Alfieri presents Eddie’s life to us in a series of flashbacks. When he first introduces Eddie to the audience he says “This ones name was Eddie Carbone,” Alfieri used the past tense to narrate Eddie’s life to the audience which shows us that Alfieri knows what has happened in the past and also shows that Alfieri has already dealt with Eddie’s case. In the beginning of the play, Mr. Alfieri plays a very important role in the play and narrates the play to us as a narrator but he is also a lawyer. We know this because he says “I could have finished the whole story that afternoon. It wasn’t as thought there was a mystery to unravel.”
Beatrice and Catherine are cleaning the table and Catherine is trying to make a conversation with Beatrice and Eddie, in the beginning they were talking to each other in a normal calm way, but suddenly Catherine, Marco, Beatrice and Rodolfo make Eddie angry “I know lemons are green, for Christ sake. You see them in the store they are sometimes green” he says this in a angry voice at Rodolfo and he can’t stand to be corrected by Rodolfo the reason for this is because Eddies is from the same background and country this also shows us that Rodolfo is proud of this country and willing to defend his country.
When Beatrice tells Eddie off in front off the family the audience would feel concerned as this will only make it worse for Eddie and make him even angrier and will increase the tension in the scene. Eddie starts to be sarcastic with Marco and making nasty jokes at Marco’s expense “I betcha there’s plenty surprise sometimes when those guys get back there, heh?” but Marco doesn’t know what his on about, so Marco says “what surprise” Eddie says “I mean, you know-they count the kids and there’s a couple extra then when they left” Eddie thinks that Marco’s wife is being unfaithful and he also thinks that when Marco goes back home he will have few more kids.
Eddie “rises and paces up and down” this shows us that Eddie has bottled up his feelings inside. He feels pain, inside him because he likes Catherine which he can’t have because it’s his niece. Eddie says this to Rodolfo “it aint so free here either, Rodolfo, like you think” which suggest that Eddie is annoyed that Rodolfo thinks American girls are so free and they can do anything.
Eddie calls Rodolfo by his nick name in a rude way ‘Danish’ which suggests he is trying to be friendly towards the young man but he is also being sarcastic. This would actually make the audience feel very nervous, as Rodolfo is too sweet and can’t fight; another way of saying this is he is like a girlish type of man.
Eddie offers to teach Rodolfo boxing “come on, Rodolfo, I show you couple a passes” the reason for that was that he can get revenge on the sly by punching him and showing that it was a accident in front of this brother Marco, he punches Rodolfo on his neck and tries to hurt him and knocks him down on the floor, which made Marco realise all the reason behind it which made Marco very angry and frustrated which made him think about getting revenge in behalf of his brother Rodolfo.
When the family talks together at the start of the scene there is no tension at all, until Eddie says this in a flustered voice, “Look, kid, I’m not only talking about her. The more you run around like that the more chances you are taking;” this infers that the audience know Eddie, Eddie wants Rodolfo to stay inside so he can’t go out with Catherine. This suggests that Eddie is protective because Catherine is his niece. Eddie doesn’t want Catherine to go out with Rodolfo or to go to work because he thinks Catherine is still a baby and also he doesn’t want her to mix with other man.
When Marco holds the chair “like a weapon” over Eddie head which creates an exciting climax to the scene. When Marco lefts the chair with one hand behind his back and keeps it holding, shows us how strong Marco is and his also challenges Eddie to do the same but Eddie was unable to do so which shows us that Marco is more stronger then Eddie. This made Eddie think that he aint the only strong man in the household this made Eddie more endangered and scared of Marco.
In conclusion I think at the begging of the play every think went well until Rodolfo came to Eddie’s house, Catherine started to like Rodolfo and they started going out but Eddie didn’t like the fact that they’re going out because Eddie likes Catherine so Eddie didn’t have no choice but to get revenge on Rodolfo because Catherine is like a daughter to him even though she is his niece. Eddie treats Catherine as a baby even though Catherine was 17 years old but Eddie didn’t not want to let go of her, he always wanted the best of her and Eddie wanted her to stay next to him. Eddie went to Alfieri asking for help but didn’t have no legal answer for him and the only thing Alfieri told Eddie was to let her go so Eddie had no choice but to let her go.
