A View from the Bridge: Lesson 2

Learning objectives:

• discuss opening stage setting• understand role of the narrator• understand the family relationships/roles

Key terms:• stage setting• narrator• tragedy

Starter: write down a mini-heading, ‘The opening stage setting’.

Read page 3 of the play and write down (1) Who is speaking, (2) What kinds of place the play is set (use words, or quotations,

from the text)(3) How the Italian immigrant community feel about the law/lawyers

31st October, 2006

How to study drama texts

• Drama is a special ‘kind’ of writing, because it is originally meant to be performed in a theatre. When reading a play, you have to imagine how it should be performed. Think of gestures and movements.

• Pay attention to stage directions (in italics)• Playwrights also use non-realistic ways of

allowing an audience to see into the minds/motives of their characters. For example, a character can speak directly to the audience in what is called a ‘soliloquy’.

• A stage setting is the physical layout of the stage where the play is performed

• A narrator is somebody who comments on the action of the other characters by speaking directly to the audience.

• Who is the narrator in A View from the Bridge? Write ‘….. is the narrator.’

Tragedy

• Write down all you know about this word.• A tragedy has …

– A ‘great’ main character whom many respect. He has a fatal ‘flaw’ (a key weakness). He goes back on things which he believes because he is driven by a weakness. He becomes ‘distanced’ from people/person they love

– A fight/confrontation at the end

• A View from the Bridge is a modern tragedy. What can you expect from the play?

Reading from pages 3 to 6.(1) Write down who Eddie Carbone is and your first

impressions of him.

(2) Write down your impressions of Catherine his niece and of the relationship between Eddie and Catherine. Use evidence (quotations ‘’)

• Eddie’s concern over the way Catherine is dressing, attracting attention. He admires her, then criticises her.

•Catherine both wants his approval and resents his control. (She is ‘almost in tears because he disapproves’)

•The way Eddie reminds her of his promise to her mother.

•The advice he gives her.

•The hint that Eddie never approves of other men.

Reading pages 6 to 15.

• Who do you think is right?

• What do you think is Eddie’s main reason for objecting to Catherine working?