Arthur Miller - A view from the Bridge.

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Mark Buchanan                A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE – ARTHUR MILLER

Arthur Miller was born into an Austrian – Jewish Family in New York, 1915.  After finishing school he worked fro two years in an automobile parts warehouse. Once he had earned enough money he was able to enter the University of Michigan.  He entered the University to study Economics and History, but he also took a course in playwriting.  After graduating in 1938 Miller made a living by writing radio scripts, and he completed a dozen plays that were never produced.  He was established as a key playwright by 1953.  A View from the Bridge was presented in its original form in 1955.

A view from the Bridge is about the life, or part of the life, of Eddie Carbone.  It is very much like a Greek tragedy, a story of self – destruction that is inevitable when a man, or indeed a woman, of strong will defies the principles of right by the people he/she belongs to.

Eddie Carbone is a docker living in a slum near Brooklyn Bridge, hence the title – A View from the Bridge.  He has brought up his niece, Catherine, as his daughter.  Catherine is now old enough to go out to work and to attract the attention of the young men as she walks down the street.  Eddie, however, would like to keep her as a child, unchanging.

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Then when to Sicilian cousins of Beatrice, his wife, enter into this home both of which are illegal immigrants whose presence must be kept a secret from the Immigration Authorities, Eddie gets more and more perturbed.  Eddie gets on well at first with the elder brother, Marco, whose whole interest is to earn money to send home to his wife and family in Sicily, but he instantly disapproves of Rodolpho, who is young, unmarried and obviously attractive to Catherine.  Jealousy, contempt and frustration combine to make him desperate to destroy Rodolpho, and he finally condemns both brothers openly to ...

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