Death of a Salesman: Flashbacks 1 key example

Flashback is the play’s the principal source of dramatic irony. Death of a Salesman is told mainly through Willy’s own perspective, so the substance of his memories goes unnoticed by other characters. As consequence, the play makes certain knowledge available only to the audience. Willy’s mistress, laughing while “dimly seen” dressing behind a scrim, informs the reader of the infidelities that he withholds from Linda. Elsewhere in Act 1, Willy converses with the ghost of his dead brother, Ben, much to the confusion of his neighbor Charley. As Willy’s dinner and memories of the Boston hotel room converge in Act 2, flashbacks help unearth the scandal that underlies his strained relationship with Biff.  he reader recognizes Willy’s declining sanity, even when he himself does not. By granting the audience this privileged access, the play draws attention to all the characters trapped in their faults and personal blind spots.

This blending of past and present adds to the sorrowful plotline by juxtaposing Willy’s happier memories with his current, abject state. Flashbacks flip constantly between Willy’s youthful and befuddled selves, a technique that makes their contrasts all the more jarring. Willy’s “wonderful” masculine appeal is set against his present paunchiness, his former confidence against his pitiful appeals in Howard’s office. Willy’s movement between the past and present sharpens the pathos of his fall.

On the level of the narrative, flashback figuratively symbolize Willy's thwarted aspirations. Reveries of the past meddle with the play’s sequence of real-time events, as though frustrating the more straightforward telling of his story. The characters in Willy’s flashbacks—such as his mistress or Ben—appear almost as lifelike as those in real-time, bending the play’s sense of reality and its normal progression. Willy’s actual errands—much like his personal ambitions—are constantly interrupted, delayed, or deferred by those who wander in from his past.