What Miller suggests through Alfieri’s wise remarks is that we all have basic impulses, which civilization has seen as harmful to society and taught us to control and deny. However, Eddie does not really understand his improper desire, and thus is unable to hide it from those around him or from the audience. In him we see the primitive impulse naked, as it were: this explains Alfieri’s puzzling remark that Eddie ‘allowed himself to be perfectly known.’ Alfieri is used cleverly by Miller to reveal the ‘protagonist’ in Eddie’s character, and his quote at the end of the play ‘I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients’ justifies Eddie’s actions and softens thee audience towards him.
Alfieri’s speeches generally explain Eddie’s actions and Alfieri’s own inability to save him. But his last speech tries to explain the mystery of Eddie’s character. Most of us, says Alfieri, are “civilized”, “American” rather than Sicilian. Most of us “settle for half” and this must be a good thing. However, although Eddie’s death was “useless”, “something perversely pure” calls to Alfieri from his memory – “not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known”. Most of us, says Alfieri, being more educated, more sophisticated, more in control, can either hide our feelings or, better, overcome them.
Stage directions refer not to exits and entrances but to the light going down or coming up on Alfieri at his desk. This is further enforced as we switch from the extended bouts of action to the interludes, which allow him to comment, to move forward in time and give brief indications of circumstantial detail such as the source of whiskey Eddie brings home at the start of Act Two. Alfieri’s view is also the “view from the bridge” of the title. To those around Eddie, those “on the water front”, the events depicted are immediate, passionate and confused. But the audience has an ambiguous view. In the extended episodes of action we may forget as Marco lifts the chair, or as Eddie kisses Rodolpho, that Alfieri is narrating. What we see is theatrical and exciting; we are involved as spectators. But at the end of the episode, as the light goes up on Alfieri, we are challenged to make a judgement. If Eddie, as we see him, appeals to our hearts, Alfieri makes sure we also judge with our heads. Hence, I feel that Miller, through Alfieri, voices his own opinion, and thus in his tragedy delivers to the audience his hero – Eddie Carbone.
We also trust a lawyer to be a good judge of character and rational, because he is professionally detached. Alfieri is not quite detached; his is connection with Eddie is faint: "I had represented his father in an accident case some years before, and I was acquainted with the family in a casual way". But in the next interlude, Alfieri tells us how he is so disturbed, that he consults a wise old woman, who tells him to pray for Eddie. In the brief scenes in which Alfieri speaks to Eddie, we gain an insight into his idea of settling for half. He repeatedly tells Eddie that he should not interfere, but let Catherine go, "and bless her", and continually gives Eddie strong and rational advice whenever it is asked of him.
In Eddie Carbone, Miller creates a representative type, he is a very ordinary man, decent, hardworking and charitable, a man no one could dislike. However, like the protagonist of the ancient drama, he has a flaw or weakness. This in turn causes him to act wrongly. The consequences, social and psychological, of his wrong action destroy him. Alfieri, being the chorus figure explains why it is better to “be civilised” and “settle for half” thus restoring the normal moral order of the universe.
What Miller suggests through Alfieri’s wise remarks is that we all have basic impulses, which civilisation has seen as harmful to society and taught us to control and deny. However, Eddie does not really understand his improper desire, and thus is unable to hide it from those around him or from the audience. In him we see the primitive impulse naked, as it were: this explains Alfieri's puzzling remark that Eddie "allowed himself to be perfectly known". Alfieri, is used cleverly by Miller to reveal the ‘protagonist’ in Eddie’s character, and his quote at the end of the play “I think I will love him more that all my sensible clients” justifies Eddie’s actions and softens the audience towards him.
Alfieri's speeches generally explain Eddie's actions and Alfieri's own inability to save him. But his last speech tries to explain the mystery of Eddie's character. Most of us, says Alfieri, are "civilised", "American" rather than Sicilian. Most of us "settle for half", and this must be a good thing. However, although Eddie's death was "useless", "something perversely pure” calls to Alfieri from his memory – “not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known". Most of us, says Alfieri, being more educated, more sophisticated, more in control, can either hide our feelings or, better, overcome them.
Stage directions refer not to exits and entrances but to the light going down or coming up on Alfieri at his desk. This is further enforced as we switch from the extended bouts of action to the interludes, which allow him to comment, to move forward in time and give brief indications of circumstantial detail such as the source of the whisky Eddie brings home at the start of Act Two. Alfieri's view is also the "view from the bridge" of the title. To those around Eddie, those "on the water front", the events depicted are immediate, passionate and confused. But the audience has an ambiguous view. In the extended episodes of action we may forget, as Marco lifts the chair, or as Eddie kisses Rodolpho, that Alfieri is narrating. What we see is theatrical and exciting; we are involved as spectators. But at the end of the episode, as the light goes up on Alfieri, we are challenged to make a judgement. If Eddie, as we see him, appeals to our hearts, Alfieri makes sure we also judge with our heads. Hence in conclusion, I feel that Miller, through Alfieri, voices his own opinion, and thus in his tragedy delivers to the audience his hero – Eddie Carbone.
Joanna Malek Yr !0f
