A View From The Bridge - Studying the text from the bottom of page 36, "Eddie Yeah I know. It's funny…" to the end of the scene, why would it be such an effective piece of theatre?

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A View From The Bridge

Studying the text from the bottom of page 36, “Eddie Yeah I know. It’s funny…” to the end of the scene, why would it be such an effective piece of theatre?

Throughout the play all of the characters go through many different feelings and emotions. We can see that Eddie, especially, is shown to be a very protective and maybe jealous character. From almost the moment Rodolfo steps foot in his house, it is quite obvious that Eddie is very protective over Catherine. From this, he grows to dislike Rodolfo, as Rodolfo begins to get very friendly with Catherine and she begins to drift away from Eddie. This dislike for Rodolfo is shown very clearly at the top of page 37, where Eddie tries to humiliate him. “I know lemons are green, for Christ’s sake… I said oranges they paint, I didn’t say nothin’ about lemons.” At this point in the play, we also see that Beatrice appears to be stuck in the middle. Beatrice, being Eddie’s wife, has to try to do what Eddie wants and support him, but she also has to try and keep the peace between him and Rodolfo, at the same time doing what is best for Catherine. At the top of page 37, Beatrice ensures Rodolfo and Eddie stay civil by diverting their attention away from each other. This is shown in the stage direction, “Beatrice (Sitting; diverting their attention)”. The conversation then drifts away from Rodolfo and Eddie as Beatrice begins to talk with Marco about his wife and family and work. In the beginning of the play, there is a definite rivalry between the two, but Marco stays neutral between his brother and Eddie. This is probably because he respects Eddie for letting them stay at his home, but at the same time he has to stay loyal to his brother as the Italians base their whole lives around their family and this is the most important thing. Marco, like Beatrice, also seems to be stuck in the middle. Catherine also plays a very important part in the play. At the top of page 39 and the bottom of page 41, Rodolfo and Catherine are dancing to Paper Doll and each time this happens Eddie becomes angry, and the atmosphere becomes very tense all of a sudden. Arthur Miller shows all of these things very cleverly by using stage directions.

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        Stage directions throughout the play help to portray the tense mood, hatred and jealousy. A good example of where stage directions are used to create tension is at the bottom of page 38 to the top of page 39, where the characters are discussing Catherine staying out later than usual, and when Catherine and Rodolfo begin to dance. We know that Eddie is becoming annoyed with Rodolfo and Beatrice when at the bottom of page 38 we are given the stage direction “Eddie (holding back a voice full of anger)”. Tension would also be created when Catherine asks Rodolfo to ...

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