����ý

The structure of a text means the way the writer has put it together. Sometimes events can follow on chronologically from earlier events, with a clear beginning, middle and ending. At other times the writer may decide to experiment with time, using flashbacks or going back and forth between the past and the present; sometimes a text can even be set in the future!

A View from the Bridge is structured in two acts. The action is held together by �����ھ������’s narration, which explains events which happened in the past. If you can, imagine �����ھ������’s appearances as telegraph posts at regular intervals along a road. Then imagine that Miller joins these posts together with telephone wires. These are the scenes with the other characters, showing the audience the events being acted out in the present. The first act allows the audience to get to know the characters and realise that Eddie is on a course to self-destruction. It ends with a powerful image of Marco holding a heavy chair above his head with just one arm, as if in triumph. The second act ends with Eddie’s death, which although not unexpected, is still a shock to the audience in its violence.

�����ھ������’s appearances

• We first see him in his role as narrator in the opening scene of the play. In classical tragedies, there was a chorus who would move the action along, and explain what was happening to the characters, both mentally and physically. Most modern drama shows this through the actors themselves, but the Ancient Greek tradition is adapted skilfully by Miller in this play. This first speech ends with Alfieri saying that Every few years there is still a case which reminds him that some human emotions are eternal and almost incomprehensible. The case of Eddie Carbone was one of these and the law was powerless; all Alfieri could do was watch it run its bloody course.
• The second time we see Alfieri is again as a narrator. It is just a brief speech, saying that Eddie Carbone had never expected to have a destiny. He goes on to say that we are all in the same position; we are born, we suffer, sometimes there is some happiness if we are lucky, and then we die. This is the human condition. Alfieri explains it this way; A man works, raises his family, goes bowling, eats, gets old and then he dies. Very few of us experience anything different. But, as Alfieri says, for Eddie now there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away.
• The third appearance by Alfieri shows him in his dual role of narrator first and then in character as a lawyer. He tells the audience, It was at this time that he first came to see me. He also says that he had represented [Eddie’s] father in an accident case some years before.
• �����ھ������’s fourth appearance is at the start of Act two. He sets the scene for the audience – On the twenty-third of that December a case of Scotch whisky slipped from a net while being unloaded. This comes just before a shocking scene in which Eddie kisses first Catherine and then Rodolpho, before throwing Rodolpho out of the apartment.
• The fifth time we see Alfieri is when he is visiting Marco in prison. Alfieri needs to convince Marco that if somebody obeys the law, he lives. That’s all. He insists that all the law is In a book. There is no other law. He adds, only God makes justice.
• Finally, in his sixth appearance, Alfieri closes the play as a narrator, just as a Greek chorus does. He summarises what has taken place. He says that he saw something "perverselypure" in Eddie, and for that I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients. However, he does admit that he mourns him with a certain... alarm. These final words emphasise how close Alfieri thinks we all are to acting like Eddie. Every person, no matter how reasonable or law-abiding, has a breaking point.

Where is the action set?

Most of the action takes place in the Carbones’ apartment, emphasising their closeness to each other, which can sometimes be claustrophobic. Every appearance by Alfieri is set in his office, and the rest of the action is played out in the street. In fact, Eddie dies in the street in front of all his neighbours. One very important scene is set in the telephone box, which glows an eerie blue colour (blue is the colour often chosen by film directors to create a ghostly atmosphere) when Eddie is about to use it to call the Immigration Authorities.