How does Miller use Alfieri to inspire Sympathy for Eddie? How successful is he? In his play “A View from the Bridge”, Arthur Miller intends us to feel sympathy towards the protagonist, Eddie Carbone. Miller wants the audience to view Eddie positively, however Eddie displays negative personality traits like aggression, violence and over-protectiveness therefore there is a conflict between how Miller wants us to feel, that Eddie is a tragic hero, and how he actually does behave. The narrator Alfieri is deployed to often defend or explain Eddie’s actions. After Eddie has shown a negative characteristic, Alfieri is deployed to get the audience back on Eddie’s side. Without Alfieri, the audience would dislike Eddie and would immediately reject him. The audience’s views towards Eddie are constantly shifting throughout the play. Miller, like many playwrights, was influenced by Greek theatre. Alfieri’s role is similar to the way the chorus operated in Greek tragedy because he comments on the action throughout the play. Our first impressions of Alfieri are positive. In the ancillary text, he is described as, “a lawyer in his fifties” which suggests that he is an educated and mature man. Alfieri is well dressed in a suit and is very well mannered. It is extremely important that the audience likes and trusts Alfieri if he is to influence the audience’s views of Eddie during the play. This is why Alfieri is dressed smartly and looks experienced right at the beginning of the play. He speaks directly to the audience in an approachable and friendly way using the personal pronoun “you” which shows that he is trying to build a rapport with the audience right from the start of the play. Alfieri is articulate a... ... middle of paper ... ...e is an element of contradiction to Alfieri’s final words because he believes that it is wise to compromise and yet he loves Eddie who refused to. This shows that it is not possible to have a fixed view on Eddie throughout the whole play. Miller uses Alfieri to constantly shift the audience’s view of Eddie by deploying Alfieri every time Eddie shows a negative trait. I think Alfieri finally does inspire sympathy for Eddie although some people may not sympathise with him but completely dislike him because of his negative behaviour. This is Miller’s intention throughout the play because of his use of Alfieri. I do not sympathise with Eddie but i pity him because he knew no better and he was a product of his cultural background. Eddie was not fully equipped for the predicament he faced and his limited intellect led to a tragic event at the end of the play.
... combat power against a numerically superior, well armed, and highly motivated enemy. His unwillingness to adapt to changing conditions was unrealistic and proved fatal.
This shows how greedy and selfish he was for not caring about what anyone else feels, and how he thinks he is the only one that matters.
he could not exist. His place within the society and the acknowledgment of others were crucial to how he
down spiral induced by his ambition which in the end, was the cause of his
a poor ability to be a lawyer. During this time he was in and out of sickness.
was marked by as much misfortune as was his military career. Not till his later
He entered a battle when he had just learned of the uncertain odds, he nearly sacrificed the lives of his family while trying to act the hero in front of them, and he recovered from the death of his wife unnaturally quickly when faced with the prospect of leading a voyage. Though his experiences seem to depict the worst of them, he hints at evidence that he learned from these experiences and emerged a better person because of
I pity him a lot as I feel that he was a young child forced to grow up
then, As a result, He gave up on his father and began to live his life completely separated from
...d depictions of the actual events that led up to his demise (37). It had very few information on his life before his death. It was rather dreary and depressing in other words.
his parents to show them he had hurt him self. At times they even felt
to a very limited geographical space, as was his career. This greatly affected his, in that
solution to his situation at the close of the novel. He realizes that there is
nearly every aspect of life, he was a rather poor student. He blames this mostly to his
His ideal qualities of being intelligent and powerful, but not perfect, were not enough to keep his falling into misfortune. Like many tragic heroes despite their lofty positions who make mistakes they must suffer the consequences. He then becomes an example to us all to what happens when powerful men fall from high positions. The pain he suffered was inflicted upon himself because he though he was powerful enough to control his life but in reality he was powerless. The unavoidable fate to kill his father and marry his mother create pity from the audience for the fact that we can’t control what we were destined to do no matter how hard we