left, and thus this scene shows the contrast in the two pairs of brothers, Happy and Biff, and Ben and Willy. Ben was the man who Willy continues to boast about because Ben walked into ‘the jungle’ and came out rich. Willy also had the chance to do this with his brother Ben, but chose the wrong option. So, he wants his two sons, Happy and Biff, to be successful and make the name of Loman well known around America. Willy did not taste success, so he didn’t get his American Dream, so he wants Biff and Happy to be successful by pushing them as far as he can.

So both the flashbacks that Miller portrays show the different aspects of Willy’s life, and it also gives a chance for Miller to introduce some new characters into the book, because the two flashbacks occur at the start of the book, so new players get established such as The Woman, Charley, and Uncle Ben.

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