Catherine's diary - 'A View From The Bridge'

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Sarah Chosen 10T

How does Arthur Miller make Act 2 Scene 2 of ‘A View From The Bridge’ dramatically effective?

‘A View From The Bridge’ is a play set in the 1950s in Red Hook New York. The tragic action arises when Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman, develops inappropriate strong, possessive and even sexual feelings for his seventeen year old niece, Catherine. These feelings then escalate when a young Italian illegal immigrant named Rodolfo comes with his brother Marco to live with them. Eddie becomes uncontrollably intolerable to him and tension starts to rise between the characters. In Act 2 scene2, a central scene in the play, Eddie loses control by publicly exposing his feelings towards Catherine; this results in him sexually assaulting both Catherine and Rodolfo by kissing them after he suspects that they were having pre-marital sex in his apartment. This is a turning point in the play because Eddie’s love for Catherine and contempt for Rodolfo is finally revealed to both characters in such a forceful but effective way. Arthur Miller makes this scene very dramatic by using a range of dramatic devises such as shocking action, powerful dialogue and dramatic irony. This scene also clearly shows the stereotypical cultural background of an Italian American community in the 1950s as being strong, aggressive and male dominating.

The scene is made very dramatic by Arthur Miller as soon as Eddie walks on stage. Through stage directions Miller escalates tension by delaying Eddie’s arrival. The scene starts off with stage directions, narrating Eddie first in the street, ‘unsteadily drunk’ and here miller’s set design allows the audience to see Eddie’s approach to the apartment. He then arrives at the apartment, looks around and takes out bottles from his jacket. By extending Eddie’s arrival on stage and by revealing his shocking early comeback to the apartment, the audience is left feeling anxious. They can also anticipate Eddie’s aggressive reaction when he finds out what is presumably happening in the bedroom. Dramatic Irony is used very effectively in this part of the play, as only the audience know that Eddie is home and they also know that Catherine and Rodolfo are in the bedroom, seemingly having sex together, whilst Eddie doesn’t, from the previous scene ended with Catherine asking Rodolfo to ‘teach me’ as they left the stage at what is the bedroom exit. The audience would also expect Eddie to be very violent if there is any confrontation between Catherine, Eddie and Rodolfo, as he has been described as ‘unsteadily drunk’ and has been seen by the audience taking out three bottles from his jacket. This suggests means that Eddie could lose self control at any moment which could make the audience more anxious and which therefore builds up drama and tension into the scene. The audience’s feelings have been prepared for by Miller through the action in Act 1. There’s already small conflict between the characters, Rodolfo and Eddie, previously, near the end of Act 1, Eddie used a pretend boxing fight for an excuse to punch Rodolfo in the face, because he bitterly resents Rodolfo’s involvement with Catherine. This shows how capable Eddie is of acting aggressively towards Rodolfo which would undoubtedly help bring drama into this particular scene.

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Eddie’s eventual discovery that Catherine and Rodolfo have been in the bedroom together has been exposed in a dramatic and unexpected way, by Miller using descriptive and effective stage directions and then powerful dialogue. Arthur Miller creatively uses the stage directions to describe drama, through subtle movement of a character in this part of the scene, for Eddie’s ‘arm jerks slightly in shock’ when he sees Rodolfo come out of the bedroom that Catherine was just in. This small gesture brings the audience attention towards him; they will await what may happen next in the play. By Eddie jerking his ...

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