Arthur Miller modeled A View from the Bridge after Greek tragedy: He made the lawyer, Alfieri, the leader of a dramatic chorus, mimicking the ancient Greek dramas of Sophocles and Euripides. As a result, it is Alfieri’s view that defines the action of the play and its unfolding. He remains the play’s narrator throughout, even as he relates scenes to which he was not a witness, and he warns the audience from the beginning that he is powerless to divert the action from its anticipated bloody course. In addition to the chorus, the play incorporates a classical Greek temporal structure: The narrative unfolds at an unusually rapid pace within the conventions of mid-twentieth century American drama. It incorporates few frills; instead, the action of the play is rapid and unrelenting.
Much has been written about the impact upon Miller of the anticommunist witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (also known as HUAC). It is well known that Miller was responding to these events when he wrote The Crucible (pr., pb. 1953), which allegorized the hunt for communists in its tale of the witch trials conducted in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. It could be argued, however, that A View from the Bridge was an even more important play for Miller in his quest to understand and respond to McCarthyism. In fact, Miller used the character of Eddie Carbone as a...
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