IB - Death of a Salesman & Miller's presentation of time

Here are two interesting responses from our class in relation to the question:
What do you find interesting about the presentation of time so far in the play?

Response 1:
'Arthur Miller uses time as a dramatic device, to tell the story of Willy's past - but also his story in the present. Willy's lack of sense of time transports the audience, as well as the characters, to the most significant parts of Willy's life. I see this as a way of developing Willy's character, through watching the events that make Willy who he is today. However, I also see the change in time as a message for society: that those who have now entered a phase in their life that results in the deterioration of the mind, once lived active lives, full of work, children and other worries that fill the average person's head at some stage. Miller wants the audience to reconsider the attitude towards those who are deemed no longer of any use to society or the economy by presenting an image of what each member of the audience may experience. Time also separates the Willy that Linda once fell in love with and married from the one she now subtly takes care of, without damaging his pride. Time, again, separates the person that Willy dreamed of becoming from the one he has turned out to be...'

Response 2:
'The presence of time is felt in Death of a Salesman right from Miller's very first stage direction:'A melody is heard, played upon a flute.' Though the audience may not realise it at the time, by the end of the play they will almost definitely have come to recognise the sound of the flute as a symbol of Willy Loman's past, associated with his father the craftsman and their life on the road. When analysing Willy as a character, we can note this use of music before our first introduction to him as an indication that the past holds a huge sway over him; it could be said that it is the first thing people notice about him, just as the audience hears the music before the dialogue begins.

As the action on stage unfolds, we can see that when Miller stated that the past should be 'placed on stage' for the protagonist to 'grapple' with, he meant literally rather than figuratively. The use of dramatic stream of consciousness, in which the chronology of the drama follows a pattern identical to that which occurs in Willy's mind, means that the characters and relationships from the salesman's past are just as real as those in the present. In fact, the only way that we can come to differentiate between people past and present is the extent to which they observe the imaginary wall lines (those in the present do, and others do not). Otherwise, past characters are equally, or perhaps even more vivid, as they tend to occupy Willy's attention.

Thus it soon becomes clear to the audience that Willy is a man very much dominated by his past, and the 'burden' Miller describes is the physical presence of characters he continues to live amongst and engage with.'