In What Ways Does Arthur Miller Establish Character in

A view from the bridge is a play written by Arthur Miller, which features five main Characters, Eddie, the main protagonist, Beatrice, Eddie’s wife, Catherine, Eddie’s niece and Marco and Rodolpho who are Beatrice’s cousins and have arrived illegally into the USA.

The first way that Arthur Miller establishes character in this play is the smart use of Alfieri, the narrator (who gets involved in the play more directly sometimes as a lawyer). When Eddie went to see him, he mentioned that “his eyes were like tunnels” and “that it was a passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger”. Because it would seem out of place for a character to continue in dialogue about ones appearance, Arthur Miller uses Alfieri instead as he can easily say what character’s can’t because he can address the audience directly.

Another way that Arthur Miller gives us an understanding of Characters is through the simple use of dialogue. Because Beatrice says “when am I gonna be a wife again” and “what’s the matter Eddie, you don’t like me, heh?” and Catherine who talks about the “Paramount” and “the picture that we saw”. Because of this we can determine things like Beatrice and Eddie are having problems with their marriage or that Catherine is having a great time and is enjoying herself very much.

Arthur Miller also uses Rodolpho to establish character because, Eddie is saying that Catherine is “walking wavy” and saying that her “dress is too short” We can determine that Eddie is obsessive and overprotective and about Catherine. Without the presence of Rodolpho, Eddie’s obsession would grow slowly. But in the play Rodolpho falls in love with Catherine, which makes Eddie’s obsession grow rapidly because he thinks Rodolpho is marring Catherine because “he just wants his papers”. Effectively using Rodolpho as a Catalyst helps build Eddie’s character faster.

A fourth way Arthur Miller creates Character is the creation of accent. To achieve this he commonly misspells words, for example “something” he sometimes spells as “sumpthing” or “sumpting”. Furthermore, he also achieves this with his frequent uses the apostrophe (‘) in common phrases such as “y’know” and taking of the final “g” in infinitive verbs like “loadin’”. Every character uses them but the difference is in how frequently. Catherine, being raised and lived in the USA her whole life rarely uses it. On the contrary, Marco has this on almost every line.

A way Arthur Miller establishes character is the choice of words what each character uses. Marco uses frequently “I beg your pardon” and apologetic words like “sorry”, which shows Eddie has a very strong influence over as Marco is apologizing a lot and that Marco is very attentive of what is going on and thinks carefully before he speaks.

A final way that Arthur Miller establishes character is the use of stage directions. To describe Eddie, Arthur Miller wrote “Eddie is downstage, watching as she puts a spoonful of sugar into his up, his face puffed with trouble and the room dies”. However plays usually achieve something like that through acting and long passages are not written. Arthur Miller’s stage directions are comparable to a descriptive passage in a novel; therefore it works well in describing characters.