This piece of coursework is to look at the way Arthur Miller writes about justice in "A View from the Bridge".

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“A View from the Bridge”

This piece of coursework is to look at the way Arthur Miller writes about justice in “A View from the Bridge”. The characters look for justice and express their feeling towards the law and how it is inadequate.

The novel “A View from the Bridge” is based on a Greek Tragedy; where the Hero is portrayed as a moral person at first; and then by influences beyond their control, the hero would turn bad and would lead to a sad end (generally death). Greek Tragedies are usually written in verses, as was Arthur Miller’s first version of the story, and always contains a chorus (singing). This would tell give the audience a kind of summary of what is going on, in our case, the chorus is about Mr Alfieri- the lawyer.

        The play had influences from Arthur’s own experiences from his trips to Sicily, where he watched the citizens living a poor quality life; who would wait, hoping for some form of work in the town centre where anyone who needed help for a few hours would come; and were even forced to immigrate illegally to America to find work. The play also had influences form Miller’s previous employment at Brooklyn Harbour, where he became interested in the lives of the longshoremen and the dockworkers.         

        The plot is based on a true story, told to Miller by a Lawyer friend who had heard of a Longshoreman who had reported, to the immigration Bureau, two of his family who were illegal immigrants; to split up a relationship between one of the migrants and his niece.  

The quote is made by Alfieri in the play “justice is very important here”, this suggests to the people at the harbour, justice is more important than the law. Alfieri believes strongly that it is always better to settle for half of something than to have nothing at all as this quote tells you “nobody wins but there are fewer losers”.

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“The law is often inadequate” –in my opinion this statement is true, If we take Marco’s case, in the play, when he converses with Alfieri: ‘if he was in my country, he would be dead:’ this tells us that Marco feels very strongly about the fact that Eddie has betrayed him and his family, and is disappointed that the Law in America does not punish Eddie for what Marco feels to be worthy of the death sentence; showing that from Marco’s point of view the law, in this case, is inadequate. Another person may think it quite agreeable according to ...

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