How does Arthur Miller build up the tension which the audience experiences during Act One?

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Danny Tran

2 March 2003

How does Arthur Miller build up the tension which the audience experiences during Act One?

        The play is set in Red Hook which is predominantly a Sicilian –American town.  The community is a close-knit one which is significant.  Everybody in Red Hook knows everybody else so as a result the whole town know what is going on.  When there are illegal immigrants the whole town will know.  However, the code of the community prevents the authorities knowing anything but there are exceptions when Vinnie Bolzano and Eddie go to the authorities (and it is ironic how Eddie hated Vinnie for what he did).  Times are changing and by the time of the late1950s, “rock ’n’ roll” and a new cult called “teenagers” is on the horizon.  Men are expected to work hard and women are supposed to stay at home and do their work their (notice Eddie the dockworker and Beatrice’s worrying about the house and food).

        During World War II Miller spent two years working with Italians on the shipyards of Brooklyn and was therefore able to study their social background.  He discovered that many were illegal immigrants and that they were very poorly paid.  He saw that dockworkers waited on the waterfront for work.  His observations are clear and are fundamental in the setting of this play.  

        Tension is built up through a series of events which comes to a head at the end of Act One.  Miller shows how he is a writer of such quality in the way that he is able to sustain tension all the way through Act One.  The tense events that occur are due to the relationships between the characters.  At the core is the Eddie who is the tragic protagonist.  He is central to the play and is without doubt the leading character.  The relationship he shares with Catherine has knock-on effects with his relationship towards other characters in the play.  Although he is the ruin of the family because he breaks a strict code of the community by going to the Immigration Bureau, Alfieri at the end of the play as somebody also notes him he admires most.  Eddie caused triumph by the law of the land but also caused himself to perish by the laws of the community.   Alfieri says in his final speech that although Eddie Carbone was not one of his more sensible clients, Eddie was “himself purely” and let himself be “wholly known”.  Eddie is therefore also a hero who died for what he believed in.  Many times in the play, characters hold in their angry emotions rather than let them spill.  This helps sustain the tension throughout the first act but also is perhaps more effective than if there was an explosion of emotions by a character.   It keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.  It is perhaps like a drop of water clinging onto the end of a tap, you see the drop of water slowly looking as if it is going to drop and then it drops.  Perhaps the waiting for the drop to fall is tenser than the actual fall of the drop itself.  Conversely, some people in the audience may feel it to be the other way around.  They might be more entertained by an explosion of emotions than the waiting for the explosion.  This might be like a car on the very edge of a cliff.  Whilst the car is on the edge you can feel the tension.  However when the car falls, it is like a dagger in the heart and a rush of panic but also excitement.  Nevertheless the both cases are implemented in a way because as well as tension being built over a long period of time, there are also events when characters let their feelings be known to the other characters and the audience.  For example when Beatrice has her conversation with Eddie about not making love for the last three months.

The play starts with the lawyer Alfieri presenting us with one of his several speeches.  He sets the scene and after his first speech we know we are in for a tragedy,

“…in some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps on the cliff at Syracuse, another lawyer quite differently dressed heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it runs its bloody course”

Alfieri is the chorus.  Choruses are present in a lot of Greek tragedies.  Perhaps not coincidently the Immigration Authorities might be said to be the furies doing the work of fate and furies are also present in Greek tragedies.   “A View Form the Bridge” is an Italian tragedy and shares many aspects with classic tragedies wrote hundreds of years ago.  The play starting with Alfieri the chorus mirrors the play “Romeo and Juliet” where a chorus also starts the play and shows that what is to come will be a tragedy.

        Alfieri helps to sustain the suspense that is immediately set upon the audience in the play.  His speeches help with the structure of the play.  Being outside the play he is powerless to prevent the tragedy.  However, he is also in the play as a lawyer who Eddie comes to for advice and who gives advice to Marco near the end.  He has an awareness of the bigger picture and how the story fits into the procession of tragedies down the ages.  He contributes to the atmosphere of doom and inevitable destiny.  He adds another perspective to things and reminds of the good qualities Eddie possesses.  Alfieri’s speeches give us a break from the play but are still not a release of tension and discomfort that is felt.  On one occasion he actually heightens the tension,

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        “Eddie Carbone had never expected to have a destiny…Now as the weeks passed, there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away”

Miller tells us how an ordinary man can be a protagonist and there is no need for him to be a King, general or great lover.  Eddie expected to work, eat and go bowling for the rest of his life.  We end the play not only seeing this one man’s tragedy, which hurt so many others, but we are also forced to think about our role “in the great scheme of things”.  Miller is ...

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