A View from the Bridge

by

Arthur Miller

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Themes and Colors
Immigration, Home, and Belonging Theme Icon
Love and Desire Theme Icon
Respect, Honor, Reputation Theme Icon
Justice and the Law Theme Icon
Maturity and Independence Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A View from the Bridge, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Immigration, Home, and Belonging

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…

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Love and Desire

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…

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Respect, Honor, Reputation

One of Eddie’s main concerns in the play is his honor and the respect (or lack thereof) he gets from those around him. Other characters are also concerned with these issues, as matters of personal honor and reputation are of great importance in the close-knit community of Red Hook. But these issues are explored most fully through the character of Eddie. Eddie works hard to support his family and has a proud sense of personal…

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Justice and the Law

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…

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Maturity and Independence

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…

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