“I will never forget how dark the room became once he looked upon me… his eyes were like tunnels.” Through his choice of dialogue and stage directions Arthur Miller presents a picture of Alfieri as a man of an intelligent upbringing “And now we are quite civilised, quite American.” His use of language is formal and businesslike.
Eddie the other main character in this story of love and lost is illiterate and works on the docks of New York. He speaks using a colloquial manner that suggests a New Yorker accent. The reader or audience’s stereotypical impression of Eddie is that of an unintelligent typical immigrant to America from the twentieth century.
Every time the Arthur Miller brings up heritage the characters will side with one of their roots. Alfieri makes it quite clear what he would rather be, he speaks of the people in the neighbourhood being “Quite civilised, quite American.” The characters that have lived in America for most of their lives (Eddie, Beatrice, Catherine) all take the same stand as Alfieri and disregard their Sicilian roots, preferring to show the ‘civilised’ American side of their personalities. It is only Marco, the immigrant, who will stand for their country of birth, “You think we have no tall buildings in Italy?”
Another significant theme in the play is law and order. Arthur Miller again highlights the differences between Sicilian and American life, this time in justice. Despite character’s choices of heritage all opt for the Sicilian lifestyle of justice. After Eddie betrays Marco and the pair fight, Marco himself shows the differing styles of law enforcement with the statement “In my country he would be dead now. He would not live this long” and “All the law is not in a book.” This also brings us back to Alfieri’s introduction speech as he speaks of the infamous Mafia and Gangsters of New York.
Alfieri once again shows his new confound love of America with his words. He counters Marco with the statement “The law is only in a book, there is no other law,” although this time the difference is less obvious as it is not clear whether he is speaking as a human or a lawyer. As a student of American law living in the country, Alfieri is obliged to speak the word of the law, away from his by personal situation and beliefs. Despite this we meant to presume that in this situation, Alfieri is speaking to Marco as a fellow friend and not a lawyer. However we then see the other side of Alfieri, just as we thought he was completely ignorant of his Sicilian heritage, he speaks to Marco, in the tone of an older, more weary Sicilian man giving his final judicial and religious advice “This is not god Marco, only God makes justice.”
This entire play seems designed to demonstrate the destructive power and outright lie of the ‘American Dream’. Alfieri is used to show the bridge or connection between the two cultures, he does this with his knowledge of the American law system and his personnel knowledge of Sicily, his country of birth. What we learn from this is that no place provides us with that "Dream" and that different countries posses different cultures which we must be prepared to expect especially if involved in acts where the law would be involved.
