"A View from the Bridge" Personal Response
- Submitted by: SBWYee
- Views: 1989
- Category: History: European
- Date Submitted: 07/23/2010 10:18 PM
- Pages: 4
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Personal Response #1 Stephen Yee
Title: A View from the Bridge
Author: Arthur Miller
Type: Drama/Play
Date Finished: 3/3/2010
This Play focuses on Eddie Carbone, an Italian-American, “forty- husky slightly overweight longshoreman”, who is living in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Eddie and his wife, Beatrice, decide to help two illegal immigrant cousins, Marco and Rodolfo, enter America from Sicily so they can work “get her in here will you...her cousins landed.” Rodolfo and Eddie’s niece, Catherine, quickly fall in love; however when Eddie’s incestuous feelings for Catherine turn to jealousy he commits an unforgiveable crime against his Sicilian community.
One of the main themes in “A View from the Bridge” (AVFB) is the one of justice versus the law. To the Sicilians in the play, the Sicilian code supersedes the conventional Government law; this is because in Sicilian code Justice is everything, “justice is important here”, it is all about honour, loyalty and communities “sticking together” (Countrymen helping fellow countrymen); so when Eddie “dobs” in Marco and Rodolfo to the immigration bureau, he breaks this code, and thus loses his honour and standing in the community,
“Marco has gone. The crowd turns to Eddie. He’s crazy! I give him the blankets off my bed. Six months I kept him like my own brothers! Lipari, the butcher, turns and starts up left with his arm around his wife.”
This is near the end of the play, and shows the loss of respect he has gained from his community after dobbing in Marco and Rodolfo; they just ignore Eddie and his false pleas, only lamenting the sad situation that has befallen the two.
When Eddie talked to Catherine and Beatrice about the incident of Vinnie Bolzano, he gives us insight to what happens to snitchers,
“They grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs- three flights his head was bouncin’ like a coconut. And they spit on him...
Title: A View from the Bridge
Author: Arthur Miller
Type: Drama/Play
Date Finished: 3/3/2010
This Play focuses on Eddie Carbone, an Italian-American, “forty- husky slightly overweight longshoreman”, who is living in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Eddie and his wife, Beatrice, decide to help two illegal immigrant cousins, Marco and Rodolfo, enter America from Sicily so they can work “get her in here will you...her cousins landed.” Rodolfo and Eddie’s niece, Catherine, quickly fall in love; however when Eddie’s incestuous feelings for Catherine turn to jealousy he commits an unforgiveable crime against his Sicilian community.
One of the main themes in “A View from the Bridge” (AVFB) is the one of justice versus the law. To the Sicilians in the play, the Sicilian code supersedes the conventional Government law; this is because in Sicilian code Justice is everything, “justice is important here”, it is all about honour, loyalty and communities “sticking together” (Countrymen helping fellow countrymen); so when Eddie “dobs” in Marco and Rodolfo to the immigration bureau, he breaks this code, and thus loses his honour and standing in the community,
“Marco has gone. The crowd turns to Eddie. He’s crazy! I give him the blankets off my bed. Six months I kept him like my own brothers! Lipari, the butcher, turns and starts up left with his arm around his wife.”
This is near the end of the play, and shows the loss of respect he has gained from his community after dobbing in Marco and Rodolfo; they just ignore Eddie and his false pleas, only lamenting the sad situation that has befallen the two.
When Eddie talked to Catherine and Beatrice about the incident of Vinnie Bolzano, he gives us insight to what happens to snitchers,
“They grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs- three flights his head was bouncin’ like a coconut. And they spit on him...