How Does Miller Portray Eddie Carbone As a Tragic

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How does Miller portray Eddie Carbone as a tragic hero in ‘A View from the Bridge’ The term ‘tragic hero’ comes from ancient Greek theatrical plays. The tragic hero is a main character in a play who is essentially good and has a relationship with the audience. The tragic hero in the play tends to have what is known as a fatal flaw, this is an aspect of the character that causes a general problem or conflict between that character and others. The character may not realise what his/her fatal flaw is but may realise what it is at the climax of the play. In ‘a view from the bridge’ the tragic hero is none other than Eddie Carbone. Eddie is a longshoreman working in the Brooklyn docks. Miller begins the play with an average start as Eddie is returning home from work with his two colleagues Mike and Louis. Eddie then meets his wife Beatrice and his niece Catherine(Katy) at his tenement apartment. Here we begin to see the general life style of Eddie and his relatives and we begin to get a glimpse of Eddie’s fatal flaw through his conversation with Catherine, although it is very minimal at this point in the play. Miller also uses Alfieri , the Carbone family lawyer, as the chorus of the play, meaning that Alfieri describes things to the audience about Eddies life and also indicates the passing of time. Alfieri is also featured in the play when he is not acting as the chorus, through general conversation with Eddie. We begin to see the faults in Eddie and although it is very gradual we can clearly see that Eddie is developing an obsession with his niece Catherine. We see this in the part of the play when Catherine and Beatrice introduce the idea of Catherine getting a job in a large plumbing firm. Eddie’s reaction to this has a slight element of devastation as Eddie tells Catherine that he wants her to finish school properly and get a better job, away from the
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