Why Use Flashbacks?

       The way in which a novel is written can have significant effects on how the reader perceives the story. At the most basic level, a story can be told from 1^st person or 3^rd person. The former puts the reader inside the brain of the characters and allows the author to convey thoughts and feelings as they happen. The latter – the point of view from which I Am Legend is written – employs a narrator to convey the story and creates a separation from the protagonist and the storyteller. Why would Richard Matheson choose to use flashbacks? What does this literary tool achieve? Flashbacks allow for the author to explain the backstory of the protagonist while excluding nonessential details. In the case of I Am Legend, Matheson is able to explain the horrors that Robert Neville endured when his wife and daughter became infected. He is also able to skip over superfluous information in the story and start directly focal point of the novel. The flashback can also be read as if the protagonist is recalling those memories at the specific moment in the story. In other words, the flashback can be used as a medium with which the narrator can discuss what is going on in Neville’s head. In this way, a flashback is a marriage of both 1^st person and 3^rd person writing.