Alfieri and the audience are the “View from A Bridge,” both are looking over the play. Alfieri is told all Eddie’s and talks directly to the audience about what he has learned.
He comments on the action in scenes and gives hints as to the action in the next, “He worked on the piers when there was work”,
“After they had eaten, the cousins came.”
In doing this, he exercises a key role of the chorus character – he can comment but not intervene, “I could have finished the whole story that afternoon.”
This also shows the audience that Alfieri is simply re-telling the story, because he speaks in the past tense, except when he’s talking to another actor in the play. Alfieri is retelling the play, after the events have happened. Alfirei’s character is as a Lawyer. The community in the play respect Alfieri, and view him as the authoritative figure in the play. As Alfieri reminds us in his introductory speech, Lawyers are only thought of in connection with disasters. I think that Arthur Miller styled the play like a Greek tragedy. The ancient theme of tragedy is brought up in the introductory scene, “In some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse…” I find this interesting because it is linking to a theme that has been used throughout time.
Another theme that Arthur Miller uses Alfieri to portray, it that history repeats itself. In the introductory scene, Alfieri refers to the repetition of events throughout history when he says,
“Another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint.”
Alfieri also repeats himself throughout the play, reinforcing this theme. In Alfieri’s scenes he develops the action, moving time forwards and setting the new time, place and situation, as he does in both of the next two scenes. In the first of the two scenes, the audience feels again like they know what is going to happen, especially when Alfieri says,
“He was as good a man as he had to be.”
This also starts another repetition, as it is said again in the concluding scene.
In the second of these two scenes, Alfieri hints at what is to come in an abstract way. The cousins have arrived and the story of Vinnie Bolzano has been told, when Alfieri starts his next soliloquy with,
“Who can ever know what will be discovered?” He ends it with,
“There was a trouble that would not go away.”
This is reinforcing the idea that the chorus character can comment but not intervene with the action. I think Arthur Miller put Alfieri into the play as a Lawyer because as a Lawyer he can talk to Eddie and give him advice. Without Alfieri in the play, the audience wouldn’t be able to find out the way the characters are thinking. This is especially true for Eddie, who is not very articulate,
“But I’m telling’ you, you’re walkin’wavy.”
Whilst in the Lawyers office, Alfieri reveals what Eddie is thinking to the audience. After a Lawyer scene, the audience knows why Eddie believes he is doing what he is, and they may even sympathize with him. The only time Eddie tries to explain fully his feeling is when he’s inside Alfieri’s office. It is during the first scene in Alfieri’s office where the main themes of the play come to light. Love, morality and family values.
As a chorus character Alfieri knows what is going to happen, but even so he tries to stop it,
“She can’t marry you, can she?”
He also sees Eddie’s feelings, and tries to relate them to the audience, “There is too much love for the niece”
The scene after this is where Eddie challenges the masculinity of Rodolpho. Without the Lawyer scene the audience wouldn’t have known why exactly Eddie was challenging Rodolpho. After watching the Lawyer scene, the subtext becomes much clearer to the audience.
At the start of act 2, Alfieri has a short speech setting the time, place and situation. It is nearly Christmas, and the theme of Christmas is strongly linked with the events of the play – after the next lawyer scene, B is taking down the Christmas decorations. I think this represents the removal of everything Christmassy – the festive spirit where everyone is happy. The audience are now certain that Alfieri is re-telling the story, when he says
“Catherine told me later.”
He also says that Eddie was drunk during the next scene,
“A case of Scotch whisky slipped from a net while being unloaded,”
Which may explain his actions.
The next scene is the last scene where Alfieri is seen in his office with Eddie. It is just after the 3 kisses scene, and helps to show Eddie’s inner tension. Again, the audience can see what Eddie is feeling with the help of Alfieri, but this time Alfieri stresses that there is more than the law written on paper,
“When the law is wrong, it’s because it’s unnatural, but in this case it is natural.” He tries to dissuade Eddie from what he knows will happen. Alfieri knows about both moral law and of that in the book. He knows the legal law should be used, but moral law has a stronger effect than maybe it should. He does this again in a later scene, where he is trying to tell Marco that the only law is that in a book, and that he would be breaking that law if he harmed Eddie.
I think the phone box on stage is interesting. It is there from the start of the play, but it is only lit after the second lawyer scene. Alfieri realises that Eddie is a desperate man. So desperate, he’ll do anything. In the 1st lawyer scene Alfieri told Eddie that the only recourse in the law he had was the way in which the cousins entered the country. It is at this point that Eddie realises it is the only way he can stop the marriage. Alfieri knows that Eddie loves Catherine in a way he shouldn’t, but Eddie won’t admit it. Eddie thinks that Rodolpho must be in the wrong, because all the other alternatives are too painful for him. It is at this point in the play that the phone box starts to glow. In the past, the phone box has represented the outside world. It is introduced slowly, with Alfieri trying to dissuade Eddie between each stage direction to make it brighter. The rate at which it is shown to the audience give them time to think about what it could mean. By the time they’ve worked it out, Eddie is walking out of the office for the last time, and the phone box is the only lit item on stage.
In the penultimate scene, Alfieri is in the police cell after Eddie has gone to the police. Alfieri tells Marco not to harm Eddie. Alfieri likes Eddie, as he says in the conclusion,
“I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients.”
After Eddie’s death, Alfieri is lit up so that the audience focuses on him, and he gives a final epilogue, which he talks directly to the audience after the full tragedy. This is like a eulogy, as it looks back over Eddie’s life. A eulogy is usually a series of memories from a persons life, rather like the play is a series of flashbacks. In the end, the conclusion is inevitable, and ends in tragedy.
