The Dramatic Techniques Arthur Miller Uses in His Play A View From the Bridge

The Dramatic Techniques Arthur Miller Uses in His Play A View From the Bridge

'A View from the Bridge' was written by Arthur Miller. It is set in

the early 1950s, Miller was interested in the lives of dockworkers and

longshoremen of New York's Brooklyn harbour, where he had worked and

where the story is set. Miller heard the story from a lawyer friend

who had mentioned that he knew of a longshoreman who rattled to the

immigration Bureau on two brothers, his own relatives, who were living

illegally in his home, in order to break the engagement between one of

them and his niece. A few years later Miller visited Italy and

combined the experiences gained, about the Italian immigrants working

in Brooklyn with the knowledge of men in Italy hungry for work. This

provided the background to the play that was to become 'A View from

the Bridge'

Arthur Miller uses many dramatic devices to engage the interest of his

audience. I will be exploring these in detail. The title is symbolic,

it could be the metaphorical structure between the audience and the

characters. Alfieri plays the Narrator; he is the first person whom

the audience meet and is dramatically important to the story. Alfieri

is a bridge between the old world and the new. He is a Lawyer, and in

his opening address raises the themes of law and justice. In the

Italian community lawyers were thought to be connected with disasters,

this dates back thousands of years. To be a Lawyer meant you were

connected with the law, and in Sicily the law wasn't a 'friendly

idea'. Justice and family honour were important facts in Italian

culture. However in Redhook Brooklyn things are more 'civilized' ...

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...e stage set is a dramatic technique. The play

is set in red hook and the Carbones livingroom/diningroom is the main

focus of the action but the street outside and Alfieri's desk is

partly represented. The audience is aware of both the private and

public contents in which the play is set. One director set the stage

with no scenery on set apart from Eddies chair central stage, this

would be dramatically important as it showed Eddie being surrounded by

family and friends in the beginning but as the story develops, slowly

the characters move back, in till Eddie is all alone. Even in millers

production the stage is limited this is set to be symbolic of Eddies

relationship with the community and his friends.

Miller uses these dramatic techniques to engage the interest of the

audience in my opinion this has been successful.