- Home
- > English Literature
- > A View from the Bridge
- > Plot
The Carbone family - Eddie, his wife Beatrice and her orphaned niece Catherine - are poor but content. They live in Brooklyn, where Eddie works at the shipyards.
When Beatrice's Italian cousins, illegal immigrants, arrive to stay, the Carbone family's life changes forever. Their loves and their loyalties are tested - and tragedy [tragedy: A type of drama in which characters undergo suffering or calamity, and which usually ends with a death. A sad or catastrophic event causing suffering or death. ] results.
Act 1a
Alfieri
The play opens with the lawyer Alfieri, who sets the scene. He talks about justice and how, sometimes, justice is dealt with outside the law. He says he has a timeless story to tell - one that ran a "bloody course" he was powerless to prevent - and introduces its hero, Eddie Carbone.
One day Eddie arrives home from the dockyard where he works with some news. He announces that Beatrice's two cousins from Italy have reached New York and they will arrive at the family's home at 10 o'clock that night. It is obvious that the family has often discussed the visit before - Beatrice is anxious that she hasn't completed all the preparations in the house she had intended to welcome them, and Eddie reminds Beatrice not to be so kind to the cousins that he will be turned out of his own bed for them. Yet he then claims it is an honour for him to be able to help them.
Links
© MMX