![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The powerlessness to which Alfieri refers is an important part of the tradition of the Greek Chorus. ![]() He also comments that he was ‘powerless’ as he watched the story ‘run its bloody course.’ From the start, then, Miller creates that sense of inevitability which is a hallmark of tragedy. He gives the background and context, hints at violence and introduces Eddie in the past tense. Instead, Miller opens the play with a monologue by a lawyer, Alfieri, who provides much the same function as the Greek Chorus. A View from the Bridge is not a musical – there is no group of singers and dancers. The ancient Greek playwrights used a Chorus, a group of actors who danced and sang, interpreting the action, guiding the audience’s response, filling in parts of the story and reacting to events on stage. However, the audience is already aware, because Miller uses a Chorus. In his ‘ clean, sparse, homely’ apartment he enjoys a cosy, loving family life the opening of the play’s action gives little indication of the tragedy to come. Eddie Carbone is a docker, ‘ a husky, overweight longshoreman’, unloading ships in New York. His tragic hero, however, is not a significant figure, but a lowly, ordinary working man. While many subsequent plays might be considered tragic in terms of their plot, when Arthur Miller wrote A View from the Bridge, he consciously modelled his play on the Classical Greek models. When we think of tragedy, we tend to think of Aristotle’s definitions of Greek Classical tragedy, set out in his Poetics. Miller’s Use of the Chorus in a Modern Tragedy ![]()
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