Analyse the portrayal of Eddie Carbone as a tragic hero. How does Miller use Eddie to create dramatic tension?

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Analyse the portrayal of Eddie Carbone as a tragic hero.

How does Miller use Eddie to create dramatic tension?

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller is a dramatically tense tragedy that presents the story of the downfall of an ordinary man. The play examines the tragic consequences of Eddie Carbone's inability to understand himself and his actions. This predominantly takes the form of his prejudice towards his cousin and his inappropriate attraction to his niece. It is set in the 1950s and was written while Miller had become interested in the lives and work of Brooklyn's dockworkers and longshoremen.

Miller uses the character of Eddie to express his viewpoint that the tragedy of the ruined life of an ordinary workingman is just as significant a subject for tragedy as that of any ancient king, God or "Caesar from Syracuse or Calabria". He presents Eddie as an equally valid antihero. Antiheroes, or Tragic heroes, are as Aristotle wrote neither wholly good nor wholly evil but a mixture of both. Eddie is not an evil man, but he acts selfishly, inappropriately and recklessly. Antiheros, unlike heroes, have fatal flaws. These enable a contemporary audience to empathise and identify with his fatally flawed relationships and disastrous choices. Being able to relate to Eddie will let the audience feel the dramatic tension of the situations he is placed in.

According to Aristotle a traditional tragic hero is a person who finds himself in a situation where he seems deprived of all outward help and is forced to rely entirely on himself. A View from the Bridge is recognisable as a tragedy because Eddie is a tragic hero even though he is a stereotypical 1950s ordinary American. He is tragic because he refuses to take the help and advice offered by his lawyer, Alfieri and his wife, Beatrice. He also displays excess self-confidence, or hubris, and is fatally flawed due to making mistakes and errors of judgement. Eddie suffers after he decides to call the Immigration Bureau to report Marco and Rodolpho as a result of his reckless stubborn determination to get what he wants combined with his fatal flaw of always making the wrong decisions. This choice resulted in Marco killing Eddie while Marco was on probation. The involvement of innocent people in this tragedy allows the audience to identify with the characters and feel pity and fear because of their unnecessary suffering.  When the audience relate to the characters of a play, they are forced to feel the tension being created by them.

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        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 ...

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