A very significant role of Alfieri is to provide a connection between traditional Sicilian culture and American culture. As Alfieri is a second-generation immigrant, as well as a lawyer, he is reasonably well-informed of both cultures. The first thing Alfieri says to the audience is “You wouldn’t have known it, but something amusing has just happened.” This one sentence sums up Alfieri’s role as a bridge between two cultures - the audience has no idea why what has happened is amusing, but Alfieri is here to tell us. He also says that “…to meet a lawyer or a priest on the street is unlucky… A lawyer means the law, and in Sicily… the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks wew beaten.” Knowing this early on in the play helps us understand many of the events that occur later on in the play - in the next paragraph I will explain this further.
Closely linked to the role Alfieri plays as a bridge between our culture and Sicilian culture is the role he plays to explain the difference between the Sicilian concept of ‘justice’, and the law - both to the audience and to Eddie and Marco. This becomes apparent when we see Alfieri talk to Marco when he is being held in prison.
Alfieri: To promise not to kill is not dishonourable.
Marco: No?
Alfieri: No.
Marco: Then what is done with such a man?
Alfieri: Nothing. If he obeys the law, he lives. That’s all.
Marco: The law? All the law is not in a book.
Alfieri: Yes. In a book. There is no other law.
Here Alfieri explains to Marco, and indirectly to us, the main difference between the two cultures - in Sicilian culture it would be correct to kill Eddie for informing the immigration services of Marco and Rodolpho, it would be against the ‘law’; in America it is not against any law. Marco is shocked to find that the law does not teal with issues of pure morality or ‘justice’ in the Sicilian sense of the word. At the end of the play, Alfieri says “Most of the time now we settle for half, and I like it better.” This shows that Sicilians in the time in which Alfieri is speaking have learnt to compromise - the most lawless aspects of ‘justice’ have perhaps been suppressed, and replaced with other methods of showing disapproval within a community, as well as a respect for American law.
Throughout the play, Miller uses Alfieri to convey a sense of fate to the audience. We perceive this first during Alfieri’s opening speech: “…the thought comes that in some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps… another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint and sat there, powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course.” The word ‘powerless’ suggests that future events in the play will be inevitable: Alfieri will try to stop them from happening, but will be unable to stop it; ‘bloody course’ suggests that the events to come will be unpleasant. Alfieri also portrays inevitability in his exits: at the end of his opening speech, he walks into darkness - this suggests a dark occurrence ahead of Alfieri. Another way in which Alfieri conveys a sense of fate is through his description of Eddie - “His eyes were like tunnels…” - a tunnel is a path with only one direction in which to travel, and ultimately one destination; it is impossible to deviate from the path of a tunnel, which implies that the events leading up to the ‘main’ event, that is, Eddie’s death, are also inevitable. After Eddie visits Alfieri for the first time, Alfieri says “I could see every step coming, step after step, like a dark figure walking down the hall towards a certain door. I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end… I was powerless to stop it.” This is one of the most powerful things we are told in the play about Eddie’s destiny. Again, Alfieri refers to himself as ‘powerless’ - from this we get a sense that it is impossible to stop the inevitable.
In many ways, A View From the Bridge is very similar to a Greek tragedy, with Alfieri as the chorus. As we watch the play, we notice that every time an important event occurs, Alfieri speaks either before or after it - for example, the first time Eddie goes to Alfieri, Alfieri speaks to the audience (“It was at this time that he first came to me...”) before interacting with Eddie (I don’t quite understand what I can do…”). This is also part of his role as a ‘bridge’ in the play, providing a link between the audience and the action. Another way in which Alfieri resembles a Greek chorus is his social status. In a Greek tragedy, the chorus would be of the same social status as the audience, whereas the characters were of a higher social status. The similarity between a Greek tragedy and A View From the Bridge is that Alfieri, who acts as the chorus, is of the same social status as the audience. Eddie, however, could be classified as ‘working class’ - here we see the difference in social status between the audience and the action. The reason, perhaps, that Miller chose to make Eddie a ‘working class hero’, is that Miller was a socialist, and therefore believed that all people should be equal - Eddie being working class shows Miller wanted to show that anyone can be the focus of a tragic play.
Miller uses Alfieri very effectively to structure the play. He speaks directly to the audience at the beginning and end of the play, and reinforces the play by ‘framing’ it using a short sentence: “Now we settle for half, and I like it better.” In both his opening and concluding speeches, Alfieri is speaking to the audience in ‘current time’, that is to say, the period in which the audience is watching the play. This effectively means that Alfieri is telling a story. Repeating “now we settle for half, and I like it better”, as well as acting as a frame for the action, summarises Eddie’s story - if Eddie and Marco had settled for half events would possibly not have happened as they did. Alfieri also speaks either before or after an important event in the play. Before Marco and Rodolpho arrive, he says “And towards ten o’clock of that night, after they had eaten, the cousins came.” As we begin to learn of Eddie’s feelings towards Rodolpho, we are told “Now, as the weeks passed, there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away.” Before Eddie goes to see Alfieri for the first time, Alfieri announces that Eddie is going to visit: “It was at this time that he first came to me.”
Without Alfieri, it would take far longer for the audience to realise that Eddie is the main character in the play. Alfieri introduces us to Eddie at the end of his opening speech - “This one’s name is Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman working the docks…”; he does not do this for any other character in the play. If he did not do this, it would be necessary for the audience to wait for the play to develop in order to learn who the main character is. The language Alfieri uses also enforces the fact that Eddie is the main character, by making him seem physically big, again, we can refer to the quote “His eyes were like tunnels...” The use of the word ‘tunnel’ to describe Eddie makes him seem physically large, bigger than the other characters in the play, therefore making Eddie the main character. As the play progresses, whenever Alfieri addresses the audience directly, he refers to Eddie less and less as ‘Eddie’ or ‘Eddie Carbone’, and more as simply ‘him’. This influences the audience to view Eddie as the main character, a person that no longer requires an introduction.
In conclusion, Alfieri is an integral part of the play - he directs the audience towards Eddie, he gives the play a structure, he is the vital connection between our culture and Sicilian culture, and the link between Sicilian ‘justice’ and American law. Without Alfieri, A View From the Bridge could not be understood.
