Al Capone The greatest Carthaginian Essay

The play ‘A View from the Bridge’ is full of suspense which puzzles and mystifies the audience to specify the principle reason behind the tension that causes the immature death of Eddie Carbone. The author Arthur Miller delineates the dreadful ramification of the tension derived from the opening scene of the play. Accordingly, the presence of tension throughout the play keeps the audience alerted for an inexorable tragedy. By way of this, the author tries to pinpoint the other significant themes imminent to the play. Yet, this essay will concentrate upon the techniques that Arthur Miller devises to build up tension in the opening scenes of this play, which dominates the whole parts of the play. At the beginning of the play Alfieri, the lawyer who has originated from Sicily, starts by introducing himself, the area and the people to us. In his opening speech he presents the violent nature of the neighbourhood of Red Hook which refers to 1940s slum area in New York. So, he describes Red Hook and talks about the history of it. When he talks about the gang leader, Al Capone ‘The greatest Carthaginian of all when precisely shot Frankie Yale in half with a machine-gun’, the audience starts thinking of violence and gangsters, and a place which is utterly dangerous. He also describes Red Hook as a slum that triggers the audiences’ attention to think that the place is an uncomfortable one. Alfieri is unlucky as he is connected with disasters. Since he is a lawyer, a very few people like him in fact. This makes the audience think that Alfieri is an unpopular character in the area. However, being a lawyer he must get involved with some uncomfortable incidence and dangerous situations. Although in the middle of his speech he talks about the reality of Red Hook, saying that, ‘now the people are civilised and I no longer keep a pistol in my cabinet’. He still describes Red Hook as a slum and yet keeps feeling discomfort in the area. So far, it gives the audience a sight of relief that the area has calmed down. In this regard, he states that, ‘out of all of my clients I admire Eddie Carbone the most, a longshoreman working the docks from Brooklyn Bridge to the breakwater were open scene begins’. This amplifies the tension, already in the audiences’ mind to enquire into the fact why this is. And this tension takes the audience to the main conflict between the characters where Eddie is in trouble in controlling his family. The relationship between Eddie and Catherine (Eddie’s niece) is very confusing, as a normal family wouldn’t act like he does in the play. This confusion comes into play when Eddie tells Catherine that her skirt is too short. So their conversation reveals that they are in an argument, as they argue: Eddie- I think it’s too short, ain’t it? Catherine- NO! Not when I stand up. Eddie- Yeah, but you gotta sit down sometimes. In this speech there are plenty of strong feelings of resentment, where Catherine doesn’t think her skirt is short but Eddie does. The reason for this antagonism is due to all the male suppression being turned to Catherine. Eddie being a man and also being obsessed with his male authority actively tries to manipulate Catherine’s private life. Eddie is jealous, so Catherine doesn’t know what he is talking about. One more is when Catherine greets Eddie saying, ‘hi’ and Eddie is pleased and therefore, becomes shy. The audience are now in a puzzle to understand why he is shy. A normal person wouldn’t act in this way to their niece what makes the audience think why Eddie is behaving in such a mysterious way. Therefore, this mystifies the audience and brings tension as they would like to know why these unnatural activities are happening. The relationship between Eddie and Beatrice is again not like a normal husband and wife. Beatrice dominates Eddie too much; she disagrees to Eddie most of the time and doesn’t appreciate him at all. The reason for this is because Eddie gives much attention on Catherine than Beatrice. It goes to such an extent which seems Catherine is more important to him. This makes Beatrice getting upset. These are the downfalls in their relationship that leads them to departing from their normal married life. Eddie doesn’t appreciate Beatrice anymore; we notice signs of this problem when Eddie asks Beatrice, ‘are you mad at me lately’. And Beatrice replies back in a very irritated way, ‘I’m not mad, you’re mad. ‘ This makes the audience think how could a wife talk to her husband in such a impolite way; maybe this is because Beatrice is upset with Eddie as he is not caring about her that much, and putting all his attention to Catherine. A good concrete example of this is when Eddie stands face to face with the two seated women Catherine and Beatrice. Beatrice smiles at Eddie and so to Catherine; Eddie looks at Catherine and smiles at her which makes Beatrice feel very uncomfortable. Eddie doesn’t want to let go off Catherine and wants her to stay beside him all the time. So, he doesn’t want to let Catherine work. We now know that Eddie and his wife Beatrice’s relationship is not going to last for long because of Eddie’s obsession to Catherine. The audience can assume, from this conflict, what types of social phenomenon exists at that society. Thus, the conflict becomes apparent in that American society where huge migrants including Sicilian start living there. The way the American federal government deals with their law is completely different to how the people of Sicily deal with that. America only observes the literal interpretation of law written in a law book. So, if anybody goes and tells the police about someone who infringes any minor branch of law according to the strict rule becomes a good person for his/her extreme cooperation. On the contrary, Sicilian Code of honour differs with the American federal laws. In Sicily the community law is much stronger making the community people safe regardless of infringing any minor laws, such as immigration laws. If anyone does not abide by or observe this, s/he has to face the hatred of others. In that respect, a striking example becomes apparent when we find Vinny Bonzano had informed the immigration office about his uncle who had been hiding in his house. He broke the Code of Honour and for this treachery, he was punished and abused physically by his five older brothers and father. Eddie Carbone adopts similar kind of betrayal when he finds Rodolpho and Catherine having a relationship. He cannot bear this to continue any further. So, the only way to destroy their relationship is by informing the immigration officers that he is an illegal migrant, even though Eddie realises that people including his own wife are going to rebel on him. However, he still goes through it —- because his jealousness and personal vendetta is uncontrollable —- and virtually he embraces the consequence — the death. By and large, it seems that the whole play turns to its final fatality where all characters bear some responsibility, however trivial in some extent, which descends to the tragic death of Eddie. Arthur Miller builds up such tension by showing difficulties in the relationship between Eddie and Catherine as well as Beatrice. The way he shows the conflict between American and Sicilian justice is really remarkable. He does this so well that we are ready for the predicament that happens when Marco and Rodopho arrive and he also prepares us for the tragedy of Eddie’s downfall to come into death.