ARTHUR MILLER: A View from the Bridge Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this passage carefully, and then answer the question that follows it: Alfieri: Eddie, I want you to listen to me. [Pause.] You know, sometimes God mixes up the people. We all love somebody, the wife, the kids – every man's got somebody that he loves, heh? But sometimes .. there's too much. You know? There's too much, and it goes where it mustn't. A man works hard, he brings up a child, sometimes it's a niece, sometimes even a daughter, and he never realizes it, but through the years - there is too much love for the daughter, there is too much love for the niece. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? 5 Eddie [sardonically]: What do you mean, I shouldn't look out for her good? Alfieri: Yes, but these things have to end, Eddie, that's all. The child has to grow up and go away, and the man has to learn to forget. Because after all, Eddie – what other way can it end? [Pause.] Let her go. That's my advice. You did your job, now it's her life; wish her luck, and let her go. [Pause]. Will you do that? Because there's no law, Eddie; make up your mind to it; the law is not interested in this. 10 Eddie: You mean to tell me, even if he's a punk? If he's – Alfieri: There's nothing you can do. [EDDIE stands.] Eddie: Well, all right, thanks. Thanks very much. Alfieri: What are you going to do? Eddie [with a helpless but ironic gesture]: What can I do? I'm a patsy, what can a patsy do? I worked like a dog twenty years so a punk could have her, so that's what I done. I mean, in the worst times, in the worst, when there wasn't a ship comin' in the harbor, I didn't stand around lookin' for relief – I hustled. When there was empty piers in Brooklyn I went to Hoboken, Staten Island, the West Side, Jersey, all over because I made a promise. I took out of my own mouth to give to her. I took out of my wife's mouth. I walked hungry plenty days in this city! [It begins to break through.] And now I gotta sit in my own house and look at a son-of-a-bitch punk like that - which he came out of nowhere! I give him my house to sleep! I take the blankets off my bed for him, and he takes and puts his dirty filthy hands on her like a goddam thief! 15 20 25 Alfieri [rising]: But, Eddie, she's a woman now. Eddie: He's stealing from me! Alfieri: Eddie She wants to get married, Eddie. She can't marry you, can she? [furiously]: What're you talkin' about, marry me! I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about! [Pause.] 30 Alfieri: I gave you my advice, Eddie. That's it. [EDDIE gathers himself. A pause.] Eddie: Well, thanks. Thanks very much. It just – it's breakin' my heart, y'know. I – Alfieri: I understand. Put it out of your mind. Can you do that? Eddie: I'm – [He feels the threat of sobs, and with a helpless wave.] I'll see you around. [He goes out up the right ramp.] 35 Alfieri [sits on desk]: There are times when you want to spread an alarm, but nothing has happened. I knew, I knew then and there – I could have finished the whole story 40 that afternoon. It wasn't as though there was a mystery to unravel. I could see every step coming, step after step, like a dark figure walking down a hall toward a certain door. I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end. And I sat here many afternoons asking myself why, being an intelligent man, I was so powerless to stop it. I even went to a certain old lady in the neighborhood, a very wise old woman, and I told her, and she only nodded, and said, 'Pray for him...' And so I - waited here. 45 [From Act 1] In what ways does Miller make this such an emotionally intense moment in the play?