Arthur Miller has written about the concern which he shows in his plays with man's responsibility as a social being, not merely as an individual. How far do you agree that the tragedy which overtakes the characters of «A view from the bridge» is caused by social, not personal factors?


In the play «A view from the Bridge» Eddie Carbone lives with his wife Beatrice and Beatrice's niece Catherine in America. Although there isn't a parents-daughter relationship, they all love Catherine very much. They are poor but happy. Rodolfo and his brother Marco are illegalimmigrants from Sicily who came to America looking for jobs. They are cousins of Beatrice, so Beatrice and Eddie help them by letting them live in their house. The whole problem starts when Catherine falls in love with Rodolfo, who, from Eddie's point of view, is not good enough for Catherine, but the truth is that Eddie is jealous of Rodolfo. After many times of trying to break up the love between Catherine and Rodolfo and never worked, Eddie goes to Immigration Bureau to tell police to arrest the two illegalimmigrants. Marco is furious about Eddie's action; this brings a fight between them where Eddie ends up killed by Marco.

This is a tragedy because it is caused by human actions and the main character, Eddie, is killed. As far as I am concerned, for that tragedy to take place, social factors that are present in human's community are more important than personal factors.

An important personal factor that influence on the tragedy is the fact that Eddie is in love with Catherine without himself noticing, this special feeling made him to be jealous when he discovers that Catherine loves Rodolfo. Eddie starts thinking ways that could stop Catherine's love to Rodolfo. And as Catherine is his niece and he always betrayed her as a little girl, he didn't realize that his bad impression of Rodolfo is some part from his jealousy, he thinks he is merely protecting Catherine because Rodolfo is not good enough for her.

Eddie's decision to go to Immigration Bureau is a personal factor, when police arrested the two brothers, Marco called Eddie "a rat" in front of his neighborhood, and the furious reaction of Marco is also personal. The fact that Eddie is so deeply in mind of Marco called him "a rat" is personal because he is a respectful man. He couldn't accept his neighbors looking at him in a different unrespectable way; this conducts him to insist wanting Marco to say sorry. This chain of personal factors has partly caused the fighting between the two men. Although these personal factors have driven the tragedy, I think the main cause is still from society.

From my point of view, the big problem in the play is that Rodolfo is an illegalimmigrant from Sicily. His social position has greatly affected the way that others look at him in America, it is normal that people will think he is not a good man for Catherine, who is a beautiful American citizen. Also, Rodolfo's humor sense seems not very acceptable by his colleagues, Louis and Mike's laughs about Rodolfo have made Eddie more worried about him, and worse feelings against him.

Apart from Rodolfo, Eddie, as a reserved and old-fashioned man, it is normal that he feels he is responsible of protecting women in his family, as man from old American society used to do. Thinking of this, we can see it is obvious that Eddie would want Catherine's rest of life the best, not suffering more problems of poverty. Also, Eddie thinks that Rodolfo doesn't really love Catherine; all he wants is to be an American citizen, which he would achieve if he marries her. Eddie wouldn't come up with this idea if there is no social difference between them.

The Sicilian custom of revenging wrongs suffered by the family has caused the fight between Marco and Eddie. Marco wanted to take the law into his own hands, this is typical of Sicilian society, and he is also protecting his family member all time. The first time Eddie hit Rodolfo, Marco has revenged, and that was a warning to Eddie to not hurt even a hair of his family member, otherwise he will be in trouble. Later, when Marco knew Eddie has told police to arrest him and Rodolfo, he didn't doubted of go to Eddie and kill him. This strong characteristic is from Sicily, it has grown with Sicilian society, not only in Marco's mind.

Comparing these personal and social factors together, I think that social factors weight more than personal factors. Although personal factors partly caused and conducted the tragedy in the play, the main cause is of the society.
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