The coursework is to discuss on how Miller sustains the interest of the audience through his characterization and use of dramatic tension by focusing on two extracts from the play.
The coursework is to discuss on how Miller sustains the interest of the audience through his characterization and use of dramatic tension by focusing on two extracts from the play.
"A view from the Bridge" is set in Brooklyn, amongst an immigrant community who are poor and struggling, most working as 'longshoremen' when the work is available. Eddie is of Italian ancestry, his father emigrated from Italy to America, and therefore he has been brought up with the strong, passionate Italian/Sicilian
way of honour and loyalty. Marco and Rodolfo are illegal immigrants, 'submarines', who have managed to go to America through a system of syndicates; using some of the money they make working in America to pay off the syndicate. Their illegal status and the terrible unemployment and poverty where they have come from and their absolute need to work, in Marco's case means life or death for his family. Miller writes the play after a lawyer {Alferi}, re-tells his account about how illegal immigrants seek refuge in the USA. The title of the play is based on the Brooklyn Bridge and Alfieri having a view from top of it.
In the play, Eddie Carbone is introduced as a 'slightly overweight longshoreman´ and we see straight away that he is a character of authority when Catherine appears and waits on him in an affectionate way. Catherine is an 18-year old who, because of her mother's death is living with her Aunt Beatrice and her husband, Eddie. Eddie has taken it upon himself to be a father to Catherine and to give her the very best in life. He does everything he can in his power to protect her and in the same way, he controls her. Their relationships then plummet following the arrival of Beatrice's two cousins from Italy who are illegal immigrants. Eddie welcomes them passionately but his actions towards them, especially Rodolpho, changes when he sees that he is attracted to Catherine.
There is a boxing fight between Eddie and Rodolpho in which Eddie deliberately punches him, and because of this, Marco decides to challenge his authority . A series of events happens after this, including a spontaneous moment when Eddie calls the immigration Authority for the arrest of the immigrants. Marco spits into his face and that makes things worse. After a surge of anger he finds Eddie and he tries to stab Marco, but Marco turns the knife on his opponent and Eddie dies. As all the events fall into place, Eddie's last words are, 'my B!´ This ...
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There is a boxing fight between Eddie and Rodolpho in which Eddie deliberately punches him, and because of this, Marco decides to challenge his authority . A series of events happens after this, including a spontaneous moment when Eddie calls the immigration Authority for the arrest of the immigrants. Marco spits into his face and that makes things worse. After a surge of anger he finds Eddie and he tries to stab Marco, but Marco turns the knife on his opponent and Eddie dies. As all the events fall into place, Eddie's last words are, 'my B!´ This shows that he is caring and he finally tells Beatrice in two words how much she means to him.
I will be comparing and contrasting two extracts which are:
Eddie's action before and when the cousins arrive; pages 13-16 and
when he makes a call to the immigration office which leads to the arrest of Marco and Rodolpho; page 50
I will be focusing on these because I find them important to the plot of the play, as they centre on the betrayal, thus sustaining the interest of the audience through Miller's characterization.
Eddie is very protective of Catherine in both positive and negative ways; "I took out of my mouth to give to her." Here, we can see that he really loves and cares for her and will do anything to be there for her.
Before the cousins arrive, he shows consideration about how they will get a job; "I hope they get job here." From this statement, Eddie wants the best for them and shows concern about how they will settle down and live happily. When they arrive, he is nice to them and welcoming by shaking Marco's hand and taking his bag. He shows no worry about the overcrowding in the house by saying, "we got plenty of room." Eddie tells Catherine and Beatrice to keep their mouths shut and not tell anybody who the immigrants are and what they are doing, and also gets Beatrice to tell Catherine the story of Vinny Bolanzo- the kid who caused injustice by "snitching" to immigration about some illegal immigrants. Even though it is illegal, Eddie and most of the community see it as injustice. Vinny was brutally punished and shamed, and he condemns the action by calling him a crazy boy who never showed his face again. From this alone, we can tell that Eddie is a caring man who is benevolent and wants the best for others.
Rodolpho is a very outgoing character, and because of this, he and Catherine get on very well together. He is very brave to be able to stand up and sing "Paper Doll" to three people whom he met ten minutes ago. The words of 'Paper Doll´ are very provocative and Catherine loves the music and falls in love with this man. He came to the States with a very open-ended attitude and with the prospect of fulfilling his dreams. This annoys Eddie because he is not realistic.And Because Eddie thinks that Rodolph is gay, he thinks he is committing a great injustice by marrying Catherine just for his citizenship papers. So he feels that he must bring his own justice upon him. Catherine as we know is 18yrs old. She is quite naïve and this is conveyed through the way she talks like a kid and was the type that never goes out , so when she sees Rodolpho, she fancies him. Eddie treats her like a little girl when he says that she cant take a job. She doesn't like the fact that eddie talks to her any how because she is the type of girl that wants freedom. In page 6, eddie says that she is walking wavy which upsets her. To show that she doesn't like the way Eddie talks to her, whenever Eddie is upsetting her, tears might drip off her eyes. As for Eddie, he wants the best for Catherine in life, treating her the way he would treat his own daughter. She does everything to honour him but nothing will stop her from liking Rodolpho, since she is the type of girl that wants to relate with boys but Eddie will never let her so when she sees her dream lover, she jumps on him.
Towards the end of the play, her action towards her physical father changes when she says" who the hell do u think you are" and she proceeds to say " you've got no more right to tell nobody nothing." She also calls him a rat and says that he belongs to the sewer. To show tension in the audience, Catherine could start to talk to Eddie in a rude manner to show that she is starting to disrespect him and that he is nothing anymore. And as for Eddie, he must try his best to calm her down since she is just like a daughter to her.
This moment is dramatic because it is true that the government of America restricted migration in to the USA, so people had to look for other means of getting into the country by moving in illegally and after some time, get married to a citizen and automatically, they can stay in the country without no fear of deportation. An audience that is in this situation will be worried and if not in the situation, he/she will have some sort of sympathy for those who are in Marco and Rodolpho's position.
Though, Eddie was passionate to Rodolpho and Marco, but who will ever believe he will betray them because of his jealousy. He comes home drunk and sees Catherine with Rodolpho coming out of a room. He tells him to pack out of the house then grabs Catherine back when she wants to go with Rodolpho thereby kissing her on the lips which angered Rodolpho and he flies to attack Eddie but he pins him down and kisses him aswel. When Rodolpho and Catherine are having their romantic scene, it should be by soft gas lighting to create a warm glow in the room. When Eddie arrives, the warm light could be tinted with blue, or another colour which signals 'danger', or which isolates Eddie from everyone else. The slip that Catherine wears when she greets Eddie could be very provocative and although Eddie was drunk, the audience could see some of the rationale behind Eddie's kiss
Eddie goes to Alferi, and tells him about it , but Alferi warns him that there was nothing he could do about Rodolpho and Catherine but Eddie turns deaf ears at him. He reports to the immigration bureau and the immigrants are arrested. Here we can see that Eddie has changed and this was not what he planned for the cousins. He becomes and talks arrogantly about his house, all because he likes Catherine and wants the best for her in future. Every time Eddie sees Catherine, he has to smile in a certain way, which would tell the audience that he does like her as more than just a father-daughter relationship.
From the extract, we can see how Eddie imposed tragedy on himself, because if he had left things they were, he wouldn't have got into a fight with Marco .The society has no sympathy for him since he was totally wrong. Even if he didn't die, no one will want to be his friend and the audience will say that 'death' served him right.
Authur miller was successful in writing the play because he uses many things to keep the mind of the audience going with the play. He uses sound , settings and good conventions that shows different moods.
