A view from the Bridge' is set in Brooklyn, amongst an immigrant community who are poor and struggling, most working as 'longshoremen'.

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A view from the Bridge´ is set in Brooklyn, amongst an immigrant community who are poor and struggling, most working as 'longshoremen'. A view from the Bridge´ is set in Brooklyn, amongst an immigrant community who are poor and struggling, most working as 'longshoremen' when the work is available. Eddie is of Italian ancestry, his father emigrated from Italy to America, and therefore he has been brought up with the strong, passionate Italian/Sicilian codes of honour and loyalty. Marco and Rodolfo are illegal immigrants, 'submarines', who have managed to go to America through a system of syndicates; using some of the money they make working in America to pay off the syndicate. Their illegal status and the terrible unemployment and poverty where they have come from and their absolute need to work, which in Marco's case means life or death for his family, makes their situation even more desperate. The way in which Eddie is driven into betraying his cousins and betraying his own beliefs and moral codes by his obsessive and possessive love for Catherine is a personal tragedy, but the Italian elements intensify and add to the tragic nature of the play, Miller uses the Italian/Sicilian community to explore the themes of honour and loyalty to the family and revenge after betrayal, because these are integral to their culture. Eddie shows that he believes you should never betray your word of honour, at the beginning of the play when he says. "You can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word you gave away."Although Eddie is not Catherine's father, he is a very strong father figure to her and the man of the house.
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The immigrant community is very much a patriarchal society, parallel to in Italy. The father and male is an authority figure. Eddie is very protective of Catherine in both positive and negative ways. "I took out of my own mouth to give to her, I took out of my wife's mouth", Eddie really loves and cares for Catherine, and will do anything to protect and look after her, but his love for her is obsessive and possessive. "You can't take no job. Why didn't you ask me before you take a job?" Eddie does not want to let Catherine have ...

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