Arthur Miller’s play ‘A View From The Bridge’ Essay

An appealing dimension of Arthur Miller’s play ‘A View From The Bridge’ is the author’s successful creation of a world within the play. Discuss how Miller brings to life the world of the late 1940’s Italian-American community in Red Hook New York. Quote liberally from the text to support your discussion. Arthur Miller was born on 17th October 1915 in New York. Both of his parents were Sicilian immigrants looking for work and a better life in North America. With parents successfully involved in clothing manufacture, the family was very comfortable. He was fortunate enough to be able to attend Michigan University in 1934, which enabled him to achieve his lifetime ambition of becoming a successful play-write. After graduation he worked throughout the Second World War in an all-Italian ship-fitting business. This was where he got his experience of the richness of Sicilian life, combined with the Italian-American community in New York. Miller’s first play The Man Who Had All The Luck was a failure, but All My Sons, written in 1947 was a great success as were his two following plays, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. Following on from these A View from the Bridge was written in 1956, and was first performed at the Comedy Theatre in London. The story of Rodolpho, Catherine, Eddie and Marco gets its roots from the late 1940’s, where the author’s interests lay in the lives and communities of the dockworkers and longshoremen of New York’s Brooklyn Harbour. Miller began talking to a lawyer about a particular case involving two illegal immigrants. His perception was that this was a life of danger and mystery. A few years later, Miller visited Sicily, and during his stay on this island he found his inspiration for the play, and for the world around which it evolves. Referring back to the title of the piece, Arthur Miller has created a real sense of a world within the play. He has done this in three key ways. Firstly the sense of family and community. The reader feels that the tightly packed community, like they are all brothers, but this can so easily be turned around and bonds broken. Following on from that, we read about an Italian-American community, where community laws and Government laws conflict. We perceive that this is a separate community, a divided world, with its own laws, its own beliefs and its own culture. Finally, between the various characters, the language used is diverse. The different accents strongly reflect the Sicilian background which brought back the Italian roots into the American community in New York during the late 1940’s.