A View from the Bridge

Arthur MillerTuesday 19 January 2021

Module Introduction:

• To develop analysis of contemporary drama texts

• To analyse dramatic devices, language and structure and how they contribute to character and theme.

• To explore characters, context and themes

Learning Purposes this lesson

➢Consider contextual factors to help understand influences on the writer/text

➢Consider how dramatists use dramatic devices for particular effects

➢Consider how the use of setting and stage directions contribute to characterisation.

Recap from previous learning

1. What play did you recently study?

➢2. What helps define a tragedy?

➢3. What are the conventions you associate with a play?

Future Learning

➢To study Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.

➢To analyse elements of the play such as characterisation, themes and stagecraft.

Reading task

•Read the worksheet about the writer and the play and then answer the questions on the task sheet.

•You have up to 30 minutes for this task

•Work in silence (make sure your microphone is muted)

• If you have any questions type them into the chat

Context and setting

Section 1: Arthur Miller

1. Which event affected Arthur Miller’s parents’ business?

2. What did Miller study at university that influenced his life?

3. After his graduation, what work did Miller do apart from writing?

4. What was Miller’s first successful play?

5. For which play did Miller win the Pulitzer Prize?

6. Do you think Miller was considered a political writer? Provide a quotation to support your answer.

7. Which famous actress did Arthur Miller marry?

8. There are a number of references to Timebends. What is Timebends?

Context and setting

Section 2: A View from the Bridge

1. Where is the play set?

2. Does Miller have any experience of the place and people he is writing about? Provide a quotation to support your answer.

3. Miller describes the waterfront as ‘the Wild West’. What do you think he means by this?

4. ‘A longshoreman who had ratted to the Immigration Bureau’. What do you understand ‘ratted’ to mean in this context?

5. How do you think Miller is affected by his visit to Sicily in Italy?

6. How did Miller initially write the play, and why?

Context and setting

Section 3: In Performance

1. What is the main setting for the play, that is the focus of the action?

2. Who is the first character we will expect to see/hear from?

3. What might we expect to happen to the main character? Why do you think this?

4. Which characters do you think we will be encouraged to feel sympathy for? Why?

5. What do you think is the significance of the references to Italy?

Context and setting: the playwright

Arthur Miller is best known

for his mid-20th Century

plays, ‘Death of a Salesman’,

‘All My Sons’, ‘The Crucible’

and ‘A View from the Bridge’.

Miller’s plays explore moral

and political dilemmas and

the struggle to do what is right

when dealing with conflicting

emotions.His plays are set in contemporary

America and portray realistic characters

and events.

He also worked in the

shipyards for two years and here

heard about illegal immigrants

who were exploited by those in

powerful positions in

business/America. This inspired

him to write A View from the

Bridge.

He was born to a Jewish immigrant family in 1915.

His family moved to Brooklyn, where Miller had to

work in a warehouse.

Setting• The play is set just after the Second World War and is

the story of Italian immigrants living in New York.

• The play is set in Red Hook, a poor neighbourhood in Brooklyn, dominated by dock workers called longshoremen.

• The play also deals with aspirations to escape poverty and move away from the area.

• Following the war, Italy was a very poor country and many Italians left for America for the hope of a better life and prospects.

• There was also a thriving trade in illegal immigration, particularly around the dock area of Brooklyn, where the play is set, who would provide cheap labour in the shipyards.

Setting: Red Hook, Brooklyn

• Considering the setting of Red

Hook, how can setting be an

important component in

drama?

• How might it help with the

narrative and portrayal of

character?

Act One: Read the Stage Directions

• From ‘The street and house front of a tenement building’ to ‘grinning, speaks to the audience.’

Discussion point: How does this initial setting help create your first impressions of the play?

Task: Miller was very precise in his stage directions. He liked them followed carefully. Sketch out how the set might have looked on the stage. Annotate from the stage directions, using the next slide to help you. Some have been done for you.

A round dining table at

centre

Mr Alfieri’s law

office

A rocker down front.

A telephone

booth

Reading Act One

•Read Alfieri’s opening speech (we will listen to the BBC Sounds adaptation)

Discussion:

•The role of Alfieri as a narrator (chorus)

•How he presents the protagonist (as sympathetic)

•How he hints at the tragedy that will unfold

Reading Act One

•Continue reading (listening) up to (p.15) ‘The lights fade on Alfieri and rise on the street.’

Discussion points:

•How Eddie’s character is established

•The relationship between Catherine and Eddie

•The presentation of the family

Questions: Pages 1-7 (checking understanding)1. How are the Carbone family presented at the start of the play? Consider them as individuals and as a family unit.

2. Why is Beatrice so nervous and worried about the arrival of the cousins? How does Eddie ease her worries and what does this suggest about Eddie’s character at this point in the play?

Questions: pages 7-15 Find quotations to support these comprehension questions:

1. What are Eddie’s concerns about Catherine getting a job as a stenographer?

2. What does Beatrice suggest is behind Eddie’s reluctance?

3. Why does Eddie again warn the two women not to talk about the cousins outside of the house?

4. What happened to Vinny Bolzano?

5. How do the family react to this story? What does it tell us about the Red Hook, Italian community?

6. What signs are there in this section of the closeness between Eddie & Catherine? Is there anything unusual about their relationship?

Character profile: Eddie

• Eddie is 40 years old and an American of Sicilian/Italian descent.

• He is described as “a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman.”

• He is the master of his house – expecting everyone to do as he says (patriarchal) He is a ‘manly’ character – in appearance and in his job as a longshoreman.

• He expects other men to be the same as him

• Eddie is a generous character who is also very protective (perhaps over-protective)

Look out for other characteristics he has which lead to the final tragedy – these are character flaws

Character profile: Beatrice

• Beatrice is Eddie’s wife, and they have no children of their own. They have brought up their niece, Catherine.

• She respects Eddie’s authority in the house and defers to his commands.

• She is a very loving, caring person but also appears nervous.

Think about her relationship with Eddie and what may be the cause of any problems between them.

Character profile: Catherine

• Catherine is the 17-year-old niece of Beatrice’s sister Nancy.

• She has been taken in by the Carbones after the death of her mother.

• She loves Eddie like a father and would do anything for him.

• She is growing up and is seeking more independence.

What are the areas of conflict for Catherine?

Extension task: continue reading Act 1

•Read 16-25 up until ‘Eddie: I’m too tired. Goin’ to sleep.’

•Consider:

•The atmosphere when the cousins arrive

•The work ethic of the Sicilians

•Eddie’s changing feelings towards Rodolfo