Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Brooks Atkinson

Critical Essay by Brooks Atkinson

"A View from the Bridge" has power and substance. It is based on a story that Mr. Miller once heard in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he lives. Eddie, an ordinary longshoreman, is unconsciously in love with his niece—the daughter of his wife's dead sister. Early in the play two of his wife's Italian relatives are smuggled in and start to live furtively in Eddie's apartment. Catherine, the niece, falls in love with the younger Italian brother and proposes to marry him.

Eddie does not understand why he opposes the marriage so violently, nor do any of the other people who are involved. Searching around for a plausible reason, Eddie convinces himself that the young Italian is a homosexual whose only motive in marrying Catherine is a chance to legitimize his citizenship in America. But Eddie's real motive is the undeclared, unrecognized, unappeased hunger he has for her himself. Like the...
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