Oedipus and A view from the bridge: tragic structure and fate

Tragic hero was characterized as such by Aristotle, who examined the plays he knew and developed theories that became more prescriptive than descriptive as later playwrights saw his ideas as necessary definitions. Some of the elements of the tragic hero as described by Aristotle is that the hero is high-born, subject to fate, and unable to prevail as he fights against that fate. He is doomed because of a tragic flaw in his character, a fault such as excessive pride that might make him challenge the gods. Such a definition fit well with the aristocratic and mythic characters of Aristotle's time, but some elemtns do not fit the modern dramatic hero. Still, a modern hero can be tragic just the same, as Arthur Miller shows with the character of Tony Carbone in A View from the Bridge, contrasted here with the main character in Sophocles' Oedipus.

Oedipus in Oedipus Rex is the ruler of the city of Thebes at the beginning of the play and so is the human being charged with assuring that justice is done in human terms, yet he will himself transgress the laws of the gods without intending to do so. Oedipus's fate is indeed determined before the action of the play. His parents are told by the oracle at Delphi that their son would one day kill his father and marry his mother:

An oracle was reported to Laios once...

That his doom would be the death at the hands of his own son... (Scene II).

They abandon the child, assuming that he has died, but he has not and many years later does kill his father and marry his mother, all without knowing who they are. Changes take place in the environment, with storms and the like, and are caused by the crime committed by Oedipus when he fulfilled the prophecy about killing his father and marrying his mother. The people have learned from the oracle that someone is a criminal in the kingdom, and Oedipus vows to ferret out the culprit, not knowing that he is looking for himself. The fact that the environment changes because a king has committed a crime is itself a manifestation of the supernatural and a recognition of the fact that a king has special responsibilities as the leader of his people -- he in effect represents the masses and further has a special relationship with the gods in that capacity, serving as a conduit for supernatural energies on earth. The oracle is a supernatural device by which the gods communicate with human beings.

Of course, Oedipus is not a criminal by choice, because the gods determine the fate of the king long before he encounters that fate himself. The fatal flaw in Oedipus is that he did not heed the gods when they spoke through the Oracle at Delphi, telling his parents (and indirectly, him) that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus knows of this prophecy, and yet he does kill a man and marry the man's older widow. Oedipus thinks that Polybos and his wife are his parents, which they are not, and he clearly has no intention of committing the crime that he does commit. He discovers his crime as he questions various people about the troubles visited upon Thebes and about his own past, discovering the identity of Iocaste and of the man he killed. He cannot face the reality of this knowledge and suffers terribly for it, plucking out his own eyes as punishment. This result is a direct consequence of the fatal flaw within him and of his discovery of this fact. However, it is not clear that it could ever have been otherwise. His fate prophesied by the gods, Oedipus only acts out the prediction they have made. Human beings in this play are in the hands of the gods and have little to say about their own fate.

Oedipus as a tragic hero is high-born, and Tina Chanter indicates his place when she writes,

It is clear enough... why Oedipus should be philosophy's tragic hero: Oedipal innocence turns to guilt, ignorance becomes knowledge, the excessive desire to know leads to a downfall, only to be canceled out by the extremity of a curative resolution. (Chanter 77)

Indeed, in many ways the plight of Oedipus has served to define the tragic hero ever since.

Arthur Miller was certainly aware of the nature of Greek tragedy and made a deliberate decision to use the structure of Greek drama as a basis for his play A View from the Bridge, as he had previously done for All My Sons. The central character, Eddie Carbone, fits well with the central figure in All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, being a family patriarch who has also been a complete failure as a father. He has no children of his own, so he looks after his wife's young niece. Over time, he has developed unconscious sexual feelings toward her, affecting everyone around him. Eddie is an ordinary man living among other ordinary men. The high-born nature of the traditional tragic hero is gone now, though Carbone can be seen as a middle-class version of a high-born hero because he is respected in his community and the head of his household. He is no closer to the gods than anyone else, however, though members of the Italian community have a religious background that colors much of their thinking about life.

Catherine is the niece who has lived with Eddie and his wife for some time, and Eddie worries that she is becoming too attractive, meaning that she might attract other men. She is unhappy about his disapproval of her and does not see that he has an unhealthy interest in her, something that he himself does not really understand, either. Catherine has a job offer, and Eddie resists because he believes she will meet more men at work and be out of his control. His wife, Beatrice, ahs started noticing that Eddie is too interested in Catherine, so she wants Catherine to take the job. Complicating matters is the arrival of two cousins from the old country, illegal immigrants whose real situation has to be kept secret within the family. The male cousins clash with Eddie as tensions increase because of his anxiety about Catherine, Beatrice's growing awareness of what is happening to him, and Catherine's efforts to be her own person. One night, these tensions erupt and Eddie goes too far, kissing Catherine and starting a fight with cousin Rodolpho.