A view from the bridge

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                A View from the Bridge

        23/01/2008

A View from the Bridge

The play ‘A View from the Bridge’ is full of suspense which puzzles and mystifies the audience to specify the principle reason behind the tension that causes the immature death of Eddie Carbone. The author Arthur Miller delineates the dreadful ramification of the tension derived from the opening scene of the play. Accordingly, the presence of tension throughout the play keeps the audience alerted for an inexorable tragedy. By way of this, the author tries to pinpoint the other significant themes imminent to the play. Yet, this essay will concentrate upon the techniques that Arthur Miller devises to build up tension in the opening scenes of this play, which dominates the whole parts of the play.

At the beginning of the play Alfieri, the lawyer who has originated from Sicily, starts by introducing himself, the area and the people to us. In his opening speech he presents the violent nature of the neighbourhood of Red Hook which refers to 1940s slum area in New York. So, he describes Red Hook and talks about the history of it. When he talks about the gang leader, Al Capone ‘The greatest Carthaginian of all when precisely shot Frankie Yale in half with a machine-gun’, the audience starts thinking of violence and gangsters, and a place which is utterly dangerous. He also describes Red Hook as a slum that triggers the audiences’ attention to think that the place is an uncomfortable one. Alfieri is unlucky as he is connected with disasters. Since he is a lawyer, a very few people like him in fact. This makes the audience think that Alfieri is an unpopular character in the area. However, being a lawyer he must get involved with some uncomfortable incidence and dangerous situations.

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Although in the middle of his speech he talks about the reality of Red Hook, saying that, ‘now the people are civilised and I no longer keep a pistol in my cabinet’. He still describes Red Hook as a slum and yet keeps feeling discomfort in the area. So far, it gives the audience a sight of relief that the area has calmed down. In this regard, he states that, ‘out of all of my clients I admire Eddie Carbone the most, a longshoreman working the docks from Brooklyn Bridge to the breakwater were open scene begins’. This amplifies ...

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