In the play, Miller represents Eddie Carbone as the master of the household who lays down the rules because he expects all men to do the same as it is the main job. The Carbone family live in Brooklyn, where Eddie is a working class long shore man who works at the shipyards. Eddie is a very well known, well-liked, respected and generous man who offers Beatrice’s cousins, Rodolpho and Marco a home but at the same time he is self-protective and selfish as he tells Beatrice not to let them sleep in his bed. Louis, Eddie’s friend, respects him a lot, and sees him as a hero in the community because he gave the immigrants a place to stay, “Believe me, Eddie, you gotta lot of credit”. During the play, we see how Catherine comments on Eddie’s character by telling Rodolpho, “…he was always the sweetest guy”. He is protective of Catherine, who he brought up since her mother died, we see in the beginning of the play how concerned he is about her by making fatherly comments about how short her skirt is, ‘I think it’s too short, ain’t it?
However, during the play, Eddie’s starts to get inappropriate feelings towards Catherine. Eddies and Catherine’s relationship changes from father and daughter to man and woman throughout the play, which we see through the way they talk to each other. For example when Catherine tells Eddie that she has found a new high paid job, Eddie tells her not to work there and to continue her studies because he does not want her to meet new men and strangers which could end up with them getting married. This change affects everybody around them and causes problems which ends in Eddie’s death. As his feelings for Catherine become more intense, he does everything than he can to stop Rodolpho from marrying her. We sense Eddie’s dislike of Rodolpho after he arrives because as Rodolpho was singing the “paper doll” song to Catherine, Eddie puts a stop to it, his face is “puffed with trouble”. Eddie tries everything to make Rodolpho look stupid. For example, he takes fun out of Rodolpho’s skills at cooking, singing and sewing, “he sings on the ships...Paper Doll they’re calling him... He’s like a weird... He’s like a chorus girl”. He also says that he is homosexual, “he’s like a weird”, and tells Catherine that he only wants to marry her to get US citizenship. In order to punch Rodolpho he pretends to teach him how to box but Marco shows off his strength by lifting up a chair.
To stop Catherine and Rodolpho from getting married, Eddie falls so low, that he phones the immigration bureau to report Rodolpho and Marco’s immigration. He visited Alfieri, his lawyer, to take advice to how he can stop them from getting married but Alfieri says that nothing can be done and he advices Eddie to let the couple get married so Eddie reported the immigrant cousins. As Rodolpho and Marco are lead out by the immigration officers, Marco spits in Eddies face, and tells him that he will kill him as soon as he is out of jail and accuses Eddie for stealing the children’s food, “He’s a rat! He belongs in the sewer!”. Eddie tells Beatrice that if she attends Rodolpho and Catherine’s wedding, she will not be allowed back in the house, this makes Eddie a hypocrite. He is guilty of doing the things he hates the most.
“A view from the bridge” is linked to “Greek Tragedy” in many ways because both of them have the same thing in common. Alfieri in the play is the lawyer, who tells the story in a flashback, with the all the key scenes and he also closes the play. Alfieri is like the “chorus” in the “Greek Tragedy” who helps the audience follow what is going on in an ancient Greek play, he offers background information and speaks on behalf of the narrator.
In the Greek Tragedy a great character, tragic hero, experiences a downfall which was inventible just like Eddie Carbone in “AVFTB”. Miller makes Eddie look like a hero because he was a man of good but his hideous acts made his reputation go down which made him a tragic hero. Alfieri says to Eddie that he is on a particular course, and here is no return, “His eyes were like tunnels”. This links to the Greek Tragedy because the main character is represented as something which was broken in society where people commit murder, and had to be removed for the society to be fixed again. Only God could remove and fix the problem and no one else.
In conclusion I would say many things are to blame for Eddie’s downfall. Eddie’s love for Catherine is a reason for Eddie’s downfall in society. Eddie being jealous of Rodolpho and phoning the immigration bureau to snitch on their illegal immigration made Eddie fall in Beatrice and Catherine’s eyes. Fate was the main thing to blame for Eddie’s downfall because he could do nothing to stop as it was destiny, only God could.