Cultural Context in View from a Bridge by Arthur Miller
Examine how cultural context is established in two of the texts on your comparative course
When examining the topic of cultural context, one must become immersed in the world of the texts under discussion. The historical and geographical setting of a work creates a world that the characters can credibly inhabit. They are influenced and shaped by the customs, moral values and social structures of that society. The cultural environment created offers the reader a context in which to explore thematic and character development. We may also appreciate the literary techniques that allow such a vivid world to be set before our imaginations.
Credible and vivid environments are created in the two texts I wish to explore in this essay. In "How Many Miles to Babylon", the novel set in Ireland and France during the early days of World War One, Jennifer Johnston depicts the faded grandeur of the big house in Wicklow and the politics of rural life in Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century. She also tales us to the battlefields of France and presents us with a brutal and harsh world. Alec and Jerry, her key characters, have to navigate the social constraints of these environments with care and their efforts to do so create much of the conflict and momentum in the text. Similarly, in "A View from the Bridge" by Arthur Miller, a strong cultural context is established from the outset: The attitudes and social rules of this Italian-American immigrant community are firmly defined. Yet the community is still poised delicately between the "civilized" American society it hopes to assimilate into and the more fundamental Sicilian culture that it has recently left. The hero Eddie faces a moral dilemma as his personal desire comes into conflict with the accepted social customs of his group.
As this is a wide-ranging topic, I wish to confine my discussion of the subject of cultural context to two main areas that interested me during my study of the course. I would
When examining the topic of cultural context, one must become immersed in the world of the texts under discussion. The historical and geographical setting of a work creates a world that the characters can credibly inhabit. They are influenced and shaped by the customs, moral values and social structures of that society. The cultural environment created offers the reader a context in which to explore thematic and character development. We may also appreciate the literary techniques that allow such a vivid world to be set before our imaginations.
Credible and vivid environments are created in the two texts I wish to explore in this essay. In "How Many Miles to Babylon", the novel set in Ireland and France during the early days of World War One, Jennifer Johnston depicts the faded grandeur of the big house in Wicklow and the politics of rural life in Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century. She also tales us to the battlefields of France and presents us with a brutal and harsh world. Alec and Jerry, her key characters, have to navigate the social constraints of these environments with care and their efforts to do so create much of the conflict and momentum in the text. Similarly, in "A View from the Bridge" by Arthur Miller, a strong cultural context is established from the outset: The attitudes and social rules of this Italian-American immigrant community are firmly defined. Yet the community is still poised delicately between the "civilized" American society it hopes to assimilate into and the more fundamental Sicilian culture that it has recently left. The hero Eddie faces a moral dilemma as his personal desire comes into conflict with the accepted social customs of his group.
As this is a wide-ranging topic, I wish to confine my discussion of the subject of cultural context to two main areas that interested me during my study of the course. I would