“A View from the Bridge”
Eddie Carbone, a representative type
Western drama originates in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and
Euripides, all of whom wrote in Athens in the 5th century B.C. Drama, theatre, actor and
tragedy are all Greek words. In these plays the tragic hero or protagonist (=first or most
important actor) commits an offence, often unknowingly. He must then learn his fate,
suffer and perhaps die. In this way, the gods are vindicated and the moral order of the
universe restored. (This is a gross simplification of an enormous subject.)
These plays, and those of Shakespeare two thousand years later, are about kings,
dukes or great generals. Why? Because in their day, these individuals were thought to
embody or represent the whole people. Nowadays, we do not see kings in this way.
When writers or political spin doctors want to show a person who represents a nation or
class, they typically invent a fictitious "ordinary" person, the Man in the Street or Joe
Public. In Eddie Carbone, Miller creates just such a representative type. He is a very
ordinary man, decent, hard-working and charitable, a man no-one could dislike. But, like
the protagonist of the ancient drama, he has a flaw or weakness. This, in turn, causes
him to act wrongly. The consequences, social and psychological, of his wrong action
destroy him. The chorus figure, Alfieri, then explains why it is better to "be civilised" and
"settle for half", thus restoring the normal moral order of the universe.
If Eddie is meant to represent everyman, does this mean that Miller believes all men
love their nieces (those who have nieces)? Of course not. What Miller does suggest is
that we have basic impulses, which civilisation has seen as harmful to society, and
taught us to control. We have self-destructive urges, too, but normally we deny these.
Eddie does not really understand his improper desire, and thus is unable to hide it from
those around him or from the audience. In him we see the primitive impulse naked, as it
were: this explains Alfieri's puzzling remark that Eddie "allowed himself to be perfectly
known".
Clearly, Eddie is, in the classical Greek sense, the protagonist of the play. Alfieri tells us
this at the end of his opening address: "This one's name was Eddie Carbone..." Eddie is
the subject of Alfieri's narrative, and all other characters are seen in relation to him. We
are shown at first a good man who seems perfectly happy: he has the dignity of a job he
does well, he is liked in the close-knit community of Red Hook, he has the love of wife
and foster-daughter/niece, and his doubts about Catherine's prospective job are not
very serious.
Showing a happy domestic scene is a favourite device of Miller's. Next a catalyst is
introduced, and we see, by steady and inexorable stages how the happiness is
destroyed. A catalyst is literally something which speeds up a chemical reaction; in this
play it refers metaphorically to Rodolpho, one of Beatrice's illegal immigrant cousins.
Catherine's attraction to him brings Eddie's love for his niece into the open. This
unlawful love first appears in Eddie's obsessive concern with Catherine's appearance
and way of dressing: "I think it's too short," he says of a dress. He goes on: "Katie, you
are walkin' wavy! I don't like the looks they're givin' you in the candy store. And with
them new high heels on the sidewalk - clack, clack, clack. The heads are turnin' like
windmills".
, Alfieri's speeches generally explain Eddie's actions and Alfieri's own inability to save
him. But his last speech tries to explain the mystery of Eddie's character. Most of us,
says Alfieri, are "civilized", "American" rather than Sicilian. Most of us "settle for half",
and this has to be a good thing. (He has earlier told us with relief of the passing of the
gangster era, and that he no longer keeps a loaded gun in his filing cabinet). But
although Eddie's death was "useless", yet "something perversely pure calls to [Alfieri]
from his memory - not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be
wholly known". Most of us, says Alfieri, being more educated, more sophisticated, more
in control, can either hide our feelings or, better, overcome them.
Eddie is a suitable subject for a modern tragedy because the potential for self-
destruction, which is in all of us, in Eddie's case has destroyed him. And apart from this
improper love, Eddie is a good man; and this love has its origin in the quite proper love
of father for child, and Eddie's sense of duty to his family and community. This is shown
in the early part of the play in the love and trust Catherine and Beatrice have for Eddie,
and of what we learn of his hustling for work when Catherine was a baby. Eddie is a
very ordinary man, a decent and well-liked man, and yet the one flaw in his character
forces those around him and Alfieri to watch "powerless" (as does the audience) as the
case runs "its bloody course".
Alfieri
After Eddie, Alfieri's is probably the most important role in the play. He is, of course, in
some (not much) of the action, as Eddie consults him. This is essential, as it explains
how he has come to know the story. Miller has said that he wanted to make this play a
modern equivalent of classical Greek tragedy. In the ancient plays, an essential part
was that of the chorus: a group of figures who would watch the action, comment on it,
and address the audience directly.
In A View from the Bridge, Alfieri is the equivalent of the chorus. He introduces the
action as a retelling of events already in the (recent) past. By giving details of place,
date or time, he enables the action to move swiftly from one episode to another, without
the characters having to give this information. This is often skilfully mixed with brief
comment: "He was as good a man as he had to be...he brought home his pay, and he
lived. And toward ten o'clock of that night, after they had eaten, the cousins came".
Because much of this is fact, we believe the part which is opinion.
We also trust a lawyer to be a good judge of character and rational, because he is
professionally detached. Alfieri is not quite detached, however. His connection with
Eddie is slight: "I had represented his father in an accident case some years before, and
I was acquainted with the family in a casual way". But in the next interlude, Alfieri tells
us how he is so disturbed, that he consults a wise old woman, who tells him to pray for
Eddie. You should consider what Alfieri says in each of the interludes, and you must be
able to find them quickly.
In the brief scenes in which Alfieri speaks to Eddie, we gain an insight into his idea of
settling for half. He repeatedly tells Eddie that he should not interfere, but let Catherine
go, "and bless her", that the only legal question is how the brothers entered the country
"But I don't think you want to do anything about that".
As Eddie contemplates the betrayal, Alfieri reads his mind and repeatedly warns him:
"You won't have a friend in the world...Put it out of your mind".
Eddie Carbone, a representative type
Western drama originates in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and
Euripides, all of whom wrote in Athens in the 5th century B.C. Drama, theatre, actor and
tragedy are all Greek words. In these plays the tragic hero or protagonist (=first or most
important actor) commits an offence, often unknowingly. He must then learn his fate,
suffer and perhaps die. In this way, the gods are vindicated and the moral order of the
universe restored. (This is a gross simplification of an enormous subject.)
These plays, and those of Shakespeare two thousand years later, are about kings,
dukes or great generals. Why? Because in their day, these individuals were thought to
embody or represent the whole people. Nowadays, we do not see kings in this way.
When writers or political spin doctors want to show a person who represents a nation or
class, they typically invent a fictitious "ordinary" person, the Man in the Street or Joe
Public. In Eddie Carbone, Miller creates just such a representative type. He is a very
ordinary man, decent, hard-working and charitable, a man no-one could dislike. But, like
the protagonist of the ancient drama, he has a flaw or weakness. This, in turn, causes
him to act wrongly. The consequences, social and psychological, of his wrong action
destroy him. The chorus figure, Alfieri, then explains why it is better to "be civilised" and
"settle for half", thus restoring the normal moral order of the universe.
If Eddie is meant to represent everyman, does this mean that Miller believes all men
love their nieces (those who have nieces)? Of course not. What Miller does suggest is
that we have basic impulses, which civilisation has seen as harmful to society, and
taught us to control. We have self-destructive urges, too, but normally we deny these.
Eddie does not really understand his improper desire, and thus is unable to hide it from
those around him or from the audience. In him we see the primitive impulse naked, as it
were: this explains Alfieri's puzzling remark that Eddie "allowed himself to be perfectly
known".
Clearly, Eddie is, in the classical Greek sense, the protagonist of the play. Alfieri tells us
this at the end of his opening address: "This one's name was Eddie Carbone..." Eddie is
the subject of Alfieri's narrative, and all other characters are seen in relation to him. We
are shown at first a good man who seems perfectly happy: he has the dignity of a job he
does well, he is liked in the close-knit community of Red Hook, he has the love of wife
and foster-daughter/niece, and his doubts about Catherine's prospective job are not
very serious.
Showing a happy domestic scene is a favourite device of Miller's. Next a catalyst is
introduced, and we see, by steady and inexorable stages how the happiness is
destroyed. A catalyst is literally something which speeds up a chemical reaction; in this
play it refers metaphorically to Rodolpho, one of Beatrice's illegal immigrant cousins.
Catherine's attraction to him brings Eddie's love for his niece into the open. This
unlawful love first appears in Eddie's obsessive concern with Catherine's appearance
and way of dressing: "I think it's too short," he says of a dress. He goes on: "Katie, you
are walkin' wavy! I don't like the looks they're givin' you in the candy store. And with
them new high heels on the sidewalk - clack, clack, clack. The heads are turnin' like
windmills".
, Alfieri's speeches generally explain Eddie's actions and Alfieri's own inability to save
him. But his last speech tries to explain the mystery of Eddie's character. Most of us,
says Alfieri, are "civilized", "American" rather than Sicilian. Most of us "settle for half",
and this has to be a good thing. (He has earlier told us with relief of the passing of the
gangster era, and that he no longer keeps a loaded gun in his filing cabinet). But
although Eddie's death was "useless", yet "something perversely pure calls to [Alfieri]
from his memory - not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be
wholly known". Most of us, says Alfieri, being more educated, more sophisticated, more
in control, can either hide our feelings or, better, overcome them.
Eddie is a suitable subject for a modern tragedy because the potential for self-
destruction, which is in all of us, in Eddie's case has destroyed him. And apart from this
improper love, Eddie is a good man; and this love has its origin in the quite proper love
of father for child, and Eddie's sense of duty to his family and community. This is shown
in the early part of the play in the love and trust Catherine and Beatrice have for Eddie,
and of what we learn of his hustling for work when Catherine was a baby. Eddie is a
very ordinary man, a decent and well-liked man, and yet the one flaw in his character
forces those around him and Alfieri to watch "powerless" (as does the audience) as the
case runs "its bloody course".
Alfieri
After Eddie, Alfieri's is probably the most important role in the play. He is, of course, in
some (not much) of the action, as Eddie consults him. This is essential, as it explains
how he has come to know the story. Miller has said that he wanted to make this play a
modern equivalent of classical Greek tragedy. In the ancient plays, an essential part
was that of the chorus: a group of figures who would watch the action, comment on it,
and address the audience directly.
In A View from the Bridge, Alfieri is the equivalent of the chorus. He introduces the
action as a retelling of events already in the (recent) past. By giving details of place,
date or time, he enables the action to move swiftly from one episode to another, without
the characters having to give this information. This is often skilfully mixed with brief
comment: "He was as good a man as he had to be...he brought home his pay, and he
lived. And toward ten o'clock of that night, after they had eaten, the cousins came".
Because much of this is fact, we believe the part which is opinion.
We also trust a lawyer to be a good judge of character and rational, because he is
professionally detached. Alfieri is not quite detached, however. His connection with
Eddie is slight: "I had represented his father in an accident case some years before, and
I was acquainted with the family in a casual way". But in the next interlude, Alfieri tells
us how he is so disturbed, that he consults a wise old woman, who tells him to pray for
Eddie. You should consider what Alfieri says in each of the interludes, and you must be
able to find them quickly.
In the brief scenes in which Alfieri speaks to Eddie, we gain an insight into his idea of
settling for half. He repeatedly tells Eddie that he should not interfere, but let Catherine
go, "and bless her", that the only legal question is how the brothers entered the country
"But I don't think you want to do anything about that".
As Eddie contemplates the betrayal, Alfieri reads his mind and repeatedly warns him:
"You won't have a friend in the world...Put it out of your mind".
