A View from the Bridge Arthur Miller

1. A View from the Bridge Arthur Miller

2. Setting or Context • Takes place in the docklands community of ‘Red Hook’, New York. • Poor community of immigrants – Italian immigrants. • Seeking the American dream which turns out to be a falsehood as the opportunities offered were not as prosperous. (Marco & Rudolpho) • Corruption on the docks, repay their fare to America – American nightmare; black market economy – ‘submarines’; resentment by others as they get the work. • Struggle for survival during a Depression, absence of work, the desperation of those in this community to eek out a living.

3. Setting/context continued… • Harsh immigration policy – illegal immigrants • conflict between the community’s unwritten laws and the American judicial system and Federal immigration law. Community see unwritten law as more important. Disregard immigration law. • Code of silence, ‘snitches’, ‘stool pigeons’. • ‘This is the United States Government you’re playin’ with now, this is the Immigration Bureau. If you said it you knew it, if you didn’t say it you didn’t know it.’

4. …Setting or Context • Eddie goes against community law in self-interest – consults Alfieri, tries to use law to stop marriage: Rodolpho is homosexual, then immigration law. • Eddie loses ‘his name’: “ I want my name Marco’, dies rejected by the community. COMMUNITY VALUES • value of ‘the name’: poverty, value in reputation and maintaining moral virtue, code of conduct: Eddie being a good provider and worker contrasted with his immoral, suppressed lust for his niece. • Value of loyalty, trust – for the Italian/Sicilian expats family loyalty is about honour. Fate of Vinny Bolzano ‘snitch’. The individual who betrays the community is met with a ‘rough justice’ and then cast out of the community. • References to Al Capone and the ancient Sicilian codes of loyalty and ‘protection’.

5. Setting/Context • View from the Bridge • Brooklyn Bridge: symbolises opportunity but also divide between American and Italian culture. • ‘view’: observation from above, Alfieri comments on the two cultures as objective observer, a bridge between the ‘laws’ of the two.

6. Beatrice • Eddie’s wife. • Not satisfied with marriage, questions his impotence, attempts confrontation. • Stable character, has clear views on the situation. • Reason to be jealous, but remains generous to Catherine. • Concerned by Catherine’s flirting and flaunting. • Supports Catherine’s relationship with Rudolpho openly. • Stands by Eddie, even after betrayal. • Is childlessness significant? • Catherine remarks that Beatrice does not ‘understand’ Eddie the way she does ‘I can tell a block away when he’s blue in his mind…’ • Is Beatrice, who has been discarded by Eddie, also an attempt by Miller to show women’s powerlessness in this patriarchal society?

7. Catherine • Youthful, innocent/naïve, sexual, flirtatious, emerging as a woman. • Madonna/whore symbol, ‘Paper Doll’. • Admired by Eddie: paternal pride and sexual desire. Symbolic lighting of the cigar. • Close relationship with Eddie bordering on incestuous although they are not related. • Trying to become a woman: high heels are rites-of-passage, enjoys male attention. CATALYST for Change - arrival of Rudolpho, Catherine finds an outlet for her affection and sexual frustration and a new ‘hero’ or ‘champion’. - Struggling to gain independence: the job at the Docks office and then with her relationship with Rudolpho. - also a way out for her to move from girl to woman. - primary in confronting and ‘battling’ with Eddie: the defiant dance with Rudolpho. - sleeping with him in the house and the showdown between the three. Is Catherine partly to blame? • Catherine often acts like a wife: welcomes him home, serves him food. • She acknowledges Eddie’s feelings, asserts that even if ‘a prince’ came. • She understands when both Beatrice and Rudolpho talk of Eddie’s unhealthy affection for her. • She defends this by talking of her understanding of Eddie, criticising Beatrice. • As Eddie dies, Catherine is forced to admit her part in events.

8. The Submarines: Rudolpho & Marco • brothers, widely separated by age, two are very unlike. Rudolpho • slender, graceful, blond ‘Danish’, does not conform to male stereotype ‘he sings, he cooks, he could make dresses’. • Mike and Louis joke about Rudolpho: show how Red Hook is macho community and not used to those who do not conform to type. • A performer, centre of attention, talks incessantly, enthusiastic about all things American: spends money on fashion, records etc. • Loves Catherine, battles with Eddie to keep her: showdown after sleeping with her. Sleeping in Eddie’s bed sign of disrespect? • Teaches Catherine to dance: sexual/physical closeness and is then ‘humiliated’ by Eddie in boxing lesson. • Eddie’s attempted kiss of Rudolpho – his mistaken homosexuality.

9. Marco • Silent, proud, has difficulty with English, unusually strong. • Sense of responsibility for his brother • Believes actions speak louder than words: unloading the ship and threatening Eddie with chair, spitting at him. • Works hard, loves and misses his family terribly. • Staunch, shows strong sense of traditional values of Sicilian community: respect for host, honour, family loyalty, ultimately revenge against dishonour. • Marco signifies the ‘rough justice’ of the community ‘I accuse that one’ thus dishonouring Eddie for snitching. • Audience’s sympathy for Marco’s hardworking character that ultimately causes them to lose faith or respect for Eddie. • Final scene a ‘duel’ between Eddie and Marco. Marco becomes Eddie’s nemesis. • Eddie recognises Marco’s power ‘…he’s only a punk. Marco’s got my name.’

10. Alfieri • Lawyer, Sicilian immigrant. Sicily & America • Lawyer who links both American and Italian cultures and comments on the cultural tension at play. • Understands ancient code of conduct for Sicily and the new American justice system. • Gangsters ‘cut precisely in half by a machine gun’ but says ‘now we are quite civilised, quite American.’ • Warns Eddie not to do anything about the way Marco and Rodolpho entered the country. • Informs Eddie that the law cannot prevent Catherine’s marriage. • Greek chorus: comments on the action, carries the central message of the play.

11. Alfieri Greek chorus: • comments on the action, • appears and speaks directly to the audience in some cases. • Prophetic: knows where ‘Eddie was heading for’, sense of fate, that it is unstoppable. • carries the central message of the play: endorses morals and values of American society: • End of the play articulates the message that ‘truth is holy’. Even though Eddie was wrong there was something ‘perversely pure’ about him because he dies for what he believes in. • Unromantic vision ‘settle for half’ and ‘like it better’ – the importance of compromise. • Also speaks of family loyalty and of how wrong Eddie was – reflects consequences of betrayal.

12. Themes & Issues • Idea of Justice: • conflict between unwritten laws of Red Hook based ancient codes of Sicilian tradition and new American Immigration and Judicial Law. • Conflict between Italian and American cultures. Italian/Sicilian • Importance of respect, honour, ‘your name’,trust and family loyalty. • Disregard for American law: Immigration, snitching, protection, corruption on the docks. • Consequences for betrayal and the seeking of revenge by the community.

13. Gender & Sexuality • Traditional roles of men and women challenged in the play. • Patriarchal society (father figure/male dominated). • Role of women inferior: Beatrice at home, Catherine as secretary. • Women are seen as possessions: ‘Paper Doll’ significance. • Doll: beautiful, lifeless, something kept. • Battle between Eddie and Rudolpho for their paper doll, Catherine. • Paper doll: pin up girl, image of woman as both sex object and Madonna figure (virgin mother). Eddie refers to Catherine as ‘Garbo’. • Eddie’s possession of Catherine and her ‘walkin’ wavy’, unable to get a job ‘keeping her’. • Beatrice has a clear understanding but denied a voice.

14. Gender and Sexuality Rudolpho – challenges traditional view of males. • Participates in female activities means considered homosexual. • Eddie refers to him as a ‘punk’, laughed at on the docks. • Contrast between his sexual potency with Catherine and Eddie’s impotency. Eddie • Embodies characteristics of manliness. • Responsibility as ‘breadwinner’, works like a dog. • In return, wants absolute authority over his family. • Unable to express his emotions, other than as anger. • Uses physical strength to show power. • His regard for Catherine as an ‘object’ of desire, a possession. Marco • Also embodies characteristics of manliness ‘he’s a regular bull.’ • Protects his younger brother. • Feud shows traditional settlement of differences between men. • Miller shows link between male values and toughness, and strength and its consequences in violence and killing.