Catherine and Eddie’s relationship at the beginning of the play is very similar to that of a father and daughter one. Catherine is very loving towards Eddie though she is still very immature and naïve in her actions. By the end of Act 1 Catherine’s demeanour towards Eddie has already begun to change as her feelings for Rodolpho grow stronger,
‘I’m going with him, Eddie’. At the end of Act 1 Catherine purposely puts the record ‘Paper Doll’ on knowing how Eddie feels about it. The audience would immediately link the putting on of Paper Doll with the tension from Eddie’s outburst when Marco and Rodolpho first arrive, when Catherine shows interest in Rodolpho when he sung Paper Doll which causes Eddie to become jealous and angry. This climaxes at the end of Act 1 in the boxing scene where Catherine runs to Rodolpho after Eddie punches him too hard, Catherine and Rodolpho end up dancing to Paper Doll again.
At the beginning of the second act after Eddie arrives home drunk he witnesses Catherine emerge from the bedroom with Rodolpho following her. Eddie becomes incredibly angry and tells Rodolpho to get out. Catherine tries to go back to the bedroom but Eddie grabs her arm, trembling with fright she says ‘I have to get outta here’. At this point Eddie explodes the violence that commences is the realization of implied aggression in the previous Act where Eddie’s barely-contained suspicion of Rodolpho’s sexuality were exposed again and again.
‘He's lucky, believe me. (Slight pause. He looks away, then back to Beatrice.) That's why the water-front is no place for him. (They stop dancing. RODOLPHO turns off phonograph.) I mean like me - I can't cook, I can't sing, I can't make dresses, so I'm on the waterfront. But if I could cook, if I could sing, if I could make dresses, I wouldn't be on the water-front.’
As Eddie still has hold of Catherine he turns her around to face him and kisses her, this in turn makes Rodolpho very angry. He tries to pull Eddie off Catherine but ends up being pinned up against the wall and receiving a kiss from Eddie. Rodolpho is too shocked at this point to fight back, Eddie pulls away from him and laughs as if he has proved Rodolpho ‘ain’t right’. Catherine is enraged by this Act and screams at him ‘I’ll kill you! Let go ya here me!’ Eddie and Catherine’s relationship seems to continuously go downhill from this point. After speaking to Alfieri and realising he can’t do anything to stop Catherine marrying Rodolpho ‘This is my last word, Eddie, take it or not, that’s your business. Morally and legally you have no rights, you cannot stop it; she is a free agent’, Eddie calls the immigration bureau and reports Rodolpho and Marco. ‘I want to report something, Illegal immigrants. Two of them.’
At the end of the play Catherine’s hatred for Eddie ebbs away and she cries to him saying ‘Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you’. This shows that even after he reported Marco and Rodolpho she stills cares for him.
Marco is Rodolpho’s older brother; he is a man of few words. Unlike Rodolpho he does not want to become a citizen, he just wants to support his family back in Italy, ‘my wife - (To Eddie) my wife - I want to send right away maybe twenty dollars -’. At the beginning of the play Marco is very respectful and grateful towards Eddie ‘when you say go, we will go’, because he let Marco and Rodolpho stay in his house. Towards the end of Act 1 however Marco’s attitude towards Eddie begins to change considerable. After the boxing scene where Eddie hits Rodolpho too hard, Marco lifts a chair which appears at first just to be a ‘friendly’ show of strength but when Eddie looks at him he realises what message Marco is trying to get across. Marco does it as a warning to Eddie, to show that if he hurts Rodolpho he will have Marco to deal with, Marco is face to face with Eddie, he transforms what might appear like a glare of warning into a glare of triumph, Eddie’s grin vanishes as he absorbs his look.
Marco’s respect for Eddie continuously goes downhill from the boxing scene, after Eddie kisses Rodolpho and then reports them to the immigration bureau, Marco almost goes mad with rage. When the immigration officers come for him and Rodolpho, Marco spits into Eddie’s face. Marco accuse Eddie of killing his children ‘That one! He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!’ you could say that because Eddie reported them to the immigration bureau, he stopped the money that Marco was making for his family, so in way he is stealing food from Marco’s children,
When Marco is in jail, Alfieri comes to him and makes him promise not to do anything drastic (like killing Eddie); Marco agrees reluctantly you can tell this by the stage direction (lowers his eyes. It almost seems he is ashamed) ‘All right’. As soon as Marco is released on bail he returns back to the house and calls for Eddie, Eddie goes outside the house to confront Marco. Eddie accuses him of lying. When Eddie lunges at Marco, Marco turns and strikes him on the neck bringing him to his knees; ‘Animal! You go on you knees to me!’ Marco tries to attack Eddie again but Eddie brings out a knife.
Marco calls Eddie an Animal again. Eddie lunges towards Marco but Marco manages to grab his arm, turning the blade inward.
Marco hated Eddie for what he did and believed he deserved what happened to him, Marco arguably killed Eddie in self defence.
I believe the characters feelings towards Eddie change because of his actions and his attitude towards them; in a way he brought his fate upon himself for his jealously of Rodolpho and Catherine got in his way and clouded his judgment making him act irrationally and irresponsibly.
At the beginning of the story you always got the feeling that Eddie was a violent man but good at suppressing it. I never really liked Eddie as you always had the feeling that his fatherly love for Catherine was a bit more than what it appeared. As the play continued my dislike for Eddie grew as he seemed a cold and almost uncaring character and very selfish. However at the end of the play in Act 2 you almost feel sorry for him when he dies but you can’t really pity him because of his past actions. I enjoyed reading it and thought it was very interesting and thought provoking though the ending was predictable as you could clearly see what the outcome was going to be from the jail scene where Marco states that Eddie would already be dead in his country.
