1
Plot
Act 1 Alfieri, the lawyer, introduces himself and his role as narrator
of the play’s events. Eddie Carbone comes home from work.
He says his niece, Catherine, is walking ‘wavy’ and receiving
too much attention from boys. Catherine and Beatrice try to
persuade Eddie to let her take a job as stenographer. Marco
and Rodolph, B’s cousins from Italy, are arriving to work
in the US illegally and they will stay with Eddie and B. The
cousins are polite when they arrive. Rodolpho is younger,
has no wife or family and wants to stay in the US. He sings
‘Paper Doll’. Rodolpho and Catherine start to develop feelings
for each other and Eddie becomes jealous because he has
unacknowledged feelings for his niece. Eddie says Rodolpho
only wants to marry Catherine to become a US citizen. Eddie
visits Alfieri for advice on how he can get rid of Rodolpho.
Eddie threatens Rodolpho in a pretend boxing match but
Marco defends his brother.
Act 2 Time has moved on. Alone in the house, Rodolpho and
Catherine have sex and Eddie comes home drunk. Eddie
kisses Catherine and pins Rodolpho down and also kisses
him. He visits Alfieri again and he tells him to give thoughts
of Catherine up and let her go. Eddie calls the Immigration
Bureau and reports Marco and Rodolpho as illegal
immigrants. Marco and Rodolpho are arrested. Marco spits in
Eddie’s face. Alfieri pays for them to be released on bail and
Catherine and Rodolpho prepare to marry. On the wedding
day, Marco returns to Eddie’s house for revenge. Eddie runs
at Marco with a knife but Marco kills Eddie with his own knife.
Eddie dies in ‘B’s’ arms/
Themes
Loyalty Justice and the Law Truth
Love and desire Honour Integrity
Family relationships Reputation Pride
Independence Respect Jealousy
Assessment Objectives
AO1
Respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and
evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support
interpretations.
AO2 Explain how language, structure and form contribute to
writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings.
Character
Eddie
Carbone
A longshoreman, married to Beatrice. Lives with
Beatrice and Catherine, his orphaned niece. He has
a secret desire for Catherine, which leads to jealousy
and eventually his own destruction. Can be viewed as a
tragic hero.
Catherine
Niece of Beatrice and Eddie. Beautiful and intelligent
and unaware of the feelings she has stirred in Eddie.
Always wants approval from Eddie and is hurt when
he doesn’t approve of Rodolpho, whom she intends to
marry.
Beatrice
’B’
A warm and caring woman. Aware of Eddie’s feelings
for Catherine and ‘wants to be a wife’ to him again. She
remains with Eddie throughout and he dies in her arms.
Marco
Beatrice’s Italian cousin. Comes to America to work
and make money to feed his family back home in Italy.
Eddie sees him as a rival when he defends Rodolpho.
Rodolpho
Beatrice’s young, handsome, blonde cousin from
Italy. Eddie and the other Red Hook men see him as
effeminate as he loves to sing, dance and sew. Wants to
marry Catherine and enjoy the American lifestyle.
Alfieri
An Italian-American lawyer who narrates the events. He
advises Eddie about the consequences of his actions
and has to watch as the tragedy develops. He reminds
the audience of the moral implications of the play.
Minor
characters
Mike and Louis are longshoremen friends of Eddie.
Immigration Officers come to look for Marco and
Rodolpho after Eddie’s tip off.
Tips
• Remember that this is a play, so refer to the ‘audience’ rather than
the ‘reader’.
• When writing about an extract, remember to consider the
importance of the stage directions, they are as important as the
words spoken by the characters.
Vocabulary
Omniscient
narrator Prologue Tragic hero Imagery
Perspective Act Colloquial Symbols
Monologue Dramatic
tension Tragedy Metaphor
Aside Moral Hamartia Protagonist
Stage directions Genre Dialogue
Background
Set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a district of New York in the 1950s when
there was a high immigration population, especially from Italy.
After WW2, Italy struggled with employment and the rates of poverty
soared. This led to large numbers of Italian immigrants coming to
America.
The USA had a strict immigration policy at the time.
Arthur Miller was called to answer questions in front of the House of
Un-American Activities Committee to reveal the names of communists
in America. He refused to give any names. This might be why there is
a strong focus on ‘integrity’ and the effect of ‘snitching’ in the play.
When carrying out research for another project, Miller was told the
story of a longshoreman who ‘snitched’ to the Immigration Bureau on
his own relatives. Miller also foreshadows Eddie’s fate by including the
story of Vinnie Bolzano who ‘ratted’ to the authorities.
Form
The play follows the format of a Greek tragedy with Miller using
Alfieri as the Chorus commentating on the characters’ actions. The
tragic ending is inevitable, given Eddie’s fatal flaws of pride and
impulsiveness. In keeping with the tragic convention, the climax
ends in a tremendous catastrophe involving the death of the main
character; the character has something the audience can identify with
which outweighs their flaws, so we care about them.
The play is organised into two Acts and the framework is held
together by Alfieri’s narration. Each time Alfieri comes on stage, he
charts a further step in Eddie’s downward spiral to destruction.
A View from the Bridge
