Alfieri In A View From The Bridge

Arthur Miller wrote the play, “A View from the Bridge’’, as a modern version of a Greek Tragedy. Traditionally, a character is led by fate to a destiny which cannot be escaped. He introduces Eddie as the hero of the play but establishes him as an ‘ordinary’ man, just as he lays out in his essay ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’. Alfieri acts as a chorus. He can only watch the tragedy unfold. In his first speech, Alfieri identifies the play’s ‘’bloody’’ outcome. The audience shares Alfieri’s perspective: looking back on the events, which he narrates. Alfieri acts as the external observer; he observes all sides of the situation. Alfieri is the ‘bridge’ from which all is seen. Alfieri describes Eddie as a “Husky, slightly overweight longshoreman”.

This can be seen throughout the whole play as Eddie compliments her continuously and acts differently around her. This is particularly shown in the opening scene as Eddie admires her new outfit; “Beautiful. Turn around, lemme see the back”. This could show that Eddie has been attracted to Catherine since the beginning of the play, and has uncomfortable sexual connotations. Although this could be argued as a subtle compliment, although throughout the play this slowly progresses. This reaches a climax when he comes home intoxicated which shows that he expressed his true feelings towards Catherine, “He reaches out suddenly, draws her to him, and as she strives to free herself he kisses her on the mouth.” From the stage directions we can see that Catherine strives to be free which can be argued that she is fighting due to unwanted admiration. This scene was extremely uncomfortable for the audience to view due to realization of Eddie being her uncle. Despite many warnings from Beatrice and Alfieri, Eddie’s blindness is shown as he ignores their concerns. This was considered as a huge turning point in the play, as the action moves towards catastrophe, as his relationship with Catherine plunges from happiness to misery and culminates in his unnecessary

Eddie’s main concerns are his femininity as Rodolpho knows how to sing, cook and dance which weren’t seen as masculine acts in Eddie’s eyes. Eddie looks for ways to dislike Rodolpho as much as possible for no reason. Eddie makes absurd accusations towards Rodolpho, such as Rodolpho only wanting to marry Catherine to gain American citizenship. “He’s bowin to his passport”. Rodolpho gets annoyed that Eddie has created tension and uncertainty between them, he is aware that if Eddie’s obsession takes over he wont be able to have a future with Catherine. This could possibly link back to Eddie’s relationship with Catherine and how he perhaps he wants to keep her to himself as he feels that Rodolpho is taking control. Equally Eddie doesn’t feel comfortable when Rodolpho speaks to him as he says, “he gives me the heeby jeebies”. This response to Beatrice reveals his deeply embedded discomfort at Rodolpho’s flamboyant acts, which could infer that Eddie could even be homophobic. Although this can be argued as Eddie could be hiding his own sexual ambiguity, possibly having strong homosexual urges he couldn’t deal with. Evidence of this can be found as he describes Rodolpho to Alfieri, “You could kiss him he was so sweet”, and subsequently Eddie also kisses Rodolpho. This could indicate Eddie’s struggle to control and protect his dominance. This act brings the young lovers closer and his family