A View from the Bridge – Arthur Miller
Perhaps none of us ‘expect…to have a destiny”. In this moving and dramatic play Arthur Miller successfully depicts the theme of destiny through the inner struggles of a longshoreman who, due to his fatal flaw of having‘too much love”, is driven to betrayal and death before our helpless eyes.
Alfieri, the metaphorical ‘bridge’ of the title, is used effectively by Miller to convey our helplessness as he too is forced to watch “transfixed’ as events in Eddie’s life “run (their) bloody course”. The tragedy unfolds in the manner of ancient Greek theatre – except in this case Miller shows us that Tragedies do not have to show the downfall of kings and heroes to be moving. The tragedy of Eddie is all the more moving because he is one of us. We are all helpless to control our own destinies and because of this are compelled , like Alfieri, to mourn for Eddie’s destruction of his ‘name”
The theme of destiny is revealed from Alfieri’s very first soliloquy, he explains that Eddie Carbone had:
“never expected to have a destiny”
and that the sad thing was that he could have finished the story long before its real conclusion. The story is as old as time itself and Alfieri prepares us for Eddie’s downfall by telling us that lawyers since ancient times have had to sit there powerless at similar situations and watch them “run {their} bloody course”.
Miller also reveals the theme of destiny through the stage directions it is surely an omen of the unfolding tragedy to hear the mournful sound of the fog horn echoing over Brooklyn this implies to me a sense of imminent danger and supports Alfieri’s previous warnings. The sound is accompanied by the visual metaphor of the longshoremen “pitching coins”. Perhaps here Miller is trying to show us that life itself is a game of “chance’. Before we have even met Eddie Carbone then, we have had a clear sense that his fate is already decided which inevitably increases the dramatic tension.
Destiny rapidly unfolds as we see the domestic tensions in the Carbone household exacerbated by the arrival of the “submarines”. Miller cleverly precedes their arrival with the sad tale of Vinnie Bolzano – a “guy” who went against Red Hook’s moral code by deciding to “rat’ on his own relatives. Eddie’s sheer outrage and disbelief at Vinnie’s story:
‘How’s a guy gonna do a thing like that… how’s he gonna show his face”
clearly indicates to us that Miller is sending us a warning. We soon see a reason for our increasing tension at the arrival of the handsome Rodolpho. Catherine’s rapid attraction to him and her need to grow up and “fly the nest’ mean that , like Alfieri, we can see no happy ending to this story and watch with growing tension at Eddie’s transformation.
Eddie’s destiny is fulfilled by Miller in a moving and convincing way because it is so tragic. Eddie fights against admitting to the unfatherly feelings he has towards Catherine – choosing to mask them in allegations that Rodolpho is a “punk “ a “weird’ who is only “bowin’to his passport”. We feel so much sorrow for Eddie as everyone can see that he has “too much love “ for Catherine- except himself. We watch like Alfieri, transfixed as Eddie tries to fight his growing “darkness” within. Alfieri says that :
“Passion had moved into his body, like a stranger”
and this makes the theme of destiny all the more powerful. This image clearly conveys to us that Eddie is in the grip of an inner obsession that he cannot lift –vividly displayed to us in the visual metaphor of Eddie tensely screwing up the newspaper as he fights to maintain a civil façade when speaking to Rodolpho.