To an unusual degree, Death of a Salesman interweaves past and present action. Willy Loman, the play's protagonist, repeatedly revisits old memories, sometimes even confusing them with the present moment. But these memories are not the sentimental, slightly melancholy daydreams of a content man. Instead, they are dark clues to Willy's current state of mental and emotional decay. Miller uses the extended flashbacks to show both that Willy longs to understand himself and that his efforts to do so are doomed to failure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Willy revisits the past not with the aim of sinking into happy memories, but with the aim of analyzing himself and understanding where his life went wrong. Its flashbacks are hardly comforting flights into idealized past times. Rather, these are harrowing journeys that get to the heart of his dysfunction. When Willy thinks about the good old days, he remembers making light of Biff's theft, barking at Linda about the state of her stockings, ignoring Biff's mistreatment of young women, sidelining Happy , etc. Each of these memories lays bare one of Willy's flaws: his failure to instill strong morals in his sons, his guilt over his adultery, his inability to see Biff objectively, and his uneven love for Biff and Happy, respectively. If Willy's dives into the past were purely an escape, he would focus on the happy moments of his life. Instead, he tends to be drawn to times when he behaved in revealing and unpleasant ways. This tendency suggests that Willy craves self-knowledge. He wants to understand how he got into his current mess, and he knows the answers lie in the past. Paradoxically, the very force of Willy's impulse to understand himself frustrates his efforts to gain self-knowledge. In his ineffective desperation to figure out what went wrong, he allows himself to become overwhelmed by the past. Instead of staying firmly grounded in the present and thinking about how the past applies to the life he currently leads, he pulls his memories over his head like a blanket. Miller brings this absorption to life by fully dramatizing Willy's flashbacks. They are not told in the first person or addressed to the audience, as might be the case for events that occurred in the past and are in the background. Rather, they are played as fully realized scenes, every bit as vital and urgent as the actual scenes are. By dramatizing Willy's memories, Miller makes them as vivid for us as for Willy. Miller suggests that while Willy might benefit from dipping a toe into the waters of the past, he begins to lose his sanity when he dives completely into those waters. Willy's efforts at self-analysis are doomed not only because he gives himself up entirely. his memories, but also because his passionate emotions are not counterbalanced by cold critical thinking. Willy is constitutionally incapable of analyzing his own behavior, understanding his character, and understanding the mistakes he has made. Time and again, Miller shows how Willy delves into the past, looks blankly at the mistakes he made, and then makes those identical mistakes in the present. He remembers idealizing Ben as a child; then he describes Ben in over-the-top, glowing terms to his sons. He remembers implying that Biff didn't need to work hard to attend a good college; then he.