Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller

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Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller

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.

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

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