When Catherine is offered a job as a stenographer, Eddie becomes very over-protective, saying “No – no, you gonna finish school”. Beatrice finally persuades Eddie to let her take the job, but the problems go deeper. Beatrice is fully aware of Eddie’s more disturbing and deeper feelings towards Catherine and wonders when she is “gonna be a wife again” this implies that the sexual part of marriage has broken down. The tragedy arises when Eddie cannot admit his deeper feelings towards Catherine.
The story of the tragedy of Vinny Bolzano plays a pivotal role, as it indicates what will happen later in the play. It is not by accident that Miller made Eddie tell the Vinny Bolzano story, as it seems ironic that later, Eddie does exactly what he called “crazy”. This shows that when Eddie eventually phones the Immigration Bureau it goes against all his morals and beliefs. This shows that even his morals cannot prevent the tragedy happening, which suggests that he was led to desperation.
Eddie’s family respect his authority, demonstrating that they live in a “man-dominated” society – more so than we do now – where the man goes out to work and brings back the money while the woman cooks, cleans, caters to the mans every whim. This is emphasized when Eddie says, “Katie give them supper, heh?”. Eddie can be very demanding at times, such as, “what happened to the coffee?”. Eddie regularly belittles Rodolfo and puts him down all the time by saying, “Hey, kid – hey,”.
Towards the end of Act one, Beatrice seems to side with Catherine over Eddie’s distrust towards Rodolfo, which reinforces the fact that the Carbone’s marriage is breaking down, it is also emphasized when Beatrice says to Eddie “you gonna drive me crazy” then Eddie turns and walks out “striving to retain his dignity”, this shows that there is a lot of tension between Beatrice and Eddie. It appears that Eddie was also quite surprised that Beatrice was standing up for herself, because before Marco and Rodolfo arrived he was greatly revered. I see this as the beginning of the end for Eddie, as the only thing he has is his respect and dignity, which is slowly being taken from him. Beatrice then tells Catherine that she should do what she wants, because if it was up to Eddie she would be a “maid” in his house, so she tells Catherine that she must “say goodbye”, in spite of Eddies wishes, so it will inevitably end with Eddie getting hurt.
Eddie seems to relate more easily towards Marco than Rodolfo, as they are both heads of their own households and Marco quickly earned a reputation for hard work on the piers. This is apparent when Eddie engages in conversation with Marco, but always degrades Rodolfo, by acting as if Rodolfo is inferior and doesn’t know what he’s talking about, such as Rodolfo saying, “Lemon’s are green” and Eddie’s response, “I know lemons are green for Christ’s sake!”.
Eddie uses, “heh”, “I mean”, “you know” very often towards the end of the first act, which could imply that Eddie is insecure and feels vulnerable. However, I believe that Eddie’s use of these phrases is his way of trying to reinforce his superiority. The implication to the others is that he knows what he is talking about.
When Eddie said “you understand me, don’t you Marco?” and Marco replied saying “I beg your pardon”, it suggests that Marco didn’t agree with what he was saying which surprised Eddie, as he is used to being agreed with, being the man of the house. Therefore, when Marco disagreed with him, Eddie was quite shocked, this is revealed by “there is a pause, an awkwardness”. Marco had used Eddies own techniques of reinforcing superiority against him. This shows that Marco will play a significant part in the inevitable tragedy at the end, as Marco made Eddie look stupid, therefore Eddie will want to seek retribution.
Taking out his frustration on Rodolfo, by making comments that degrade and belittle him, helps Eddie deal with his incestuous desire for his niece, Catherine. He insinuates Rodolfo is homosexual by saying, “Its wonderful. He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses…” and “he ain’t right”. It is this frivolous, feminine attitude that makes him attractive to Catherine but Eddie cannot see how Rodolfo is interested in Catherine, believing he just wants to marry her in order to gain American citizenship. This presumption makes Eddie feel it is his duty to protect her from getting hurt, thus making his obsession even worse, so he thinks the only way is to get rid of Marco and Rodolfo.
Eddie offers to teach Rodolfo boxing, but Rodolfo doesn’t seem to like the idea as Rodolfo says, “I don’t want to hit you, Eddie”. This suggests that he knows why Eddie wanted to teach him boxing – so that Eddie could punch him and just say they were messing about.
After Eddie punched Rodolfo by “accident” he says to Marco, “I’ll teach him again” but “Marco nods dubiously”, which implies that Marco knows the real reason why Eddie offered to teach him how to box. So to get his own back on Eddie for making Rodolfo look stupid again, Marco asks him, “can you lift this chair?” Eddie of course being the man that he is, had to accept and just saw it as a fun game, but it actually turned out to be a competition to see who had the most power. When Eddie could not pick the chair up he tried to make excuses why he couldn’t do it, “it’s on an angle that’s why”, which shows that Eddie was expecting that he could do it but to his surprise he could not. When Marco lifted the chair above Eddies head, he used it “like a weapon”, with his face showing a “glare of warning”, Eddie was quite shocked. Miller used this to show that Marco had overpowered Eddie, which made Eddie look like a fool in front of everybody.
When Catherine declared to Eddie that she “can’t stay round here no more”, Eddie became very emotional, as he was drunk and had deeper more disturbing feelings towards Catherine. This will – in Eddies eyes – be Rodolfo’s fault, so to show his affection towards Catherine he “kisses her on the mouth”. Then when Rodolfo tries to defend her this makes Eddie even angrier so he tries to humiliate him by kissing him too. The hints and events that Miller has chosen are becoming more frequent, building tension, which emphasizes that the tragedy is getting nearer.
After kissing Rodolfo, Eddie leaves to talk to Alfieri again, seeking advice on what to do. Eddie gets angry about the advice that he does get; “she is a free agent” and “Morally and legally you have no rights”, as it says that Eddie is “angering”. Toward the end of Alfieri”s last speaking part on page 49, it seems apparent that Eddie is not listening to Alfieri and is thinking of another option, “A phone booth begins to glow”. This acts as a thought bubble in Eddie’s mind, telling the audience there is one more thing he can do, but it would go against everything he believes in and as a result he “won’t have a friend in the world”. This shows that his unconscious knowledge of his sexual taboo drives him into a self-serving and destructive madness that he cannot control.
The relationship between Beatrice and Eddie has changed completely since the beginning, Beatrice argues back with Eddie to get her point across and doesn’t let him get away with things, “I don’t wanna hear no more about it, you understand? Nothin”!” Eddie has become less “cocky” and is more jumpy, “he moves about restlessly” and regrets phoning the Immigration Bureau and most of all he wants his “respect back”.
As the immigration officers arrive, it creates a sense of anticipation, as the stage direction tell us, “Two men in overcoats appear outside, start into the house.”, but Catherine, Beatrice and the lodgers are completely unawares. This shows that there is no going back. The tragedy is inevitable. Eddie feels very guilty and desperately tries to get rid of the immigrants before its too late, but that time had passed. Nobody realises that Eddie has phoned the Immigration Bureau at first, but then Beatrice realises, “Oh, Jesus, Eddie”, Catherine does not want to believe what Eddie has done. When Marco finds out he spits in Eddie’s face, then points at him and accuses him stealing food from his children in front of everyone in the street, now Eddie has lost all respect from everyone, “Lipari and wife exit”, “Louis barely turns, and walks off and exits down right with Mike”, like Alfieri said “you won” have a friend in the world.”
Marco wants revenge for what Eddie has done, because he has his pride to consider and his Italian culture. As “the law is not a friendly thing” he must take the law into his own hands. Even though Alfieri made Marco promise that he “wont touch him” and Alfieri believed him, because Italians are meant to be trustworthy. Marco agreed to the previous statement that Alfieri had said, not the one Alfieri thought, so Marco did not actually agree that he woudn’t ‘touch him’.
Marco thought that Eddie may want to apologise to him, but Eddie suffers from excessive pride, hubris a vital element of a tragedy so he would not apologise, as it would hurt his pride.
When Marco and Rodolfo came back to go to the wedding, Eddie thought that Marco would come back and apologise to him for losing his respect, but he didn’t. A fight brakes out and Eddie “springs a knife into his hand” and Marco uses self-defence to and Eddie stabs himself. This shows that by holding the blade that killed him, he has sealed his own fate and he is responsible for his own doing, but he was only following the law and he died for it. As Eddie is a devout catholic, he hadn’t been given the last rights and hadn’t confessed his sins before he died, so he would go to hell.
However, Eddie Carbone was not a just a possessive uncle with incestuous desires, he was “as good a man as he had to be in a life that was hard and even. He worked on the piers when there was work, he brought home his pay, and he lived.” But now as a result of his hubris he was going to hell. A fitting end to a tragic play.
