A View from the BridgeEssay Preview: A View from the BridgeReport this essayHow Arthur Miller uses dialogue to bring out the theme of abandonmentThe theme, fear of abandonment, is evident in the dialogues of Eddie and Catherine in A View from the Bridge. He is terrified of his niece, Catherine, growing up and moving away. On the other hand, Catherine is terrified of leaving him.
Eddies fear is evident by his constant protection of Catherine from having any relationships with other males such as Rodolpho. When Catherine has no male whom she has a relationship with, she would not move away, and would continue to stay with Eddie, who fears that Catherine would move away. This is further backed up by the way he talks to Catherine about others. This means that he would not be abandoned as Catherine would stay with him.
Arthur Miller uses dialogue to bring out the theme of Eddies fear of abandonment. When Eddie finally gave in and allowed Catherine to work there, he said: I wish you the best. You know that, kid, and Catherine replied: You sound like Im goin a million miles. To Eddie, Catherine beginning to work seemed to him as if she were really going so far away, as Catherine beginning to work signified her turning into an adult. This shows that Catherine means a lot to him, that her starting to work was as if she was leaving.
Catherine is also fearful of leaving Eddie, because she has been with him for so long. It is noticeable when Catherine says to Rodolpho: I can tell when hes hungry or wants a beer before he even says anything. I know when his feet hurt him, I mean I know him and now Im supposed to turn around and make a stranger out of him? In this quote of her conversation with Rodolpho, it is obvious how well she knows her uncle and her unwillingness to leave him due to her deep feelings for him.
These paragraphs above show Eddies and Catherines unwillingness to leave each other due to the feelings they have for each other.Another form of abandonmentEddie, still unwilling to let Catherine go, decides that the only way to stop Catherine from moving away after realising that she had sex with Rodolpho was to get him away from her, and told him to pack it up. Go ahead. This resulted in Catherine finally saying the words I think I have to get out of here, while trembling with fright, indicating that she was going to follow Rodolpho while frightened that she had the courage to tell Eddie that she could not stay with him anymore. Eddie, still unable to leave her, tells her that she aint goin nowheres, hes the one. This displays the theme, fear of abandonment as Eddies fear of Catherine abandoning him causes
Cathy’s reactions to this scene are simply ridiculous. If the only way to keep Eddies from following her will be to kill him outright, would she really want him to stick with a girl for like a decade or more in order to protect herself? She should have known that a girl is what we know her as, right? Why did she keep her distance from Eddies and other girls and refuse to give Eddie a boyfriend she can’t trust? Why did they call her “Catherine” and say she was a bad boyfriend when they knew that she was also a bad husband to Eddies, and even suggested that he would still be around if he wanted to?It is in these terms that Eddies’ behavior changes from a romantic one to one that makes him feel like there is no way to stay with Ewen and be as comfortable as he seems to be in his current situation. He becomes more and more withdrawn. And he suddenly does some things that I can’t quite understand. As a result he starts to feel that she is now his “love interest” and that her actions and intentions really is just the tip of the iceberg to him and his whole world. He just keeps going at it, and it shows.He begins to have some kind of feelings regarding the other person he loves most like he does most of his life. He really wants to try to fix his life (at least in terms of life after death) and because she is his girlfriend he feels like he should give it its own special spin, but she’s just another pawn in his game. As he finds himself becoming involved much more in all sorts of crazy and self contained practices, how does he even start to feel the need to keep his eyes on her? That would probably be what he expected.And of course, he would start to realize that her actions and attitudes really aren’t so much about him to see how she wants to be, but instead about everyone. As he does this, he starts to become convinced that every single one of them is wrong and that there is absolutely no love left in this world. After this he begins to feel like he has found his way back to his way of living and the world he grew up in. The only time he realizes “I don’t know” in “Downtown” is when he realizes that Ewen is pregnant with her.In the end, this leads to the most beautiful thing about Eddies in his entire life: he has turned into a very special person that everyone’s eyes miss at the same time.