I will be discussing two main flashbacks in detail. They both take place during act one, the first when Happy and Biff two grown up kids listen to Willy make himself milk. Throughout the flashbacks, Miller puts in time switches to inform us of the characters’ history, to help us to understand the characters better. To show clearly that a time switch is occurring, stage directions to dim the lighting and change of scenery such as “the entire house and surroundings become covered with leaves.” are used. At the first time switch, Miller also connects the two periods skilfully by having Willy talking to himself throughout the change in time; so it seems that there hasn’t been a change at all. Sounds depend mainly on the mood of the occasion, weak and lifeless sounds seem to be in the background when the play is in the present. The tone of the music changes when Willy goes into the past it appears chirpy and happy.
The flashback starts when Willy starts to chatter to himself, “Yes, Sir eighty thousand miles – eighty thousand miles!” Then will is joined by his two sons Happy and Biff on stage. It’s a point in time when Willy was in high spirits, when his eldest son was the captain of the football team. Willy has had an influence on Biff; he wants Biff to achieve what he never did. He even uses Biff as an example for Happy to learn from, “Happy, use the newspaper on the windows, it’s the easiest thing, show him how to do it Biff”. There are two flaws that appear in the flashback, the first when Bernard keeps on rushing on to the stage saying Biff will flunk maths, which he certainly does. The author uses Bernard, Charley’s son as a story contrast to the two Loman brothers. Willy refers to him as an ‘aneamic’ and says although he gets the best marks at school he is not as popular and does not have the personality of Biff and Happy. But the complete opposite happens when they finish school and get into the big wide world. Bernard goes onto become part of the Supreme Court.
The second flaw is the woman, the secretary whom Willy had an affair with. As when we learn about Willy’s affair later in the play, Willy feels very guilty towards Linda as he cheated on her. His guilt is symbolised by the stockings, which he gave away to the woman while Linda is mending her old ones. Willy feels extremely guilty whenever he sees Linda mending her old stockings. He becomes enraged and tells Linda to put the stockings away. Linda however, is not aware of Willy’s affair. At several moments throughout the play, ‘The Woman’s laughter is heard from offstage, usually at times that Willy sees what has become of his life, for example when he sees Linda mending her stockings. These flashbacks are played out to the audience like scenes in real life and often simultaneously – they are only indicated by the actions of the actors. Before we see this flashback, we are very uncertain of what caused Biff to lose all respect for Willy, although we have an idea from conversations near the beginning of the play.
Linda: “It seems there’s a woman…” (she takes a breath as)
Biff: (sharply but contained) “What woman?”
Linda: (simultaneously) “… and this woman…”
In Willy’s second dream, he is recollecting when Biff discovered him with the woman. He remembers this properly, because it was an awful thing to happen to him. He was shocked and distressed, which helped him to remember events correctly. The past events are never shown as they actually happened, they are shown the way Willy interprets them. Willy seems to distort the event when Biff finds Willy and ‘The Woman’ in the bedroom in Brooklyn. He does this to try and block out the bad thoughts, and create a past he can hide in from others. The woman’s laughter becomes almost mocking; this causes Willy to screams “Shut Up!” This marks the end of the flashback.
The second flashback begins when Charlie, the neighbour, comes onto stage and offers to play a game of cards. While the game of cards is taking place Uncle Ben, Willy’s elder, but dead brother also enters the stage. It is actually from Ben that Willy derives his greatest dream to risk everything that Willy has done. Ben is idolised by Willy for his success and wealth but at the same time distrusted by Linda. We don’t meet Ben in person at any time throughout the play, only through Willy’s dreams, so we are only aware of him through Willy’s estimation of him. Willy remembers him as a go-getter and a leader of men. He is shown to be motivated only by money as seen in his final conversation with Willy. He is not concerned with Willy’s wellbeing, only by the large sum of money he would gain from the insurance payoff, “twenty thousand - that is something one can feel with the hand.” Charley begins to think about Willy’s health and I think he realises that Willy is loosing his sanity.
Willy: “No, she died a long time ago”
Charley: “Who?”
Ben: “That’s too bad. Fine specimen of a lady mother.”
The way in which Miller contrasts the conversation between Charlie and Uncle Ben is very intelligent as during and after a flashback it doesn’t seem that Willy realises that he is having nor had a flashback and tends to act normal as if nothing has happened. Miller uses Willy Loman’s failure to attack the idea of the American dream, pointing out the mistakes and the unfairness of the cruel capitalist system, where the only way to raise your public position was to gain wealth. More importantly however, the play warns people not to follow Willy’s example, puzzling the real world with the idealistic world and lying to yourself when there is a problem. Always think and act realistically, not how you would like to, as things don’t always go your way.
Dreams are important in the play for many different reasons. The dreams in the play express the different ideas about the characters. We see the characters in ‘real time’ and can only understand them when we see past events. We see how the American Dream affects the characters, how their hopes and ambitions affect them and how past events affect them through flashbacks. Miller is trying to make a point, which is that we live in a world that encourages us to have dreams that are further away from our means, and are not achievable, there dreams are not realistic. All of the characters in the play have been affected by their dreams and the dreams of others. Without dreams, life would be terrible, because we all need something to aim for, but our aims need to be reasonable. Arthur Miller has successfully shown how our dreams can go beyond our reach, and does the people around us, as well as ourselves, more damage than good.
During the play Charley sums up Willy’s life by saying” When the hell are you going to grow up?” Willy spends his life in an illusion, constantly believing that he is a great man who is popular and successful and I truly believe that this is what made Willy loose his sanity, which ended up in tragedy.
