A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller as a Tragedy

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller as a Tragedy

A view from the Bridge was written by Arthur Miller in 1955 and set in

the 1950's Brooklyn, New York. Most of this area was inhabited by

immigrants that arrived from countries such as Italy and Sicily,

before the restriction of immigrant's law was passed. Although the law

denies people to migrate to the country. Illegal immigrants will often

be smuggled in from countries like Sicily. The main area is based in

Red Hook. Illegal immigrants come into the country and work on the

dockyards and Sicily at the time was in great poverty and hardship.

The people in this area of red hook are Italian American civilian

citizens that have travelled the Island of Sicily because of the hard

times that they have had. Such things like no cars, no food, no

school, no clean water and no jobs for the poor.

Two such characters are in the play called Rodolfo and Marco, who are

brothers. That has come from such areas of Sicily. Eddie is married to

Beatrice but has sexual feelings for his niece, Catherine and because

of his pride he cannot admit that he is in the wrong. This makes it

difficult for him to take good advice when given. Eventually Eddie

cannot take the thought of losing Catherine to Rodolfo, he phones the

immigration bureau and tells them about Rodolfo and Marco. When the

immigration officers come and take Rodolfo and Marco. Marco realises

that Eddie was the one who told the immigration officers about them

being illegal immigrants. Marco is furious because he knows that he

has no chance of staying in America and provide money for his family

in Sicily. Whereas if Rodolfo marries Catherine he would become an

American citizen. Finally when the day of Catherine?s an...

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...still relevant today because it still goes on in today?s

world. For example Natural law uses emotions to kill people and the

government uses constitutional law to stop people by using the police.

I think that ?A View from the Bridge? has been a very good tragedy and

has a good structure so people can learn the moral of the

play.

I would class ?A View from the Bridge? as an excellent classic tragedy

because it has all the Aristotelian elements for a classic tragedy.

One of the main ways of being a classic tragedy is that it has to be

didactic and ?A View from the Bridge? is very didactic with a chorus

which keeps you informed and explained what is going on so that the

audience are always one step ahead of the play. Also a classic tragedy

is ?Universal truth? so it can relate to anyone, people can watch the

play a century later and still learn from it.