How does Miller use the role of Alfieri to involve the audience and illustrate the cultural context of the play?

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How does Miller use the role of Alfieri to involve the audience and illustrate the cultural context of the play?

In Millers play 'A View from the Bridge', the character of Alfieri is used to include the audience and demonstrate the cultural context of the play in a number of ways. For example, Alfieri commentates on the action in detail so that the audience can understand the events more vividly. In ancient plays, an essential part of the play was that of a chorus: a group of figures who would watch the action, comment on it, and address the audience directly. In this play, Alfieri is the equivalent of the chorus.

The play is opened with a prologue- a speech given by Alfieri. It is used, for us to have an idea of the setting to the plot. Alfieri's speech introduces the major themes of the play and places them in past perspective. In addition, this gives the audience an impression of the modern stereotype of Italian immigrants into the country. It is also instantaneously obvious that Alfieri is a significant character involved in the action as well as being the narrator of events that have happened. However, before Alfieri even speaks, Millers stage directions give him an indication, which invites the audience to take particular note of him and even commiserate with him. When Alfieri does speak, he uses very poetic, eloquent speech and a formal, controlled dialogue, which segregates him from the general characters in the play such as the protagonist, Eddie who Miller forces to use very direct and blunt wording -"Yiz" for 'you' or 'yours', Brooklynese slang - because of their unlearned tongue.

Eddie and the community are unsophisticated and their language betrays a colloquialism that is powerful but often hides more than it reveals. For example, the scene where Catherine is persuading Eddie about her new job reveals extensive detail. Eddie says to Catherine "with your hair that way you look like a Madonna, you know that? You're the Madonna type. You wanna go to work, heh, Madonna? This reveals to us as an audience the extent of Eddie's true feelings towards Catherine. The word 'Madonna' is emphasised on, it is a key phrase because Eddie is comparing Catherine to the Virgin Mary, such a heavenly chaste figure. This is revealing exactly what he thinks of her, by comparing Catherine to that of a heavenly figure shows his love is beyond intense.The prologue makes use of rhetorical questions, which provoke thought and involve the audience. Millers' use of Alfieri lets us know who will be the protagonist; his words involve us straight away: "You wouldn't have known it, but something amusing has just happened. You see how uneasily they nod to me?" These are the opening lines to the prologue-Alfieri's speech. It involves both a personal pronoun "you", and a rhetorical question "you see how uneasily they nod to me?" Both of these devices are used to involve the audience, the personal pronoun is addressing the audience making them think they are being spoken to directly. The rhetorical question as commented on before provokes in-depth thought, when both these devices are combined they add to the effect of audience involvement. They also invite our sympathy because "they" are together and Alfieri is alone, apart from them.
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Throughout the play, we can recognize the literary traditions- typical Greek tragedies. The Sicilian values of justice are totally separate and exempt from American law. In some ways, it is more lenient; it does not condemn Marco for killing Eddie because of two things; firstly, Eddie reported him to the authorities, and secondly, he won in a fair duel. Nevertheless, as we see, its sentences are far harsher. Sicilian justice is not even a harsher version of American law. As we hear from Alfieri at the beginning of the play, 'in Sicily, from where their fathers came, the ...

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