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Essay on Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge

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Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge

'A View From The Bridge' is set in early 1950's America at a time when it was very common for illegal crime syndicates to transport illegal immigrants into America for large sums of money. It is based around a small family who decide to have two of their relatives imported from Italy so they can try and make some money for their poor families back home.

The play covers many issues including aggression, hostility and the true role of a man to his family. Hostility starts when Roldolfo and Marco get transported from Italy to live with the Carbones. Roldolfo does not conform to Eddies views of "manliness", since Roldolfo is not big and strong like him. …show more content…

You can tell Eddie is badly educated by his use of language, he shortens a lot of his words, such as are not he shortens to "ain't". But conflict also occurs on a smaller scale when Eddie tells Catherine that he dislikes her new clothes. Eddie dislikes Marco although he conforms to Eddie's idea of what a man should be like; he is strong and is always thinking about providing for his family. In these ways Marco is more "manly" than Eddie and although he would never admit it this makes Eddie feel very uncomfortable and on edge around him.

When Eddie is discussing Roldolfo to the other longshoremen he implies that he is not right and is no good.

Eddie never actually tells Roldolfo about his distrust in him, but when he is showing him how to be a boxer he hits him and convinces everyone it was by accident. But because Eddie never confronts Roldolfo or Marco about his distrust of them this makes Eddie cowardly and shows that he does not live up to his own expectations of a man and his roles. Marco senses Eddie's dislike of him and is immediately aggressive to him, but he still does not confront Eddie but he does show his power over Eddie by challenging him to lift the chair at the end of Act One.

At the beginning of Act Two Eddie kisses Roldolfo and Catherine, this is a very intense part of the play because it is

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