A View from the Bridge. By Arthur Miller
A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian American neighborhood called Red Hook near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. The main character of the play is Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman, who lives with his wife, Beatrice and an orphaned niece named Catherine.
Eddie is Catherine’s uncle, but they are not blood-related. Eddie is very over-protective of Catherine and that he is almost possessive of her. He gets jealous very easily when other men look at Catherine. Eddie’s feelings for Catherine are very strong and he may also have sexual feelings for her. At the beginning of the play, Eddie and Catherine have a very intimate and happy relationship. Eddie has given her the best life he can afford, and in return Catherine loves and trusts him completely. However, their situation changes quite rapidly once Beatrice's cousins arrive from Italy. After their arrival, a gap seems to form between Eddie and Catherine. Eddie gradually becomes obsessed with trying to stop destiny from changing his life. This obsession soon leads to the violation of every moral he has ever believed in.
In Act I of the play, we see that Catherine has a desire to be noticed by Eddie. Her excitement when he arrives home is almost childlike. Catherine also has a desperate requirement of approval she seeks from her uncle. “You like it? I fixed it different.” Her thirst to be accepted by him seems unnatural. On the contrary Eddie seems to enjoy Catherine in need of his attention, as he continuously draws the topic of conversation back to her. The conversation turns from “...He’s here B.!” from Catherine, to “Beautiful…Lemme see in the back” from Eddie. It is also that at this very early point in the play we might get suspicious of Eddie's true feelings for Catherine. This is a result of his constant comments on her physical appearance. While Eddie's references to her short skirt and her
A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian American neighborhood called Red Hook near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. The main character of the play is Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman, who lives with his wife, Beatrice and an orphaned niece named Catherine.
Eddie is Catherine’s uncle, but they are not blood-related. Eddie is very over-protective of Catherine and that he is almost possessive of her. He gets jealous very easily when other men look at Catherine. Eddie’s feelings for Catherine are very strong and he may also have sexual feelings for her. At the beginning of the play, Eddie and Catherine have a very intimate and happy relationship. Eddie has given her the best life he can afford, and in return Catherine loves and trusts him completely. However, their situation changes quite rapidly once Beatrice's cousins arrive from Italy. After their arrival, a gap seems to form between Eddie and Catherine. Eddie gradually becomes obsessed with trying to stop destiny from changing his life. This obsession soon leads to the violation of every moral he has ever believed in.
In Act I of the play, we see that Catherine has a desire to be noticed by Eddie. Her excitement when he arrives home is almost childlike. Catherine also has a desperate requirement of approval she seeks from her uncle. “You like it? I fixed it different.” Her thirst to be accepted by him seems unnatural. On the contrary Eddie seems to enjoy Catherine in need of his attention, as he continuously draws the topic of conversation back to her. The conversation turns from “...He’s here B.!” from Catherine, to “Beautiful…Lemme see in the back” from Eddie. It is also that at this very early point in the play we might get suspicious of Eddie's true feelings for Catherine. This is a result of his constant comments on her physical appearance. While Eddie's references to her short skirt and her