A View from the Bridge

Seite 1

Arthur Miller: Author and Context

1915 Athur Miller born 17 october in New York

1918 End of the First World War

1939-45 Second World War

1945 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans

1947 Arthur Miller completes all my sons, his first major success and wins a Tony award for the play

1949 death of a salesman wins the Pultizer prize

1950 Arther Miller summoned by Senator McCarthy to name Communist sympathisers. He refuses The fine he receives is later quashed by the Supreme Court.

1953 Writes The Crucible

1956 Mrries the film star Marilyn Monroe

2005 Arthur Miller dies on February 11

Part one: Introduction

Setting

A View from the Bridge is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York in the late 1940s. The action mostly takes place in the Carbones' living roomnd dining room in a tenement block.

Setting places

Brooklyn Bridge

Eddie and Beatrice's Apartment

The Docks

Broadway

Alfieri's Office

Characters

Alfieri

Eddie

Beatrice

Marco

Catherine

Rodolpho

Louis and Mike

Part Two: Plot and Action

Act One, Part 1: The Carbones await the arrival of the Italians.

Summary

First alfieri, the lawyer, enters. He talks about the distrust felt for all lawyers in Red Hook where the play is set, secondly Alfieri speaks about justice and the law which are important themes in the play. Next Eddie Carbone, 'a longshoreman' goes into his house where he talks to Beatrice his wife and Catherine, his niece. Following this Catherine is upset when Eddie criticises her clothes and behaviour. After this Eddie informs Beatrice and Catherine that Marco and Rodolpho, Beatrices cousins, have arrived on board ship from Sicily. They are illegal immigrants.