Analysis of 'A View From The Bridge' Monologue

'A View From The Bridge' is a play written by the great Arthur Miller. It's a story revolving around the Carbone family: Eddie Carbone; his wife Beatrice; their adopted niece Catherine. The family lawyer Alfieri is the peacemaker and narrator of the play and like most dramatic theater, he kicks off the play with a dramatic monologue (known as a prologue if it's at the beginning)

'My wife has warned me, so have my friends; they tell me the people in this neighbourhood lack elegance, glamour. After all, who have I dealt with in my life? Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers, compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles – the petty troubles of the poor – and yet . . . every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is, the flat air in my office suddenly washes in with the green scent of the sea, the dust in this air is blown away and the thought comes that in some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse, another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course.' - extract from Alfieri's monologue.

I think Arthur Miller wanted to portray Alfieri as a character whose life is quite repetitive and boring now, 'who have i dealt with in my life?' - suggesting no real importance in what he does now. In addition to this, Miller uses polysyndetic listing. The technique is usually used to express repetitiveness, boredom, a sense of never-ending. Using it here, I believe, shows exactly how Alfieri's life is ultimately boring and never-changing, but also makes the 'and yet...' stand out even more as it's a signal that he is about to contradict everything he started off saying. 

On the contrast, the next set of asyndetic listing brings forth a different aspect of Alfieri's life. The change of lexical field implements a new time-frame in Alfieri's life. The switch from 'compensation', 'evictions', 'squabbles', 'troubles', to 'green scent of the seas', 'cliffs of Syracuse', to me, implies he was talking of a time once lost. A past but not a forgotten past. Miller used the technique of imagery to combine with the asyndetic listing to show Alfieri is, to an extent, reminiscing of a past time - probably more enjoyable past.

Analysis of a chosen text that plays with language.

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone
Man has created death.

- by W.B.Yeats


What strikes me about this poem is the effect the vocabulary Yeats uses creates a tense atmosphere around me. The 'supersession of breath' is a truly striking line as it portrays breath as inferior when faced with death. The use of said low frequency lexis adds to the eerie feel the short poem already emits. 'Man has created death.' The direct impact of the final line to some could be of some confusion. Can man really be the cause of death? In a biblical sense, maybe so. 'He knows death to the bone' would suggest death is an experience man is particularly familiar with; Yeats' word choice creates thought-provoking verses; I think helps to present his own beliefs, which I believe, are that men are 'murderous' and the cause of the world's 'death'. Yeats, however, was a World War poet so his beliefs could also be that the 'murderous men' may only be in the war sense and that man is the death of man.
This piece interests me both because of the vocabulary used and each individual message/theme that could be deciphered.

My Text - Little Red Cap by Carol Ann Duffy

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out
into playing fields, the factory, allotments
kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, 
the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, 
till you came at last to the edge of the woods. 
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. 

He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud 
in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, 
red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, 
sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, 

my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,
my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes

but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, 
breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
and went in search of a living bird – white dove –

which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth.
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,
licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,
warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

But then I was young – and it took ten years 
in the woods to tell that a mushroom
stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,
season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw 
the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. 

I love the language used within the poem. The use of asyndetic listing is used to show a never-ending list; the repetitiveness of her life; the boredom.  ''same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason.''  The use of sibilance helps the fluency of the line and makes it more memorable - a useful technique to draw in readers.  I also like the ''virgin white of my grandmother's bones'' which could be interpreted in many different ways. It could be the direct link to the original story but it could mean something deeper. It could be after killing him she's taken back something she had long lost. The repossession of the ''white dove'' in which he ate - her freedom. It may also be her regaining her virginity, she could once again be the cute, innocent representation of herself

Changing the register.

Formal register:
'But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.'



Informal register:
'But there is something that I should say to people, who stand on the warm entrance that takes us into Justice's palace: On our way to gaining our rightful place, we mustn't be guilty of bad things. Let's not look to please our thirst for freedom by drinking from a cup of anger and hate. We must always carry out our struggle on the high plane of dignity and control. We mustn't let our creative outcry to turn into hitting others. Again and again, we have to stand up to the grand heights of meeting strong force with soul force.'

Armstrong and Miller RAF Pilots D-Day Language Analysis

What is interesting about this video is that the creator uses a clever combination of colloquial register and received pronunciation to create humour. The use of taboo language when not entirely necessary also helps to add to the humour. The fact their characters are politically incorrect, it's ironically humorous, the fact they believe they are well-versed in 'diversity' issues.

 'Donkey rides is cruel blud, 'cus they don't like aks the donkey?' This is quite funny as you wouldn't expect an adult to use words like 'blud' and 'cus' which are associated with the modern teen sociolect. In addition to this, the repetition of common taboo language - shit - is also very familiar to modern teen speech or slang, this further adds to the humour and also adds to the irony that they think they fit in but they clearly do not.  Furthermore when Miller says 'you talking 'bout my granddad?' it's another usual factor in the teen sociolect as they are seen/heard saying 'your mum, my mum, your dad etc' adding insult to injury by adding family into the mix.

The racial diversity factor also adds to the humor of the video. Miller is asked to black his face with camouflage, he says 'Do i look like a mad racist?', Armstrong then states this isn't the 'old times' and he needs to get 'some diversity training. This is funny because Armstrong and Miller think they are going to the beach as a holiday - when they are in fact going into war. Also the fact they are both pilots in an army vehicle also adds to the irony. Making the mini scene that bit more funny.

About Myself

Once upon a time...
'Twas a cold winter's night in the cold month of December. The twenty-ninth day of said month, of the year 1996. 04:00am ticked the clock, which was met with the sound of a newborn's cry. At that exact moment, that one, truly beautiful moment... Junior Cadima was born. The story begins where Junior grew up, the lovely town of Dagenham in Essex. Where he spent eight years of his life attending Beam Primary County School - an aspiring school which produced intellectual talent. After the said time, he moved to the grand, cosmopolitan city of Bristol. One of the biggest accomplishments in Bristol was conquering the GCSE and leaving with ten of them - despite being faced with both financial and domestic problems.
Junior was a man with great dreams - to be one of the greatest footballers that ever lived. A truly ambitious man who lived up to legend and excelled in whatever he decided to do. He has, however, embarked on a new journey at St Brendan's. Where I know, we know, he will excel also.
Junior's had a rough start: moving schools; befriending new companions; moving homes. Although he's taken a break from his dream I am sure this is just the beginning of his path to glory. To be continued...

My Text that intrigues me.

'You gotta dream, you gotta protect it. People wanna do something and they can't do it, they wanna tell you, you can't do it either'.
This is a quote from the movie 'Pursuit of Happyness', it is said by Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith). What interests me about this particular quote is that the type of language that is written in the script is completely how it is said - directly informal. I think it was written this way to properly portray the character as a black male in the 80s. Regardless of the fact he was educated and smart the extract shows that his choice of language was still somewhat 'street'. The fact that he was speaking to his son could also been as to why he chose the words that he did, knowing his son can not use the same level of vocabulary he possesses. 'Happyness', the deliberate misspelling of happiness is a factor that also interests me as it poses the question, why would an educated, intelligent man deliberately misspell the word?
The quote is also a personal favourite of mine as it inspires me to continue to pursue my dream and not let people's comments and judgments of me, determine who and what I turn out to be.