At the beginning of the play, Alfieri is introduced to the audience. Miller uses Alfieri's role as the local lawyer to give him an omniscient overview of the characters and action of the play. During the prologue, we are warned that 'A View from the Bridge' has a tragic end by the way Alfieri speaks about lawyers being seen in "connexion with disasters". He tells us about how the neighbourhood thinks of him as unlucky. This is the audience's first suggestion that the play may be a tragedy. Alfieri narrates the play like the traditional Greek chorus would narrate a Greek tragedy. Miller has modernised this convention by making Alfieri talk directly to the audience in a way a lawyer would speak to a jury. While the other characters speak with a colloquial tone, using words such as "lemme", "yiz" and "ain't", Alfieri converses with a more educated tone. This would force the audience to believe what he is talking about and will be waiting for something tragic to happen. This suspense creates tension, and this tension is mirrored in the actions of the characters.
Alfieri leaves the audience with the lines "run its bloody course", indicating that something terrible may happen.
Alfieri also brings up the theme of justice and its importance. He comments on the situation he was introduced to when he first came to live in America; "many here who were justly shot by unjust men". The action at the end of the play shows that this scene is reversed. Eddie is killed unjustly by a just man. Marco was a good man who was only trying to feed his children. This emphasises the play as a tragedy.
During a conversation with Alfieri, Eddie suggests that Rodolpho may be gay. Eddie reveals that he thinks that Rodolpho possesses too many feminine qualities to be a man. He complains to Alfieri that "he ain't right". Eddie feels it is unnatural for Rodolpho to sing so high, dress so well or look so beautiful. Miller uses Eddie to create tension here by making him explain his thoughts in short, broken up sentences.
There are more warnings throughout the play which could create suspense. When Eddie calls the immigration bureau, the audience fear for Eddie's death. This is because they have been told stories about what has happened to other people who call the authorities. The story of Vinny Bolzano was told to warn the audience and create tension. The story makes them think about what would happen to Eddie if he called the immigration bureau. Vinny was cast out of society after telling the authorities that his own Uncle was an immigrant. The audience feel sympathetic towards Eddie because he is flawed and they sympathise with him because they could relate to him because he is "normal". They do not want to see Eddie treated the way the Bolzano brothers treated Vinny;
"they grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs -
three flights his head was bouncin' like a coconut"
When Marco challenges Eddie with the chair at the end of act one, the audience see that Marco is willing to protect his brother, and so Eddie had the extra danger of being punished by Marco if does anything to Rodolpho.
Act one is much longer than act two, prolonging the final decision and making the audience wait to discover the road Eddie takes. Dramatic tension is heightened and further escalates in the second act until it reaches its climax at the end of the play. This gradual rise in tension throughout the whole structure of the play is echoed in the feelings of the characters. Eddie, Beatrice, Catherine, Rodolpho and Marco all feel more and more confused about what they are going to do about their situations, until all of them have made their decisions resulting in the final death of Eddie. Everyone's fate is thus connected. As these connections become inevitably more turbulent, the poignancy of the tragedy is revealed.
In the play, Miller particularly uses Eddie's role as a tragic hero to win the audience's sympathy. Eddie Carbone functions as a tragic hero as he struggles with his impending ruin and the audience feels pity and fear and experience his suffering vicariously as we understand that we could all make the same mistakes if we don't take responsibility for our actions.
Eddie often says, "This is my house" to remind everybody that if it weren't for him, they would be homeless. The audience will feel the tension between Beatrice and Eddie when they have the argument about going to Catherine's wedding because they could understand that Eddie is Beatrice's life and only source of income. Like many women in the 1950s, she did not work. If Beatrice upset Eddie too much by taking Rodolpho's side, by going to the wedding, she could be left with nothing if Eddie left her, or if she tried to leave him. Beatrice is trapped by Eddie's dominant attitude.
When Marco and Rodolpho arrive in Red Hook, Eddie's world seems to fall apart. He no longer appears to have a reason to live. His whole life he had been working hard so he could send Catherine to a good school and good courses, but if she leaves his life, he has nothing to work for. He cannot face the reality that Catherine is growing up so he is acting like an overprotective father and had been trying to keep her in school for as long as possible. As well as not admitting that she is growing up, he denies his feelings for her. Eddie plays a very major part in his family life, because he is seen as the head of it. Although Eddie is an antihero, he still portrays some power over others. It is when he abuses this power and tries to gain more control over other characters that he causes the complete destruction of himself and the other, innocent, characters.
The end of the play confirms Eddie's position as a tragic hero because he dies. This is confirmation because most deaths are tragic. Eddie has a good job, and loving wife and niece and a generally happy life. When Marco and Rodolpho come to Red Hook, this changes. In tragedies there is often a fortune change. The fortune change Eddie experiences is tragic because his fatal flaw prompts it. This misfortune is greater than Eddie deserves, and so the audience can relate this to their own experiences and fear that they may also come across such a misfortune by a simple mistake, and this creates dramatic tension.
In the interview between Eddie and Alfieri, the audience learns that Eddie has to choose between the two sets of laws to follow. He could choose the USA state government law, the law which bans all form of murder and would want to take Marco and Rodolpho back to Italy. Eddie could also choose to follow the mafia's laws. The mafia's law would justify Eddie's murder because Marco killed him out of self-defence. He feels Rodolpho has wronged him and that he should get his revenge for Rodolpho "stealing" Catherine from him. Eddie has to choose whether he acts on USA law or mafia law. When he converses with Alfieri, he is morally ambiguous and wants to be told he is trying to find a way to make Rodolpho 'pay' by holding some of his mafia law beliefs (not betraying family by telling the immigration bureau about Marco and Rodolpho) and try to keep Catherine at the same time.
Unfortunately, Eddie is blinded by his pride and his love for Catherine, and this leads him to disregard all his moral laws and codes of conduct laid down by the mafia. Eddie wants to take the law into his own hands. If Eddie weren't so blinded by his love for Catherine, he would have eventually made the right decision and would have left things alone. The audience can feel the tension in the room because the stage directions have made Eddie stammer and move around a lot. This will draw out the action and make it longer, the audience will be made to wait before Eddie tragically reaches his world altering decision. Making this wrong decision is a form of hamartia and is the impending ruin. The audience understand his motives and know that they too could make their own wrong decisions if they tried to control other people to get what they want.
There is a build up of tension at the very end of the play. The knife was supposed to kill Marco, but there is a drawn out struggle. The audience already know that the outcome will be tragic, and so can feel the tension build as they wait for the inevitable. Miller wants to make the audience grieve for Eddie's wasted life. They would grieve because they know that his life could have been saved if it weren’t for his wrong choices. The repetition of "anima-a-a-l" by Marco also builds up the tension because the audience know that both men have a lot of pent up aggression and could break at any time. The audience feel a great deal of sympathy for Eddie by the end of the play. They feel this sympathy because they know his fate could have been changed if he hadn’t acted on his hubristic feelings. Alfieri's closing lines remind the audience of this;
"Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better"
If Eddie had settled for half instead of trying to gain control of the other characters, he would have perhaps succeeded rather than causing complete destruction.
By the end of the play, Eddie cannot see any view from the bridges of Brooklyn; he only has eyes for Catherine. Unfortunately, Catherine, like Rodolpho, sees all number of possibilities and dreams that lie ahead of her. Although bridges connect things, they are also a symbol of the way things are divided. Catherine needs to move across these bridges, but Eddie dies fighting to hold onto her.
Eddies story is a tragedy because it is about how he handles his hubristic character, the result of his disastrous choices and his drastic change in fortune. It takes the audience on a roller coaster of dramatic tension, ending up with his unfortunate and unnecessary death, leaving the audience in mourning for such a tragic hero.