A View from the bridge Essay Example for Free

A View from the bridge Essay The play is set in the Red Hook district of New York where a Sicilian community has set up, and where respect is everything. The play is set in the 1940s, in the great depression.  Eddie Carbone is the main character of the play, and one of Arthur Millers main concerns with him is his psychological state of mind. The play concentrates from the first word to the last full stop on the way Eddie clashes with his emotions, as his niece, Catherine, matures into a young woman and constructs a serious relation ship with an illegal immigrant who is staying with them. Arthur Miller was born on October 17th, 1915, in New York. Both of his parents were immigrants, but the family was quiet wealthy because of his fathers successful clothing business, until it was declared bankrupt following the crash at the stock exchange.  Miller then went to work as a warehouseman to earn money to go to the university of Michigan in 1934.  Miller whilst studding, Economics and History also took a course in playwriting and then became his main fixation. After his graduation in 1938, he became a journalist and wrote radio scripts. During World war two Miller worked as a ship fitter for two years, in Brooklyn Navy Ship yard, where almost all the workers were of Italian descendant.  His first stage play to be produced, The Man Who Had All the Luck, was a total failure when it was staged on Broadway in 1944. But in 1947 All My sons was an immense success. This was followed by another great success two years later, Death of a Salesman, this play was such a success it won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1953 he wrote The Crucible, which he wrote as his reaction to the hounding down on left wing sympathizers, which was the current trend in the United States of America, he himself was summoned. A view from the bridge was his next play. It was first produced as a one-act play in 1955, but an extended and modified in 1956 and then was presented at the Comedy Theatre in London.  Also in 1956 he divorced his first wife and married his second wife Marilyn Monroe, which in turn boosted his celebrity status. But this marriage was short lived and a divorce was settled in 1961.  Miller has continued to produce a number of successful plays and has written an autobiography Timebends in 1987.  The play A View from the bridge was thought up by Arthur Miller in the late 1940s, when he became engrossed in the lives and work of longshoremen in New Yorks Brooklyn harbour, and where he had previously worked. A lawyer friend of Millers told him a story he had heard of a longshoreman who had informed the Immigration board on two of his own relatives who were staying with him, he did this to break up an engagement between one of them and his niece.  The story ended inevitably in tragedy with the mans death.  Eddie is portrayed as an honest, hardworking man, however soon into the play his character changes,  and from the very few lines of the play the main character Eddie is trying to protect his niece Catherine from other men and save her for himself:  Catherine: But those guys look at all the girls, you know that. Eddie: You aint all the girls.  This clearly shows that Catherine is very special to Eddie and he will do any thing to protect her.  The further on into the play you go the more it becomes apparent that Eddie is emotionally unstable and is not ready to deal with his inner emotions, he turns out quiet nasty and an overall angry person towards life:  I aint starting nothing, but I aint goanna stand around looking at that  This aggression is directed at his wife Beatrice and a relative named Rodolpho who at this time has started dating his beloved niece.  The further on in the play Eddie starts to show his anger in other ways, mainly by insulting and talking about Rodolpho behind his back: