How does Miller use the character of Alfieri to involve the audience and illustrate the cultural context of the play?
Imogen Wierzan
How does Miller use the character of Alfieri to involve the audience and illustrate the cultural context of the play?
Alfieri is used in a multitude of ways by Miller to help the play at various stages. He is a character in the play, which other characters interact with, however, he is displaced somewhat because he comments on the goings on of the play, expands on what has happened to make it clearer to the audience, links scenes together and to a certain extent takes the role of a narrator.
The character of Alfieri as a lawyer is wisely chosen. Lawyers at that time were seen as a sign of bad luck as with priests, because they were symbols of the law and “law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten”. This shows that Alfieri does not always bring good news and often brings about the things that people do not want to hear, like when Eddie goes to him and asks what he can do to get rid of Marco and Alfieri tells him that there is nothing he can do. The majority of characters in this play are immigrants who have tried to make a living by living in America so at one point or another they would have wanted to avoid the law. Alfieri being a lawyer also shows us how he is above the other immigrants as they are still uneducated, living lives of hard labour using colloquiums such as “yiz” which indicates a lack of control or status. However, Alfieri is educated and now has status. The language he uses is so much more formal than that of Beatrice or Eddie. Although Alfieri have status he may not have real respect, just the grudging respect for his status. Others do not see him as one of them , ”see how uneasily they nod to me”. Realistically, Alfieri is the only one of them who has achieved the American Dream, worked his way form poverty to having a good life. Arthur Miller himself was the son of an immigrant and he supported himself through college by working on the docks, so he knew where to come from when writing about the hardships and unreliability of living a life like Eddies. In the area and time that the play is set, the rules of community, the code of honour, is more important than the state laws. Disobeying these unwritten laws and betraying the community could result in ostracization. As with Romeo and Juliet this play features people breaking the family laws, then being suitably punished for it. The issues in this play are ones that have been studied before and will be used again due to the fact that they are still relevant. You will always have people that want to do something that is not against the law but going against traditions in their communities and will often cause them a worse fate then if they were breaking a state law. People can relate to disobeying these community rules.
