The Code of Omerta or the code of silence is a common attitude in Southern Italy that implies that if someone appeals to the law about his fellow man he is a ‘snitch’ and should not be called a man, in Southern Italy it often leads to death if you are the informant. The Code of Omerta is mentioned in the ‘talk’ by Eddie before the cousins arrive; the tale of Vinny Bolzano sets the tone of the play. This is a story of a person named Vinny who’s “family had an uncle that they were hidin' in the house, and he snitched to the Immigration” due to this his uncle got arrested and taken away by Immigration. “He had five brothers and the old father. And they grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs - three flights his head was bouncin' like a coconut. And they spit on him in the street, his own father and his brothers. The whole neighbourhood was crying.” This shows how much everyone hated him for snitching, it is also clear to the audience that Eddie and Beatrice that Vinny had done a terrible deed and was justly punished. Eddie even goes further and says that it is unlikely that Vinny will show his face again; “a guy do a thing like that? How's he gonna show his face?” as family comes first. This shows us that ‘snitching’ is viewed by the community as one of the worst possible deeds that can be committed as despite Vinny’s injuries nobody has any sympathy for him. This is dramatically ironic as at the end of the play Eddie does exactly the same thing and ‘snitches to immigration’ about Marco and Rodolpho at the end of the play. Honour is seen as more important than law to the community; honour is respect which is why before the cousins arrive Eddie says, “It’s an honour, B. I mean it” we also know that respect depends on it because Alfieri warns Eddie that if he ‘snitches’ on the brother he “won’t have a friend in the world.” Another example of honour is given after Marco’s accusations and Eddie demands; “Marco's got my name - and you run tell him, kid, that he's gonna give it back to me in front of this neighbourhood, or we have it out.” This shows the audience how ‘respect’ depends on keeping to the Code of Omerta actually is to Eddie.
Alfieri plays an important part in this play. He tells us about the characters like an engaged narrator as he tries to help the audience in between scenes, he also sets the scene and the environment. Arthur Miller uses Alfieri as a chorus character who is constantly reminding us it is a tragedy and filling us in on the background information we may have missed such as when he tells us, “I had represented his father in an accident case some years before,”. His main role is to gradually unfold the play to the audience constantly playing on their emotions and building up tension but at the same time helping the audience understand the story. Alfieri draws the audience’s attention right from his first speech where he excites the audience a little by hinting it is a tragedy; “powerless as I watched it run its bloody course.” The audience also get the feeling that Alfieri is re-telling the story as he talks mostly in the past tense. Alfieri’s other role in the play is that of one of the only lawyers in Red Hook but is also an Italian-American who respects his roots and the culture of the community.
Eddie sees Alfieri as priest as he discusses private matters with him and even shows some of his emotions only to Alfieri. Due to this Alfieri has a dramatic role of giving us an inside view of Eddie’s world and a bit of what goes on inside Eddie’s head. In the play Alfieri tries to explain the American law to Eddie when Eddie is accusing Rodolpho of not ‘being right’, he tells Eddie, “There’s only one legal question here.” The ‘legal question’ he is referring to is that of the brothers being illegal immigrants. However, after he says this Eddie gets defensive and says he “wouldn’t do nothin’ about that,” this suggests as this point Eddie is not falling apart but at the end he ironically does the exact opposite. When Eddie then tries and tells Alfieri that “the guy aint right” Alfieri rightly tells him that he “can only deal with what’s provable” this shows that Alfieri prefers the law to ‘justice’. He thinks that people allow their personal feelings to affect the idea of justice and therefore cannot execute true justice. This leads him to saying, “You hear? Only god makes justice.” This is true as Eddie’s idea of justice was affected by his desires for Catherine. Alfieri relies on the law because it gives an objective view from both sides. Alfieri senses what Eddie is going to do and although he does not stop him he warns him: “You won’t have a friend in the world.” he is telling Eddie that if he ‘snitches’ to the authorities he will have no respect and the community will reject him like they did to Vinny. He then continues and says, “I’m warning you – the law is nature. The law is only a word for what has a right to happen, when the law is wrong it’s because it’s unnatural, but in this case it is natural and a river will drown you if you buck it now.” This warning is telling Eddie that if he interferes with Catherine’s love he will end up dead as the love is natural whereas Eddie’s love for Catherine is unnatural.
The laws in this play so not all refer to the ‘written’ American laws bit have many layers of meaning; we know this because Marco says to Alfieri, “All the law is not in the book” he is telling Alfieri that there are some laws which are not American laws for example the Code of Omerta. After Eddie has acted as a ‘stool pigeon’ Marco says, “In my country he would be dead now” this in a way is a law that is not written as in Sicily breaking the Code of Omerta more often than not results in death. Another unwritten law is the law of nature. Alfieri talks about natural law when he tells Eddie that if he interferes in natural love he will end up ‘drowned’.
Catherine is Eddie’s niece but their relationship has been that of a father and daughter, we know this as Eddie despite not having a good income has gone out of his way to provide her with an education. This fatherly love has caused him to become overprotective towards Catherine we then get an idea of how old Catherine really is when Beatrice tells her, “Don’t be a baby no more”, “ you’re a woman now” this tells us that Catherine is either is either seventeen or eighteen. Due to this when Eddie asks Catherine to turn around so he can see her hair we have to question if he is looking at the hair or looking at her up and down, we suspect that he is physically attracted to her and his love is turning sexual. Alfieri mentions this as he says, “A man works hard, he brings up a child, sometimes it’s a niece, sometimes even a daughter, and he never realizes it, but through the years – there is too much love for the daughter, there is too much love for the niece.” He is saying that Eddie loves Catherine too much and says, “There’s too much, and it goes where it shouldn’t.” he is saying that the love is transforming into a sexual love. Our suspicions are taken further when we find out that Eddie and Beatrice have not been sleeping together for months and Beatrice asks Eddie; “when will I be wife again?” Beatrice also tells Catherine to grow up when she says; “honey you gotta be your own self more.” She also tells Catherine that as she is now a woman she must stop walking around the house in her underclothes as Eddie can see her or talking to Eddie while he shaves because being a woman means modesty in front of men. These habits could be why Eddie secretly feels a physical attraction towards Catherine as she is growing up. At the end Beatrice realises this and tells Eddie, “you can never have her.”
Then the brothers arrive, Catherine is immediately attracted to Rodolpho and goes and puts on high heels, which symbolise womanhood and sexiness. Catherine enjoys the attention she gets by wearing her high heels as men notice her more but Eddie disapproves for exactly the same reasons he feels that if she is noticed more she may find someone and leave the house but Catherine carries on rebelling by wearing them. When Eddie finds out about Catherine and Rodolpho he tries to split them up by telling Catherine that “he’s only bowin’ to his passport”, he is telling Catherine that Rodolpho only wants to marry her so he can become an American citizen. Catherine becomes very upset; this shows that she respects Eddie and values his opinion. Eddie indirectly tells Marco that Catherine is not free to do whatever she likes when he says, “Girl don’t have to wear black dress to be strict” he is saying that just because Catherine doesn’t were a black dress doesn’t mean she isn’t strict; this is rather ironic as in America wearing a black dress would be a symbol of mourning. After Eddie finds out that Rodolpho sings, cooks and sews he decides to test his masculinity in a ‘fake’ game of boxing. Rodolpho ends up getting a little knock and Marco realises that Eddie is picking on Rodolpho and shows Eddie a ‘trick’. In doing so he has to strain and while straining he gives Eddie a warning glare before smiling in triumph. Rodolpho has realised that Catherine is like ‘a bird in a cage’ and now she wants to ‘fly’; he is referring to Eddie being overprotective and not letting her make her own decisions. When Eddie kicks Rodolpho out he kisses him; this is because he is testing his masculinity or he has his own homosexual suppressed feelings. At the end of the play Catherines feelings for Eddie change from respecting him and valuing his opinions to calling him a ‘rat’.
In this play love is responsible for all the conflict between characters. As this play is a Greek tragedy and Eddie is the protagonist, he must have a fatal flaw. His fatal flaw is ‘too much’ love for Catherine. We know right from the beginning that he is overprotective about Catherine as he tells her off indirectly for waving at Louis from the window; “Listen, I could tell you things about Louis which you wouldn’t wave to him no more.” Catherine also points out trying to turn Eddies warning into a joke by replying, “Eddie, I wish there was one guy you couldn’t tell me things about!” This suggests to the audience that this is not the first time Eddie has warned her about having any sort of contact with men, which can be deduced to him being overprotective most if not all of the time. He prevented Catherine from discovering independence because he had wanted her for himself but when Rodolpho comes into the play and Catherine takes an interest in him he changes from this over-protective father-figure to a jealous, bitter man who isn't going to give up on what he wants; Catherine to stay with him and respect from the community. At this point the audience realise that Eddie is too possessive and protective. Eddie’s beliefs about the Code of Omerta stay persistent until he confuses all his motives up inside him along with his suppressed feelings about Catherine, he does not report the brothers to the Immigration Bureau at first because he is scared that if he does this his secret desires for Catherine will be revealed. Eddie takes his sexual frustration out on Rodolpho irrationally as according to Eddie he is ‘stealing’ from him as Eddie has protected Catherine for her whole life and he can’t bear the fact that he is going to lose her to someone who he feels his homosexual and to Eddie therefore ‘not right’.
Eddie has his motives, feelings and emotions all mixed up inside him and as he is neither articulate nor educated and therefore cannot express himself. All these feelings and emotions manifest themselves into an eventual rage at Rodolpho which cause him to act irrationally. This jealousy towards Rodolpho causes him to reveal the illegal immigrants, which ruins his reputation and respect as well as destroy his own loyalty rules. He reveals the illegal immigrants because he knows that he cannot do anything about Catherine so resorts to getting rid of Rodolpho in a desperate attempt to keep Catherine. This does not work as they decide to get married and therefore Rodolpho can become an American Citizen. While being arrested Marco accuses Eddie in front of the whole community; “That one! He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!” These accusations result in Eddie losing all his respect as he has broken the Code of Omerta; losing respect drives Eddie into a state of mind where all he is thinking about is gaining his respect back. His state of mind is fixed and he sounds to the audience as of he has gone mad about getting his respect back and the only way for that to happen is for Marco to apologise in front of the whole community.
As Eddie is the hero of a Greek tragedy he is fated as one. Thus, I have concluded that tragedy in this play can be put down mainly to fate which is mentioned right at the start of the play when Alfieri says, “powerless as I watched it run its bloody course” this tells the audience that Alfieri could not intervene because Eddie was destined to die and it was just a matter of how, where and when. The how, where and when was what was decided by a mixture of his fatal flaw, breaking the Code of Omerta and different character’s ideas about justice and ‘laws’. In the tragedy Eddie broke the code knowing the consequences and would have agreed with Marco about the ‘law’ however it was a tragedy waiting to happen and Rodolpho acted as a catalyst making the tragedy take place sooner rather than later. Ultimately the Code of Omerta was not directly responsible for Eddie’s death but all the factors added up were as well as the fact he was a fated hero.