A View from the Bridge Quote Bank
pressure of societal expectations including law surrounding immigration - miller may be criticising the focus of the law and what has become important to society, since the law did not increase safety but instead drove apart a broken family
Social respect
‘it’s an honor’ - eddie
‘it ain’t so free here either’ - eddie
‘you was both comin’ to make a livin’ for your family. You understand me, don’t you marco?’ - eddie
‘just as strict’ - eddie
‘he feints with his left hand and lands with his right. It mildly staggers Rodolpho’
‘have respect for her!’ - Rodolpho
‘but what’re you gonna be?’, ‘come on show me! what’re you gonna be? show me!’ - eddie
‘the right kind of fight
critics: ‘‘my only cavil…is the insistent soundtrack throughout’’ - herman
‘eddie has suffered so far because of his own mistakes’ - knife killing eddie represents this
Class
‘gullet of new york’
‘swallowing the tonnage of the world’
‘the front is skeletal entirely’
‘clean, sparse, homely’
‘I see it’s a small house but soon maybe we can have our own house’ - marco
‘worker’s rocker…portable phonograph’
‘imagine! she said they were poor’
‘the people in this neighbourhood lack elegance’
italy
‘in harvest time we work in the fields…if there is work. anything’
‘i would be a criminal stealing your face’
‘in our town horses are only for show…everything in our town you gotta push!’
‘she feeds them from her own mouth’
‘they eat the sunshine’
‘they’ll think it’s a millionaire’s house compared to the way they live’
‘this will be the first house i ever walked into in america’
‘this one’s name is..’
‘i want you to be in a nice office’
‘captain don’t have to live?’
‘a life that was hard and even’ ‘he brought home his pay and lived’
‘we got plenty a room’
‘this man is responsible, this man exists’
‘bowin’ to his passport’
‘i worked like a dog twenty years’
‘i didn’t stand around looking for relief - i hustled’
‘i took out of my own mouth to give to her’
‘i am not a beggar’
‘how can i bring you from a rich country to suffer in a poor country?’
‘if he’s her to work then he should work’
‘where’s his papers, who is he?’
‘broke my back payin’ her stenography lessons…meet a better class of people’
‘i give them the blankets off my bed!’
‘you could be workin’ till the hearing’
‘you have five or six weeks you could work’
‘Marco is ironically entrapped by the myth of the American dream.’ - critic
Gender
beatrice
‘i didn’t even buy a new tablecloth’ ‘what’re you worryin’ about the tablecloth?’
‘i don’t like the way you talk to me beatrice’
‘you got your house now, you got your respect’
‘you got too big a heart. what’re you so touchy?’
‘if you act like a baby’
‘i didn’t know they’re sardines. they’re sardines!’
‘why don’t she be a woman?’
‘wearied with it and concealing a fear of him’
‘i’m sick and tired of it!’
‘what’re you blowin’ off about? who brought them here?’
‘ i wish i’d a drop dead’
‘ you didn’t used to jump me all the time’
‘i do what i feel like doin’’
‘a wife is supposed to believe a husband’
‘she embraces Eddie’s arm with warmth’
‘i told you a hundred times’
catherine
‘now don’t aggravate me katie ,you are walkin’ wavy’
‘i think it’s too short ain’t it?’
‘be a big girl now…keep yourself more’
‘she’s gonna finish school’
‘why didn’t you ask me before you take a job?’
‘i guess i just never figured…that you would ever grow up’
‘you’re the madonna type’
‘i don’t think you listening to me anymore’
‘imperious demand’
‘as if a familiar world had shattered’
‘he’s stealing from me’
‘flush with revolt’
‘i’m afraid of eddie here’
‘steeling herself’
‘that he’ll spank you’
‘i would — just feel ashamed if i made him sad’
‘i’m not a baby’
‘no. im makin a blouse’
‘trembling with fright’
‘you ain’t goin nowheres’
‘he kisses her on the mouth’
‘shakin’ all the time’
‘she can’t go to sleep!
Beatrice = erasure/ignored
Catherine = possession & control
‘the women are more symbolic than substantive, whether an object of unconscious desire (Catherine) or embodying failure and disappointment (Bea)’
Catherine explores whether the hierarchy of masculinity can be challenged successfully by a woman in 1950s American society
Beatrice highlights the pressures