By giving this background information to the audience it gives reason for this and it gives reason for putting this in the play. It all adds to making the play more understandable. Each scene is a representation of a stage in their life. Arthur Miller can leave large chunks out of the play because Alfieri fills them in. If Alfieri wasn’t there and Arthur Miller left large chunks of time out the play would be confusing and because Alfieri is there he, again explains the play. As the narrator Alfieri is a very powerful character within the play as he can tell the story as quickly or as slowly as he likes. The slower he tells the story the more atmosphere and suspense he creates. In his opening speech Alfieri gives a description of what Red Hook is like and what the people who live there are like. By starting with this he has already begun to make the audience question what is going to happen. This uncertainty, not knowing what is going to happen creates suspense and atmosphere Alfieri has already witnessed the story Miller tells and therefore is able to create suspense by giving is clues about what is going to happen. As a character Alfieri is powerless. He is unable to stop what is going to happen to the Carbone family. He is unable to stop the inevitable, which is a contrast but emphasises the point that Alfieri has two main roles within the play.
Alfieri makes the audience question the play a lot during the play by the use of a passing statement or a rhetorical question. “I could have finished the whole story that afternoon. It wasn’t as thought there was a mystery to unravel.”
This statement makes the audience think and question them selves what is going to happen next and what does Alfieri mean by this. This use of questioning the audience helps the play a lot it gives the play more meaning and creates atmosphere and suspense and it makes the audience feel more involved with the action on stage, therefore it feels more real to the audience, making it a better play on the whole. “This one’s name was Eddie Carbone”.
Alfieri, throughout the play sympathises with Eddie and reminds the audience that he is a good man at heart and he is only doing what any man would do. In Eddies first speech he makes Eddie seems like any other man. Alfieri already knows what is going to happen and so he is already trying to sympathise with Eddie and to see that he is a good man. By making Eddie seem less important and more like any other man. We instantly think that any man in Eddie’s situation would have done the same. Later on when Alfieri speaks again after the scene where we have seen signs of Eddie being too over protective of Catherine and the audience have started to feel a little bit uneasy, he begins by saying this, “He was a good man.”
It is like he knows what the audience is going to think, so change the views of the audience he makes this statement. If the audience did not suspect that there was some thing “not right” about Eddie then when Alfieri makes this comment the audience would question why he said this and then that would also give the clue that Eddie mite do some thing worse or something that would harm Catherine. He introduces Eddie and shows us that the focus is going to be on him.
Alfieri gives the play meaning. If Alfieri wasn’t there the play would appear to the audience meaningless. This piece of theatre would just appear to be a story about a family, in which the uncle had feelings for his niece that he shouldn’t have had. It would have appeared to the audience that somebody wanted to write a story about a family troubles and that was it. When Alfieri is there he adds that little extra that brings the play to life. By giving his opinion and stating the goings on in the play he links the audience to the actors on stage making the play seem more important. The audience’s emotions would be stronger and therefore they would feel that the play has more of a meaning than it just being about a family with troubles about love.
In Alfieri’s opening speech he introduces the issue of Law and Justice, “Oh there were many who were shot by unjust men”
This statement asks the question what is Justice? Justice doesn’t necessarily mean the law and the law doesn’t necessarily mean justice. In Red Hook the law is not necessarily so important but doing the rite thing by other people is more important. They believe that family and friends’ should stick to together no matter what the issue is. The issue of family law is more important. Justice is what the people of Red Hook want a quotation that Alfieri says in his opening speech to back this point up is, “Justice is very important here” This quotation has followed the description of Red Hook that Alfieri has just given the audience. As in many places different people have different ideas about what Justice is so that could lead to family squabbles and disagreements between friends. There are two different ideas about justice in Italy and America. When some one says justice you are automatically asked the question what is justice you automatically think of the disagreements between people about what they think justice is so when Alfieri says this, it suggests that there is more trouble afoot and there are arguments to come. Alfieri could be giving a very subtle hint to the audience when he says this. Justice is a key issue within this play that Arthur Miller writes. When the family are talking about Vinny Bolzano. It is clear that, in the eyes of Eddie and Beatrice, Vinny had done something very wrong and was justly punished. Eddie is clear that Vinny will never be seen in the neighborhood again out of shame: "a guy do a thing like that? How's he gonna show his face?" Family comes first. To betray one's family is a crime and should be punished, Vinny gets no sympathy despite the injuries inflicted upon him: it was seen that he got what he deserved. It is ironic that Eddie does just the same thing as Vinny, 'snitch to Immigration', to Marco and Rodolpho at the end of the play.
Alfieri gives us and introduction into what it is like to live in Red Hook and what the atmosphere is like there. Alfieri tells us he is lawyer and that the people in Red Hook don’t trust lawyers because they associate them disasters. Family trust is a key issue. He also describes what its like to live in Brooklyn. He describes it as a not very desirable place to live, “This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world.”
He gives us this description so we can picture what it is like to live in Red Hook and then we can understand what hard lives the Carbones’ lived. He then introduces people who live in Brooklyn in general. He also describes them as undesirable,
“The people in this neighbourhood lack elegance, glamour.” In doing this he gives the audience background information into what America is like in general. In his opening speech he makes reference to two American gangsters, All Capone and Frankie Yale. The use of these two American gangsters is to describe to the audience what sort of place America was. It was a place of violence and crime. The quotation of what Alfieri is, “Al Capone the greatest Carthaginian of all”
Carthage was a powerful city in the time of the Romans. The uses of these words show that violence and crime were very much in power and almost uncontrollable because there was so much of it around. Alfieri ahs not only given us the background and a description of what America was like but some historical content as well which makes the play seem much more realistic.
Alfieri tells us the law of America. He explains this through talking to Marco and Eddie. Eddie is asking Alfieri if there is a law for some body who, he suspects is gay, can marry his daughter. “You mean there to tell me that there’s no law that a guy who ain’t right can go to work and marry a girl and-?”
Eddie isn’t very literate he is unable to explain himself properly to Alfieri. Alfieri then explains that there is no law that says that a gay guy cannot marry. He also explains to Eddie that there is a law to how the two Italians guys, Marco and Rodolfo entered the country he explains that, that is illegal. Later on in the book when Alfieri is talking to Marco in the prison cell. Alfieri explains the law but this time we can see the differences in the law between America and Italy. Eddie has just rung up the immigration so that they would come and pick up Rodolfo and Marco to send them back to Italy and Marco has found out that Eddie has done this and he is accusing him of killing his children. Marco says that in Italy Eddie would be dead now for what he has done, “In my country he would be dead now. He would not live this long”
Alfieri then explains that, that is not the case in America that to obey the law you must not kill anybody regardless of what crime they have committed to harm you. Alfieri also states that if the women is born here then the man from another country can marry her and start to become an American citizen. It is important that Alfieri states the law throughout so that the audience are clear what the characters rights are and if they do some thing illegal they know whether it is illegal or not and they are clear about what is happening.
Alfieri has a very important role within the play and he carries out many roles as you have seen in the paragraphs above. Alfieri’s role is to be the narrator of the play, to outline the Law and Justice, to introduce Red Hook and America in general. To create meaning and atmosphere and to remind the audience that certain characters are not as they first seem. For example he sympathises with Eddie. Alfieri is one of the most important characters in this book he holds the play together and ties all the loose ends up of the play and he brings the play to an appropriate end.
