A View from the Bridge

	Generative Topic: A View from the Bridge Concept: Justice and the Law

 

Unit-long Understanding Goals:

·         To enjoy the experience of reading a play.

·         To understand the meaning of the pay and its context, and explore it beyond surface meaning to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes

·         To appreciate different ways in which Arthur Miller achieves his effects

·         To communicate an informed and sensitive personal response to the play.

Social SkillTasks:

·         To do your best at all times.

·         To contribute to create a positive learning atmosphere

Essential Question:

·         Why do communities impose their own laws?

 P3 - Lit 1

Ø  A View from the Bridge – Preliminary Performance

 

Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was a prolific American playwright, essayist, and prominent figure in twentieth-century American theatre. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (1955, revised 1956). He also wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman is often numbered on the short list of finest American plays in the 20th century.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee; and was married to Marilyn Monroe.

The play is set in Brooklyn, NY in the 1950’s in a neighbourhood where Italian immigrants live and work.

Ø  Research about Italian immigration to the USA.

The Italian-American communities have often been characterized by strong ties with family, the Catholic Church, fraternal organizations and political parties. Today, over 17 million Americans claim Italian ancestry, third only to Brazil with 31 million, and Argentina, which has 24 million people with Italian roots.

 

P3 - Lit 2

A View from the Bridge –Guided Performance

Ø  Re-read the opening stage directions. What impressions do you get from this setting?

Ø  Re-read Alfieri’s opening lines.

a)      Who is Alfieri? What’s his role in the play?

b)      What does he say about Justice and the Law?

c)       What kind of place is Red Hook?

P3 - Lit 3

A View from the Bridge –Guided Performance

Ø  Read the beginning of Act 1 up to the moment Rodolpho and Marco arrive.

Ø  Explain Eddie’s attitude towards Catherine and illustrate your ideas with at least four quotations from the play.

Ø  Explore the relationship the inhabitants of Red hook have with The Law. Illustrate this point with examples.

Ø  Eddie: Listen, they’ll think it’s a millionaire’s house compared to the way they live. Don’t worry about the walls. They’ll be thankful. Comment on this quotation in connection to the theme Immigration, Home and Belonging.

P3 - Lit 4

A View from the Bridge –Guided Performance

Ø  Read from Enter Tony, escorting Marco and Rodolpho…. Up to There was a trouble that would not go away.

Ø  Contrast and compare Marco and Rodolpho.

Ø  Explain the symbolism of the song  Paper Doll.

Ø  Comment on Alfieri’s words.

P3 - Lit 5

A View from the Bridge –Guided Performance

Ø  Read the rest of Act 1.

Ø  Explain why Eddie goes to see Alfieri. What kind of advice does he give him?

Ø  Why does the tension increase among all the characters?

Shakespeare

Big Know-How:

Reading for Pleasure

El placer por la lectura

Generative Topic:

Shakespeare & Cervantes Alive

Shakespeare & Cervantes viven

Concepts:

Idealism & Human Passions

El Idealismo y las pasiones humanas

Understanding Goals.

-          Acercarse a la vida y obra de los padres de la lengua inglesa Shakespeare y de la lengua española Cervantes.

-          Explorar el idealismo de “ Don Quijote de la Mancha”

-          Examine the complexities of human passions in Shakespeare´s plays

-          Disfrutar la lectura.

Ø  Read  Sonnets 18 , 116 &  130 

a)      Write a modern version of one of them

b)      Copy one of the sonnets and illustrate key words and expressions with symbols and drawings.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Modern Version

Shall I compare you to a summer’s day? You are more lovely and more moderate: Harsh winds disturb the delicate buds of May, and summer doesn’t last long enough. Sometimes the sun is too hot, and its golden face is often dimmed by clouds. All beautiful things eventually become less beautiful, either by the experiences of life or by the passing of time. But your eternal beauty won’t fade, nor lose any of its quality. And you will never die, as you will live on in my enduring poetry. As long as there are people still alive to read poems this sonnet will live, and you will live in it.

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Modern Version

I would not admit that anything could interfere with the union of two people who love each other. Love that alters with changing circumstances is not love, nor if it bends from its firm state when someone tries to destroy it. Oh no, it’s an eternally fixed point that watches storms but is never itself shaken by them. It is the star by which every lost ship can be guided: one can calculate it’s distance but not gauge its quality. Love doesn’t depend on Time, although the rosy lips and cheeks of youth eventually come within the compass of Time’s sickle. Love doesn’t alter as the days and weeks go by but endures until death. If I’m wrong about this then I’ve never written anything and no man has ever loved.

SONNET 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare. 

Modern Version

 My lover's eyes aren't as bright as the sun;

And her lips aren't as red as coral;
Her breasts are a brownish gray in comparison to pure white snow.
If hairs are like wires, hers are black and not golden.
Her cheeks are not as colorful as the red and white streaked damask roses;
And my lover's breath stinks.
I like when she speaks but, let's face it, music is more pleasing to the ear than her voice.
I don't claim that my lover is a goddess--she's just a plain old regular mortal.
And yet, for all the things that she is not, I find that the love I have for my woman is far more true than those lies found in ridiculous poetry.

Registers by Michael Laskey

Ø  Read the poem “Registers”.

Registers by Michael Laskey

Out of the warm primordial cave
of our conversations, Jack's gone.
No more chit-chat under the blankets
pegged over chairs and nipped in drawers.

Throughout his first five years an ear
always open, at worst ajar,
I catch myself still listening out
for sounds of him in the sensible house

where nothing stirs but the washing machine
which clicks and churns. I'm loosening his arms
clasped round my neck, detaching myself
from his soft protracted kiss goodbye.

Good boy, diminishing down the long
corridors into the huge unknown
assembly hall, each word strange,
even his name on Miss Cracknell's tongue.

Analysis

This poem is about his son leaving home for school when just five years old. It talks about the poet’s feelings at his young son’s departure and he misses him.

In the first stanza,​he talks about the games he and his child Jack used to play when he rigged up a tent using a blanket, thrown over chairs in the house and tucked into drawers. Sitting under this make ­believe tent they used to have their chat sessions.

In the second stanza, ​The poet used to always keep one ear open for sounds of the boy but now the house is devoid of a child’s sounds and is ‘sensible’ without the child.

In the third stanza,​he mentions the only movement is that of the washing machine which ‘clicks’ and ‘churns’. The poet then remembers the boy’s protracted goodbye kiss when he threw his arms around his neck.

In the final stanza,​when he reaches the school, he walks down the long corridor to the school hall, growing smaller as he walked away. Everything was strange for him, even the way his name was called by Miss Cracknell, the teacher, when she was taking the ‘register’. The formality of the register contrasts with the informal ‘chit­chat’ at home.

Ø  In your own words,

A)   what are the main ideas in this poem?

B)   What makes it such an effective poem?

The Bereavement of the Lion-Keeper-

Ø  Read the following poem.

The Bereavement of the Lion-Keeper
Sheenagh Pugh
  
Who stayed, long after his pay stopped,
in the zoo with no visitors,
just keepers and captives, moth-eaten,
growing old together.
 
Who begged for meat in the market-place
as times grew hungrier,
and cut it up small to feed him,
since his teeth were gone.
 
Who could stroke his head, who knew
how it felt to plunge fingers
into rough glowing fur, who has heard
the deepest purr in the world.
 
Who curled close to him, wrapped in his warmth,
his pungent scent, as the bombs fell,
who has seen him asleep so often,
but never like this.
 
Who knew that elderly lions
were not immortal, that it was bound
to happen, that he died peacefully,
in the course of nature,
 
but who knows no way to let go
of love, to walk out of sunlight,
to be an old man in a city
without a lion. 

Ø  In pairs, write an essay to analyze The Bereavement of the Lion-Keeper.

Writing Tips:

o   Use the following structure

• What is the poem/song about?
• How does it work?
• What is your response?

o   Follow the five steps of the writing process.

o   Illustrate your ideas with quotes from the poem.