My initial reaction to the play was absolutely hideous, and my malcontent was
vibrant. I felt that reading A View From The Bridge was a tedious waste of time
and that the play itself was a trivial piece of literature. I found the play to
be neither intriguing nor interesting in the tiniest fashion. The only aspect
that I found mildly intriguing was the character of the protagonist, Eddie
Carbone, as it miraculously appealed to my passion for psychology.
Unfortunately, this enigma of Eddie’s constitution only guided me through the
first act, where after, I was completely annoyed and jaded. The two-act horror
is centered on the self-delusion of Eddie Carbone, as he is thrust into a
continuously evolving world in which he will not conform. As his environment is
morphing with the times, Eddie feels compiled to halt it, as his pathetic
temperament will not wallow him to cope with the change, or behave in an orderly
fashion. Eddie begins to veil himself from his love for his eighteen-year-old
niece, Catherine, near the commencement of the play, whence he begins to
criticize her and her perfectly normal actions. “Now don’t aggravate me,
Katie, you are walkin’ wavy! I don’t like the looks they’re givin’ you
in the candy store. And with them new high heels on the sidewalk --- clack,
clack, clack. The heads are turnin’ like windmills.”(Page 7) In this quote
we see how Eddie falsely attributes his harshness towards Catherine as
protection, rather than selfishness and his obsession to have her solely to
himself. Another element in Eddie’s constitution is his personal honor, which
he tosses aside whence he takes it upon himself to call the Immigration Bureau
to reveal his nemesis and competitor for Catherine’s love, Rodolpho, to the
police. This is apparent when Alfieri tells Eddie the consequences to him
calling the Immigration Bureau: “You won’t have a friend in the world,
Eddie! Even those who understand will turn against you, even the ones who feel
the same will despise you! Put it out of your mind.”(Page 66) These aspects
are portrayed thoroughly expansively in this horrible excuse for a play, and
have a strong effect on the reader. A View From The Bridge is an unusually
single-minded play and an apparent sense of doom shrouds it. The main ideas are
compiled into one story line, and the play is absent of much needed sub-plots.
In my opinion, these vapid aspects were completely pathetic, yet in an uncanny
manner, extremely human. In one way or another, everyone experiences a hint of
self-delusion or a pinch of personal honor in their everyday lives. I myself am
continually faced with the standing of my own personal honor, especially when
plunged into debates. When faced with such a situation, my own personal honor
becomes a grand old deal, as it disables me form accepting error or fault. Due
to the sense of humanity and realism in Arthur Miller’s catastrophic blunder
of a play, the un-enthused un-amused reader is able to experience a pang of
refreshment. This brief moment of diversion is endured whence they realize that
on some proverbial, undefined level, they are able to connect with the
characters and their emotions and therefore understand the concepts and ideas of
the play. There were many characters in the play that effectively enabled me to
comprehend the subjects of Arthur Miller’s play. For instance the character of
Marco helped me grasp a stronger understanding about personal honor and standing
by your beliefs, as his character exemplified this trait. I also enjoyed the
character of Alfieri, as I found that from his distant pint of view, he
empowered me to understand all the various ideas portrayed in the play from an
unbiased point of view. Though the character of Alfieri aided me the most, I
found the most effective character in the play to be the devil’s spawn
himself, Eddie Carbone, as the play is portrayed mainly through his eyes.
Eddie's shallow, miserable nature is a powerful, hard-hitting aspect noted
extensively in the play. As per previously mentioned, I despised Arthur
Miller’s A View From The Bridge. The two-act, eighty-six-paged horrendous
nightmare will forever be embedded in my mind as a complete was of time and
effort. I despise this pathetic excuse for English literature and wish for it to
blaze in Hades.