A view from the bridge †Arthur Miller Essay

When Marco and Rodolfo appear in Catherine’s life, she matures very quickly, perhaps making up for the time lost when Eddie kept her at home as a baby as Beatrice says: â€Å"Well, you kept her a baby, you wouldn’t let her go out†. Beatrice is urging Catherine to grow up and, as if she suspects some of Eddie’s feelings for her niece, points out to her the ways in which she should act around the house: â€Å"you still walk around in front of him in your slip †¦ or like you sit on the edge of the bathtub talkin’ to him when he’s shavin’ in his underwear †¦ if you act like a baby he be treatin’ you like a baby†. When Catherine falls in love with Rodolfo, her love for Eddie is split and she is confused. Eddie does not help his situation by being so stubborn about not allowing Catherine to grow up. She detaches herself from him and although she still loves him as a father figure, she does not seem to trust him anymore: she does not tell him about the wedding between her and Rodolfo – Beatrice does: â€Å"they’re going to get married next week, Eddie†. Beatrice is affected by the arrival of her cousins in her state of mind. The audience find out that she and Eddie are having marital problems: â€Å"It’s almost three months you don’t feel good; they’re only here a couple of weeks† and although they guess that it is to do with Catherine, they do not know whether of not Beatrice does. It is not until the end that the audience find out that Beatrice knows about Eddie’s feelings for Catherine although in hindsight, Beatrice could have been urging Catherine to grow up because she guessed Eddie’s flaw. It is at the end when it is finally said out loud â€Å"You want somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can’t have her! † when the audience finds out about Beatrice knowing and through this, she gains the audience’s sympathy because she has had to carry around this awful secret showing how loyal to her husband she has been by hardly mentioning it. Beatrice is also worn down by having to keep peace between her niece and husband. She desperately wants them to be friends and as happy as they were before with no secrets or lies â€Å"she wants to ask you. Come on, Katie, ask him. We’ll have a party! What’re we gonna do, hate each other? â€Å". Beatrice’s cousins end up wearing her out as she tries to hold her family together despite all of the hatred and love going on around her. When Marco and Rodolfo first arrive at the Carbone household, they are grateful to Eddie for letting them stay and they are willing to do as he tells them: â€Å"I want to tell you now Eddie – when you say go, we will go†. They greatly respect Eddie and are willing to do all he says like when Rodolfo’s singing is making Eddie uneasy, Marco tells Rodolfo firmly â€Å"You’ll be quiet Rodolfo† obeying Eddie’s commands. They are grateful towards Eddie because he is keeping them and hiding them as they are illegal immigrants into America. Eddie is very overprotective of Catherine and when she and Rodolfo start going out with each other, he is annoyed that firstly Rodolfo did not ask his permission to do so, as would have been the custom in Sicily, and secondly that they stayed out late which infuriated him † I don’t want you hangin’ around Times Square, see? â€Å". As her guardian, Eddie expects to oversee all of her movements. Marco is eager to please Eddie and tries to ensure that his brother does not overstep the mark in this new culture. When Eddie decides to teach Rodolfo to fight and hits him, Marco is keen to show that although his brother might not be very good at defending himself, the strength which Marco possesses is more than enough to beat Eddie. The audience learns this through actions which are dictated in the stage directions at the end of Act One: â€Å"He kneels, grasps, and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher †¦ a strained tension gripping his eyes and jaw, his neck stiff, the chair raised like a weapon over Eddie’s head†. Marco does not strike Eddie at this time because he still has respect for him. Despite this show of aggression, it does not stop Rodolfo continuing to go out with Catherine and pursuing the ‘American Dream’. Eddie does not believe that Rodolfo has genuine, sincere feelings for Catherine and just wants to marry her to obtain an American Passport. He counteracts this theory by saying to Catherine â€Å"You think I would carry on my back the rest of my life a woman I didn’t love just to be an American? â€Å". Eddie ends up betraying Rodolfo and Marco to the immigration office because of his jealousy and obsessiveness about Catherine. He does not realise these are the reasons though: he just wants to â€Å"protect† Catherine. His betrayal of Beatrice’s cousins is Eddie’s tragic downfall which links back to the classical tragedies. Eddie wants justice as he does not believe that Rodolfo is marrying Catherine for love but cannot prove it. It is because of this that he betrays Marco and Rodolfo in another way, he betrays their trust. The irony of the matter is that Eddie is not satisfied with the American way of justice: â€Å"you mean to tell me that there’s no law that a guy which he ain’t right can go to work and marry a girl and -â€Å". Marco does not believe in the American law either, he would rather get revenge himself than let the law do it or others for him as can be seen at the end of the play when Marco fights Eddie. In Marco’s eyes, by betraying him, Eddie has killed his family as their only source of income to buy food was through him. Eddie did not uphold the family loyalty and in that has broken the laws of family honour, a law stronger than the laws of the country in Marco’s eyes so therefore the punishment should be as heavy as the crime committed. Marco does not believe that American justice is forceful enough for the crimes committed, Miller has ironically made both Marco’s and Eddie’s view about American justice the same. Miller makes the audience have to think about which is the worse crime, being an illegal immigrant or cutting the lifeline of a whole family as Eddie did. The protagonist, Eddie, suffers a downfall at the end of the play: he is killed. This downfall is directly related to his flaw, his jealousy and love of Catherine, and, before he is killed, looses his reputation. As Marco and Rodolfo are taken away by the immigration officers, Marco spits in Eddie’s face and announces to the whole street what has been done and that he â€Å"stole the food from my children†. Eddie, although he does not deny it, he defies the claims saying â€Å"I gave them the blankets off my bed, six months I kept them as my brothers†: he is trying to prove to the crowd that he has no cause to betray the brothers and he is counting on his honest reputation to see him through and to have others believe him. When they don’t, he feels ruined and all he wants is his reputation back: the only way to do that is to â€Å"give it back to me in front of this neighbourhood, or we have it out†. Eddie has lost everything from this and just wants his dignity back but Marco does not give that to him either, he kills him and justice is done, the Sicilian way. Tragic climax in the play supported the themes raised throughout the play. There is a sense of climax at the point in the play where Eddie comes home drunk to find Catherine and Rodolfo in the bedroom together and he ends up kissing Rodolfo. This part of the play is following the theme of love, for Catherine, and jealousy on Eddie’s part of Rodolfo. The pace at this point of the play is fast and, although there is the sense of inevitability, the audience is taken by surprise by the twists and turns the play takes. The audience are shocked when Beatrice points out to Eddie and the audience his tragic flaw but because of the fast pace, there is no time for the audience or characters to dwell on the matter because then Marco arrives. With his arrival, anger flows freely between him and Eddie and neither tries to hide it. Eddie makes out how he has been victimised and asks the people in a sarcastic way â€Å"maybe he come to apologize to me†. The audience does not find out why Marco came back but at that time it is not really relevant. The focus is on Eddie and the audience realises that this is the climax the entire play has been building up to: the tragic end that has been inevitable since Alfieri’s first speech. The audience is tense and need the fast pace to feed their interest about what is going to happen next. The ironic death at the end: Eddie killed by his own hand and weapon makes the audience see that Eddie’s flaw has brought all this on himself. At the end of the play, there is a feeling of justice and revenge in the air, linking back to the tragic themes again, also, obviously, death. At the very end of the play, Alfieri makes a closing speech summarising and creating an affect of catharsis leaving the audience calm instead of tense, the effect of the ending if Alfieri had not concluded. The context of the play works as a tragedy because of the cultural backgrounds of the characters and their way of life. Alfieri has cleverly picked a culture that still runs as the Greeks did with high standards to live up to and strong family values. By using Alfieri as a modern day chorus, Miller mirrors a classical tragedy set-up keeping the audience informed and creating the element of predestination. By using a modern context, Miller has shown the audience that theories on honour and respect have not changed much since the Greeks. Alfieri’s message at the end of the play to the audience is that the truth should always be told. It shows that although Eddie did not know his feelings for Catherine, someone could have told him and the problem could have been sorted. If people had talked more to each other and instead of fighting about everything, just talked, maybe the whole thing could have been resolved.