How does Arthur Miller succeed in building up dramatic tension in the final scene of the play, 'A View From The Bridge'?

     Just before Marco comes in, Beatrice plays an interesting role. Miller uses her character to make the tension, by her trying to get Eddie to calm down and to play the peacemaker, but the main role she plays in this scene is that what she tries to get out of Eddie. She comments on how Eddie wants something. Eddie yells that ‘Marco’s got my name’, but Beatrice realises that Eddie wants something else. The tension breaks out when Beatrice yells to Eddie, ‘you can never have her!’ This is what Eddie really wanted, Catherine, to be his and not anyone else’s, including Rodolfo, even though she id his niece. The way Eddie is ‘shocked, horrified’ and has his ‘fists clenching’, shows that he is angry with Beatrice for saying that. At this point, the audience are shocked and worried to how Eddie will react to this.

     As Marco enters calling for Eddie, we can feel the tension mount up, because when Marco calls out for Eddie, all characters ‘stand transfixed for an instant’, as if they don’t know how to react to this. But as the characters realise what is going on, Eddie ‘emerges from the apartment’ to get back his name and show the neighbourhood what a liar Marco is. The audience would start to worry when the two characters (Marco and Eddie) move carefully, towards each other, hinting to the audience that they will get into a fight. Miller also uses body language in a way to express tension, like when Eddie ‘has his arms spread and Marco is spreading his’. The tension finally breaks out when the two characters lunge into a fight and Marco beats Eddie, but as soon as the audience thinks it is all over and the tension, Eddie pulls out a knife. The reaction to this, is that ‘Marco steps back’, and ‘Louis rushes in’ to try and stop Eddie. The tension on the whole, arises when Eddie tells Marco to say to the neighbourhood that he lied about him, but even though Eddie has a knife in his hand and is capable to do anything, Marco still takes no notice and calls Eddie an ‘animal’. This shows that Marco still thinks that he is stronger than Eddie; therefore Marco goes for Eddie, turning the knife around and ‘pressing it home’ towards Eddie. As Eddie dies, the audience feel as if the tension is over, but still feel slightly shocked, as Eddie is dead now and how Marco could kill someone over pity.

     Overall, I thought that Miller used a variety of ways to succeed in tension in the final scene, for example, the use of body language, how characters reacted to sudden things, and the stage directions. However, I think that how Eddie got killed should have been more dramatic, because the audience could have predicted what would have happened as soon as Eddie pulled out the knife and the source of weapon used should have been a gun as it is more dramatic.