“A View from the Bridge” involves the audience and their emotions. Arthur Miller has used various methods to keep these emotions controlled. He has used calm scenes between those of high tension and emotion, but the main method is the chorus figure. The audience listen to Alfieri, for many reasons. They respect his opinion because he is a lawyer, but they also like his character and can connect with his position in the play. Alfieri as the chorus character in the play has the “View from a Bridge,” and is looking over the play. He has so much pressure from being told all the other characters' secrets that he needs to talk to someone. I think this is why he talks to the audience throughout the play.
Alfieri comments after his introduction on the action gives hints as to the action in the next scene, “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 - they can comment but not intervene, “I could have finished the whole story that afternoon.”
This also gives the audience the feeling 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. 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.
Alfieri also portrays repetition. 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 both his main scenes as a Lawyer he says how, “His eyes were like tunnels,” referring to Eddie. This simile is effective as the tunnels represent the dark and sinister fear shown in Eddie’s eyes. The tunnels also represent that the feelings of darkness are all going in one direction and they can’t be changed.
In most of Alfieri's scenes he develops the action, moving time forwards and setting the new time, place and situation. In the first of the two scenes, the audience feel 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. It helps us sympathise with Eddie as it shows that Eddie was not always negative and had good qualities as well.
In the second of these two scenes, Alfieri hints at what is to come in an abstract way. The cousins have arrived. 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 the characters and give them advice. Without Alfieri in the play, the audience would not be able to find out what the characters were thinking. This is especially true for Eddie, who is not very articulate, “But I'm telling you, you’re walkin wavy.” Whilst in the Lawyer’s 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 shows his feelings 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, and morality, and the way they combine.
As a chorus character he 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.” Alfieri is delicate as he says “too much love” and not “the wrong kind of love.” This shows that Alfieri is being too diplomatic.
In another scene 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, Beatrice 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. This is when Eddie kisses Catherine on her mouth while she strives to free herself also when Eddie humiliates Rodolpho by kissing him.
Last scene where Alfieri is seen in his office with Eddie 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 controls which one he uses. 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 2nd 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. He 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 gives 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. The phone box represents Eddie phoning the immigration bureau about illegal immigrants Marco and Rodolpho.
In the penultimate scene, Alfieri is in the police cell after Eddie has gone to the police. Alfieri tells Marco not to harm Eddie. I think this is because Alfieri likes Eddie, as he says in the conclusion, “I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients.” He loves Eddie as Alfieri knows how strongly Eddie felt about his honour and name. Alfieri knew that Eddie would do anything to get his honour back from Marco; this shows the will power of Eddie.
After Eddie's death, Alfieri is lit up so that the audience focus on him, and gives a final soliloquy, which calms the audience down after another scene of high tension. This is like a eulogy, as it looks back over Eddie's life. A eulogy is usually a series of memories from a person’s life, rather like the play is a series of flashbacks. In the end, the conclusion is inevitable, and ends in tragedy. It is dramatically to have Alfieri close this tragedy as he is the he makes is dramatic as his analysis the whole play and makes a conclusion about the American justice by saying it is fairer every body has their share and everyone will live alive. The other dramatic thing is he says what he though to Eddie as a character saying that Eddie was right but he respecter it as if it was holy. After all the play is really about a man who whatever faults does not ‘settle for half’ and dies for his name ‘Eddie Carbone!’ This is what Alfieri tries to explain throughout the play.
