a view from the bridge

Marco says very little at the end of act 1 as Miller intends to present him as a man of actions rather than words, by including many stage directions but very little speech. Eddie punches Rodolfo and ‘it mildly staggers Rodolfo. Marco rises.’ This shows the audience that Marco has seen that this has gone to far and decides to step in and becomes serious and his response is he challenges Eddie to a what seems like a game to Eddie, Marco ‘gets on one knee with one hand behind his back, and grasps he bottom of one of the chair legs, but does not raise it’, then Marco “kneels, grasps, and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher’ the audience at this time the audience see that this is no longer a game and that Marco has incredible strength, ‘Rodolfo and Catherine have stopped dancing as Marco raises the hair over his head’ Rodolfo and Catherine have begin to take note of Marco’s insane strength and the audience see Marco as the main focus at this point then ‘the chair is raised like a weapon over Eddie’s head.’ At this point the audience see that Marco does is not afraid of Eddie and will hurt him if he ever touches Rodolfo again, now the audiences see Marco as a powerful character which could bring future conflict with Eddie and then finally Marco ‘transforms what might appear like a glare of warning into a smile of triumph’ this shows the audience that Marco is superior to Eddie and that he is stronger and has won, now the audience see Marco as Eddie’s main conflict.

Miller would like the audience to see that Eddie is inferior to Marco, and he does through both his words and actions. Marco lures Eddie into taking the challenge of lifting the chair by making it seem easy, Eddie replies ‘sure why not’ which implies he thinks it’s a silly bit of harmless fun and that the task is easy. Then Eddie ‘raises the chair an inch but it leans over to the floor’ Eddie has failed still thinking that this is a joke in response he says ‘Gee that’s hard, I never knew that’ not realizing the meaning of this exercise Eddie ‘tries again and again fails’, Marco is then successful where Eddie failed to lift the chair and finally,’ Marco is face to face with Eddie… Eddie’s grin vanishes as he absorbs    Marco’s look’. The look that Eddie’s absorbs is the look that he is losing and he is inferior he has been proven to be weak in comparison to Marco, and the look that says if you think you can hit my brother and get away with it your wrong. That looks of triumph and Eddie being weak.