A View from the Bridge

1. A View from the Bridge By Arthur Miller

3. Context: Immigration • Italian immigration in America reached a high of over 2 Million between 1910-1920. • In 1924 America passed the Immigration Act to limit numbers coming into the country. • A person discovered without legal documents was considered an illegal alien.

4. American Society: 1950s • The play is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It is a slum area inhabited by many poorly paid longshoremen (dockworkers) and their families. Many of the workers were illegal immigrants who were often exploited by the very people who helped bring them to America. • Eddie is an uneducated, but hard working longshoreman who sacrifices much to bring up his niece. He has a narrow view of what he considers manliness, however this view would have been shared by many men at this time. 1950s America is a patriarchal society where male and female roles are clearly defined. This is a ‘man’s world’ and men had to prove themselves at work and in the home. Eddie sees it as his duty to support his family and to be obeyed. The difficulties within the marriage finally explode when a woman, Catherine, reveals a mind of her own and wants to break with this tradition. Just as women are expected to fulfilan established role, concepts of masculinity are equally traditional as we witness in the macho confrontations between Eddie and Marco. It is more formal society: R should have asked permission to court Catherine.

5. Clash between Sicilian and American laws/culture • At the beginning Alfieri mentions Sicilians and gangsters in his speech. The audience is prompted to make a connection to the Mafia. Among the assumptions of the Mafia is the idea that the law is useless and that direct ‘justice’ is more effective. In business as well as in criminal activity, ‘family’ members are protected; enemies and those who betray the family are treated ruthlessly. The tragedy in A View from the Bridge is not caused by the Mafia, but these concepts exist side by side with more orthodox justice. • Alfieri fails to convince Eddie and Marco that ‘there is no other law outside the statute book’. They cannot relate his law to their code of honour and concept of justice. Perhaps American law can work, perhaps Red Hook law can, but the combination of the two can only bring tragedy.

6. Is Eddie’s tragic end inevitable? Loss of reputation and Eddie’s self – destruction He challenges Marco to regain his reputation, his ‘name’, but cannot possibly hope to regain it as his betrayal of his own family is now common knowledge. He has lost the respect of all those who know him and therefore has no option but to face Marco in mortal combat. It can be argued he seeks his own self-destructionin order tosalvage some of his former reputation and respect in the community. In the end, he gains some dignity in the way he dies, as Alfieri says, Eddie ‘allowed himself to be wholly known’ which suggests that he admired him even if it was against his better judgment, ‘And so I mourn him - I admit - with a certain alarm.’

7. Is Eddie a Tragic Hero? • According to Aristotle the tragic hero is neither good nor evil. He begins the play in an elevated position, but as a result of a fatal (or tragic) flaw he suffers a reversal of fortune which results in his death. • How does Eddie fit into Aristotle’s tragic model? • Is he good or evil? • How does he begin the play? • Does he have a fatal flaw • Does he suffer a reversal of fortune? • Does he die?