A View from the Bridge Role of Alfieri

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A View from the Bridge – Role of Alfieri

The play, ‘A View from the Bridge,’ is based on the Sicilian community within the Red Hook harbour area of Brooklyn, New York and focuses mainly on the problems of the Carbone family. Alfieri plays one of the most important roles in, as the chorus, narrator and character throughout the play. He is a friend and lawyer to the Carbone family and is both actively and passively involved in their problems.

 

Alfieri plays an important role as a narrator as he introduces the theme of justice. He tells the audience that to meet a lawyer in the streets of Red Hook is considered to be unlucky and that, “In Sicily, from where their fathers came, the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten.” This quote tells us that the Sicilian community distrusted a law put in a legal context and therefore do no abide by it. This could be because of the way they were brought up, usually following tribal laws which shows that the attitude to law amongst the Sicilians is ancient and powerful. Alfieri is able to go over the themes of law and justice throughout the play as it is important to the conflict and tragedy later on in the play.

Alfieri is also important in setting the scene and described Red Hook as “the gullet of New York, swallowing the tonnage of the world.” This gives the audience the impression that Red Hook is a slum, especially emphasised by the fact that it is, “swallowing the tonnage of the world” proving that many immigrants live here. These people, who are not able to afford the wealthier housing, therefore have to manage with the poor living conditions of the slum.  Alfieri is able to portray to us the close-knit community that Red Hook is, due to the fact that they all have similar lifestyles, and therefore help us understand why loyalty and betraying trust is dealt with so harshly in this community.

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Moreover, Alfieri is able to manipulate the audience’s view on certain characters as he directs us in our opinions and reactions to characters such as Eddie. Alfieri’s thoughts on Eddie half-way through the play is that, “he committed a crime,” especially as his eyes were like tunnels,” creating the image of a criminal. This could also be seen as a metaphor for Eddie’s despair at the loss of perspective of life and his obsessive desire for Catherine. It could also be interpreted as the tunnel of fate that Eddie is travelling through and although we know that Eddie is wrong ...

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