“Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers, compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles.”
Eddie is a longshoreman and has a ‘family squabble’ which involves evictions and Alfieri, being a lawyer, attempts to help him, but Eddie, being too self confident, chooses to ignore his advice thus creating more tension within the family.
Aristole, a Greek philosopher wrote that the tragic hero would ‘evoke our pity and terror’ and that he is neither ‘thoroughly good nor thoroughly evil but a mixture’. A tragic here would show a suffering change in fortune from a happy life to a life of misery because of his hamartia, (error of judgement). A common form of hamartia in Greek tragedies was hubris (pride of excessive self confidence), which leads a man to disregard or violate a moral law. A tragic hero moves us to pity since he is not an evil man, the outcome is much greater than he deserves.
Eddies downfall can be predicted. In the beginning of the play Eddie seems to have a strange over protectiveness of Catherine, so we therefore can predict that there is some sort of ‘secret relationship’ between them.
“Listen, you been givin me the willies the way you walk…I mean
it”.
This quotation shows us that Eddie is like a father to Catherine. He is worried and concerned about her life when he should really be sorting out his own. Eddie seems to have lost his sexual relationship with Beatrice and Beatrice is no longer treated as a wife. We can predict that Eddie will lean an important lesson in life about family and going against the people you love.
Eddie is a hard worker. He is straightforward and will let you know what he thinks of someone if he doesn’t like them. Eddie is a family man and does what he thinks is best for everyone else. He likes to make the decisions in the household whether everyone likes them or not.
During Act 2, Eddie catches Rodolpho and Catherine together in the bedroom. Eddie is drunk and reacts in an irrational way. Eddie violently grabs Catherine and kisses her. Rodolpho steps in and tries to stop him. Eddie then kisses Rodolpho. Eddie is trying to prove that Rodolpho is gay and not the right person for Catherine to marry. This is another way to show the audience his over protectiveness over Catherine. This is Eddie’s crime against nature.
Eddies moral decline is caused by his error of judgement. Eddie judges people before he knows what they are really like. In Act 1, Eddie takes a liking to Marco when he and Rodolpho arrive, but he seems to ignore everything Rodolpho says and does, because he is different and has blonde hair. This disliking of Rodolpho grows stronger and stronger every time Rodolpho does something, like when Rodolpho and Catherine come back from the theatre. Eddie becomes convinced that there is something wrong with Rodolpho when he finds out that he cooks and sews.
“He cuts it up, 1,2,3,...you could kiss him he looks so sweet”
This quotation shows us (the audience) that he is trying to get the point across that he dislikes Rodolpho and wants him out of his life and Catherine’s.
Eddie becomes isolated after the immigration officers arrive because he feels alone and afraid. He realises that he is by himself with the decisions he has to make and realises he has made the wrong decision about phoning the officers and grassing on his own family. Alfieri warns Eddie that this would happen.
“You won’t have a friend in the world….”
This shows the audience Eddie’s excessive self-confidence that leads him to a life of misery.
Eddie dies in a one to one conflict with Marco. This violent and tragic death is a sudden one. It is expected but is not predicted that Eddie would die like that. After Marco stabs Eddie, Eddie says,
“Then why – Oh, B!”
Eddies final words tell us that he knows that he was wrong and he knows his mistakes have finally been paid for.
Eddie is not a tragic hero because in someway he is not at all good. There is some evil in him. He is not a tragic hero because his fate can be predicted. There is a strong sense of what will happen from the moment the performance begins. This is why Eddie is not a tragic hero.
I think that Eddie is a tragic hero. His punishment is greater than he deserves but is predicted from the start. Eddie did what he thought was best for everyone else which made him a hero because he died for what he thought was best. Eddie dying was unnecessary but it made him a tragic hero.
Eddie’s death was caused by him trying to achieve ‘The American Dream’. America is seen as the land of opportunity because you can achieve anything with the help of the American values such as hard work and money. Marco and Rodolpho went to America to find work and make money. Americans have a vision of owning a big house with a beautiful loving wife and two children. Eddie wanted a big, happy family. In order to achieve this he tried to get rid of Beatrice’s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, because he thought they would get in the way of his dream, the American Dream.
I think that the whole play was based on the American Dream. The play itself revolved around having a happy life and American values, such as money and success. Eddie dreamed of the future and did not stop to consider problems and issues that he had at the time and hid it behind smiles and polite conversation. Like most plays, this one had a moral. The play teaches us not to judge people by what they look like, but to treat people the way you want to be treated.
