The Contrasting of America and Italy in A View from the Bridge :: English Literature

The Contrasting of America and Italy in A View from the BridgeArthur Millers A View from the Bridge presents many different viewsof America, not only do you see America done the look of anImmigrant but also through the eyes of the regular working mountain, forinstance the longshoremen.Within Alfieris speech, we get our beginning ideas of what America waslike for Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine. The speech highlights,cultural connections Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in halfby a machine gun on the loge of Union Street this shows theinfluence and grip the Mafia had everywhere American kitchen-gardening in the 1950s.When describing the area, where Eddie and Beatrice live, he describesit as the slum that faces the bay which gives the impression, of arun bundle area where only the poor live. He uses the simile the gulletof smart York, swallowing the tonnage of the world. Which gives imageof a place that has boats coming from all over the world laden withcargo and more. It g ives Red Hook, the image of an unsightly place,where people have to work to their limit to feed and support theirfamilies.In my horizon Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine are there to show thetypical Italian American family of the 1950s. Their residence is whatmost of the longshoremen and their families would live in. It is onlya small tenement flat. In the early section of Act One, Millercontrasts the flat, to the living conditions in Sicily and ConfederateItaly, he voices the comparison through Eddies response, toBeatrices worries round needing a new hedge cloth and cleaning theflat, which is listen, theyll think this its a millionaires housecompared to the way they live. This is showing, wherefore there were somany immigrants coming into America, the living conditions were so practically better than in their countries, even the poorest were living likeKings in the eyes of the immigrants.Catherine, I believe is symbolising the future, because she is theone, who wants to move on w ith her life, and become a stenographer andwork for a company. But Eddie, who still believes in the primitive waysthat the man should do the working, tries to discourage her fromtaking the business line. In a way, Catherine being offered the job is showingthe American Way that anyone can get a job in America, even animmigrant.But soon the conversation turns back to Beatrices immigrant cousinsand about the American Immigration Bureau. This gives the image of acountry full of rules and regulations, a place where there is law and