In Act 1 Of A View From The Bridge, Alfieri States

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In Act 1 of A View From the Bridge, Alfieri states ‘ I was powerless to stop it’. How far do you agree with the view that the tragedy of Eddie Carbone is inevitable? Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge unfolds the tale of hardworking longshoreman, Eddie Carbone, who is the protagonist of the play. Eddie Carbone witnesses the breakdown of love and trust in his home and a storm in his mind. Eddie’s tragic downfall is triggered by his inability to understand his ‘improper’ feelings for Catherine, his some what foster daughter, his hubris and his ignorance of the warnings given to him by both Alfieri and his wife, Beatrice. Eddie Carbone’s illicit love for Catherine is ‘ a sin against nature’ , these feeling are what drives him to his Peripeteia, which was calling the Immigration Bureau. Eddie pays for his mistake with his life, his death is an event that must occur to restore order in the community and to perhaps be a warning to the rest of the community as they learn from his mistake. Our understanding of domestic tragedy shows us that tragedy is inevitable; however in A View from the Bridge the tragic death of Eddie Carbone seems evitable. Characters such as Beatrice and Alfieri try to prevent Eddie from making his Peripeteia by giving him warnings and trying to make him understand his feelings for Catherine but Eddie, due to his ignorance and hubris, rejects these. There is an omnipresence of Eddie Carbone’s tragedy, it hangs above him until the final scene of the play. The audience knows that they will watch Eddie’s downfall run ‘its bloody course’ as they are ‘confronted with the situation and [are] told what in effect what the ending’ will be through Alfieri‘s narration in flashback at the beginning of the play. However, the question on their mind is ‘not what [is] going to happen but how it [is] going to happen’. Eddie shares an obsession with
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