A View from the Bridge Themes

The play takes place in an immigrant community—a neighborhood full of Italian immigrants both legal and illegal—and is a vivid portrayal of the immigrant experience in the United States, an immigrant nation founded by those who left their homes in Europe but one that has not always been welcoming to foreigners. As seen in A View from the Bridge, immigrants often come to America because it is, famously, supposed to be the land of…

Love—of one kind or another—is the main motivator of Miller’s characters in this play, and drives the major events of its plot. Catherine’s love for Rodolpho and Eddie’s intense love for Catherine lead to the central problems of the play. But even before this, it is Marco’s love for his family that motivates him to come to America, and it is Beatrice’s love for her extended family that causes her to have Marco and Rodolpho…

The fact that the audience’s guide through the events of the play is Alfieri, a lawyer, suggests that issues of law and justice have a central importance in A View from the Bridge. Specifically, many aspects of the play raise the question of whether the law is an adequate or ultimate authority on what is right and wrong. Throughout the play, the law fails to match up with various characters’ ideas of justice…

If A View from the Bridge is the story of Eddie’s tragic decline, it is also the story of Catherine’s attempted ascent into maturity and adulthood. Over the course of the play, Catherine grows, matures, and attempts to carve out her own independent life, while Eddie struggles to keep her under his control—and his roof. Catherine gradually matures, as she finds a job and begins to assert herself with the help of Beatrice, who…