Alfieri introduces Eddie Carbone to the audience, “This one’s name was Eddie Carbone”, which suggests that the story that he is going to tell us is from the past or may have already taken place. Eddie is going to be our protagonist. Alfieri introduces us to play and the scene.
From the last part of Alfieri’s first speech we learn that we will witness a murder. When “Alfeiri: walks into darkness”, we know the play has started and we will see every thing that Alfeiri has talked of earlier in his speech. In the first few minutes there is conversation about family honour in Eddie’s household, as he does not want his niece, Catherine to wear short skirts with “clacking high heels”. Her “wavy” walk, her chat with Louis and her plan to get a job, shows his concerns by saying people will not respect her. This also shows that he is caring for her and he also warns her about what troubles she can face when “heads are turn’in like windmills”.
Miller discuses several themes in the play, love being the first one. Most of the characters actions are influenced by love of one type or another. Catherine has a great capacity of love for Eddie as a daughter, and there is absolutely no doubt about her love for Rodolfo. Her love for Rodolfo starts when he and his brother Marco come from Italy. The love grows when Rodolfo and Catherine start to dance, and another incident which makes their love grows is when Rodolfo makes Catherine a new dress.
The opening section of act II makes clear the emotions between Rodolfo and Catherine. They take more than a cousinly interest in one another. They love each other, and are being honest and truthful when they are discussing their future life together. They discuss their feelings and fear, because they love and trust each other. Catherine is so much involved in her relationship with Rodolfo that she even wants to go to Italy and live there forever. She wants to go from Brooklyn because she is afraid of Eddie. Rodolfo is building up her confidence to get rid of the fear of Eddie that she has within herself, when Rodolfo says,
“Why are you so afraid of him?
At the beginning of the play I got the impression of Eddie and Catherine as being father and daughter. Their relationship is friendly at the beginning, but Eddie may have some feelings for Catherine because when they are first introduced, Eddie feels a bit “shy” of Catherine when she comes in front of him in a short dress and the she acts by “taking his arm”. Catherine acts normally and has no feelings for Eddie other than as a daughter.
Their relationship is rather uneasy; Eddie is over-protective and possessive of Catherine, and he does not allow her the freedom of work at the age of eighteen. However, this is resolved when he reluctantly agrees that she can work.
Her maturity still presents a potential threat towards the relationship of uncle and niece. This threat is detected by Eddie’s wife Beatrice when she says, “you want some thing else Eddie, you can never have her”.
Eddie’s relationship with Catherine starts to change when Beatrice’s cousins first move in their house. He knows Rodolfo is the main barrier between him and his niece. He tries to break the barrier by getting involved in their normal life and criticising Rodolfo at every step he takes, “watch your step, submarine, by the rights they oughta throw you back in the water”, is an illustration of his misbehaviour towards Rodolfo.
Eddie uses different techniques to turn Catherine away from Rodolfo, one of which is to make her believe that Rodolfo is attracted because she can be his ticket to American Citizenship. Eddie hopes this will force her to return to her dependence on him. This turns out to be a complete failure because she asks Rodolfo if this is true and he answers her honestly that his falling in love with her has got nothing to do with U.S. citizenship. After this episode Catherine gets even more involved in her relationship with Rodolfo.
Eddie tries to break their relationship between Rodolfo and Catherine when they are alone in the house and he comes in a state of drunkenness and kisses Rodolfo to show Catherine that Rodolfo is homosexual. He then kisses Catherine which reveals his most protected secret that he has denied in words namely, that he likes Catherine. Two successive kisses also suggests they are meant to destroy Catherine and Rodolfo’s union.
Beatrice, Eddie’s wife shows her concern for different people. The first is for Eddie, her husband. She tells him that he is very over protective of Catherine at the beginning of the play when he does not allow Catherine the freedom to work. Beatrice tells Eddie that she is no more, “a little girl”, as she used be and he should stop treating her like a “twelve years old”.
Beatrice feels it is also her duty to warn Catherine of Eddie. Beatrice takes a no-nonsense approach and tells her that she should stop “throwing yourself at Eddie, not to come in your slip, not to sit on the edge of the bath tub when he is shavi’in in his underwear”. Catherine feels ashamed and embarrassed at this stage but Beatrice gives her this advice which she has to follow.
Beatrice is the one who encourages Catherine to get her independence, because she knows her presence is pulling Eddie away from her. She indicates that by saying, “when am I gonna be wife again, Eddie?” He has not made love to her for some time, she knows her rights as a wife; and she’s not prepared to let Eddie ignore these rights because she knows Catherine is the root cause for it.
Beatrice shows love for her cousins too when they first enter U.S. by offering them a place to stay for “as long as you wish”. She shows her love for Rodolfo by allowing him to take Catherine out to the cinemas. She does not tell any one about Marco’s and Rodolfo’s illegal status, unlike her husband.
Marco is motivated by love of his own family in Sicily. The only reason he came to U.S. is to make money, so he can support his family. He knows Beatrice and Eddie are very nice and kind to him and his brother because they are letting him to stay at their house. He feels it is his duty to tell his brother to behave in an appropriate manner towards Eddie and Beatrice.
Marco is stronger than his brother Rodolfo which is evident from the tense drama at the chair lifting contest at end of act I. He shows Eddie that even though they are staying in his house they will not tolerate any kind of insult or be bullied around. Marco has a very strong feeling about his society’s code which Eddie does not realise. Marco knows that betraying him and his brother is something that cannot go unpunished.
When Eddie has betrayed Marco and his brother to the immigration Bureau, Marco thinks what Eddie did to him is very dishonourable and unjust, even though Eddie has not broken any real law. To Marco his Sicilian code of justice and honour is more important than any individual.
Rodolfo’s love for Catherine causes jealously between him and Eddie. He slowly captures Catherine’s attention through his charm, even though he may not be able to speak English properly. Eddie gets his revenge by punching Rodolfo in the face while teaching him how to box. In fact Eddie is giving a warning to Rodolfo that he should stay away form Catherine.
When Rodolfo tries to impress Catherine through his singing, this is abruptly terminated by Eddie by reminding him of their illegal status. He tries to convince Catherine that Rodolfo is homosexual, “after all he cooks, sews, and sings”. He proves this by kissing Rodolfo at the start of act II. When Eddie realises that nothing has worked to get Catherine away from Rodolfo, he knows the only thing left for him to do is to inform the immigration bureau and break their code of justice and honour. He doesn’t only betray the brothers, he also unintentionally betrays the relatives of his neighbours and this ultimately leads to his death by Marco.
Miller discusses family loyalties in the play. This theme is shown by Eddie towards his wife’s cousins Marco and his younger brother Rodolfo. Marco illustrates this theme towards his family in Italy and also towards his brother Rodolfo. Eddie’s neighbours the Liparis illustrate this theme towards their relatives. Beatrice is very loyal to her husband and when he forces her to choose between staying with him or going to the wedding she has no difficulty about deciding to remain with him.
Eddie at the beginning of the play thinks it is an honour to have Beatrice’s cousins staying with him. He seems happy to have them, “Eddie….takes Marco’s bag”. However their relationship is not as friendly as it seems. There is a twist in the plot when, Eddie gets his revenge on Rodolfo by punching him on the face for getting his niece’s attention. Marco feels strongly about this insult caused to his brother and he shows Eddie in the chair lifting contest that he will defend Rodolfo at every point.
Eddie knows the importance of family honour but in the play he destroys it by betraying the brothers by phoning the immigration bureau. He not only destroys his family integrity but also violates the Sicilian code of justice and honour.
This act of betrayal destroys his relationship with his community. Eddie acts in exactly the opposite to what he was saying in the beginning (not to tell any one about their illegal status), “it never comes out of your mouth, who they are or what they’re doin here” but, he commits the unforgivable crime by informing the immigration bureau.
Justice and honour play a significant role in ‘A view from the Bridge’. The idea of justice and law starts from the beginning of the play mentioned by Alfeiri, “….in Sicily where their father came from justice has not been a friendly idea.” Further on Alfeiri tells us in the prologue that these people are not just Italians but Sicilian, so we will associate these people with rough justice. They live their life according their own laws and they believe in direct justice which is considered more affective. In the play we learn we learn from one of the character Marco that “All the law is not written in the book” Even tough this play is not about the Mafia, it has some aspects of it through their Sicilian code of justice and honour.
Alfieri makes clear in the beginning that law is not thought of as a “friendly idea”. He states “we settle for half ”. Meaning Italian immigrants are trying to change their way of thinking. They are trying to adjust to American society by obeying the law of the land. Alfieri “likes it better”; because it is a lesson in restraint that compromise is better than the traditional Sicilian extremes.
Eddies conversation with Alfieri regarding Rodolfo suggests the jealously he has possessed within himself. He sees Rodolfo more as thief stealing his niece, than a relative. Alfieri, as a character tells him that there is more of a sexual relationship, “there is too much love for the daughter, and there is too much love for the niece”. Eddies frustrated response to this statement shows his unwillingness to admit the presence of this motive, “What’re you talk’in about, marry me! I don’t know what the hell you’re talk’ in about!” he is furious when Alfieri says “She can’t marry you, can she?”
He knows that Rodolfo will take away his most valuable possession, “Catherine”, and he can’t allow him to do that, so jealousy makes him inform the immigration bureau, and Alfieri says, “I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end……Pray for him”. This shows inevitability of Eddie’s tragedy, shown to us by Alfieri as a character.
Marco sees the real law being very unfair and unjust. Eddie has not broken any real law by phoning the immigration bureau; in doing so he breaks the unwritten laws of the community but complies with the written law of the land. He acts from one point of view as a concerned parent making a final attempt to save his child from a disastrous marriage; and from another point of view he revenges on the lover of Catherine, as he cannot see his rival possess the women who has rejected him.
Marco says Eddie has killed a family as he will be going back to Sicily and cannot provide for his family. Eddie in this play has become Vinny Bolzano, a character who he was talking about earlier in the play. Marco knows the only way to get justice is to kill Eddie and take away his name, respect and honour from him in the public arena.
At the end of the play, Eddie has been killed; Alfieri talks about Eddie’s character as something that is very uncommon. Alfieri says, “He allowed himself to be wholly known”, suggesting Eddie let the whole world know what type of a character he is, even though what he did was not truly great but he let every one in his community know his true nature. He feels Eddie was honest with himself and “for that I think I will love him more than any of my sensible clients”. Alfieri is saying here that Eddie is not a hypocrite, he is the same from outside as he is from the inside, and he gives him respect for that and feels sorry for him.
At the end of his speech he says, “It is better to settle for the half”, (especially when you are wrong) because all this would not have happened if Eddie had not betrayed the brothers and let Catherine marry Rodolfo; but this would have been “to settle for half”. Instead he went on insisting Marco must “give him back his name”. Miller’s mouthpiece Alfieri wants us to understand from the tragedy of Eddie’s death by looking at the moral weakness of Eddie with pity and fear rather than to see him like an angel or villain. To be a tragic hero Eddie does not have to be in the right, he has to be true to himself.
In ‘A View from the Bridge’ Miller has presented Eddie with passionate love for Catherine, bringing destruction upon himself and misery to people around him. On my first reading, I thought I had nothing in common that would ‘connect’ me with it. When the plot of the play progressed, the story seemed to be convincing enough to have taken place, which aroused my sympathy and I also started to take interest in the highly individual emotions of Eddie, which kept my interest through till the end.
Miller shows Eddie as an unsatisfied dock worker who is trying to keep up with Miller’s title of the play bridging i.e. trying to accommodate the parental feeling towards Catherine which is under threat of spilling over into the sexual desire. This is very powerfully shown in a scene at the beginning of the play act 1, when Eddie shows pleasure, as Catherine lights his cigar. This is an action of warm and innocent affection between niece and uncle. Catherine seems to be genuinely ignorant to what feelings she is arousing in Eddie knowing nothing else just accepts their relationship as normal.
I think this scene is full of sexual meaning showing that Eddie seems to have an underlying sexual desire (consciously or unconsciously). This double meaning is not very clear in the text (because we are reading the play). It might be very obvious on stage especially when an actor playing the part of Eddie could convey the double meaning of it.
I think the Sicilian codes played a major part in the development in the play. They caused the development of almost all if not all of the problems experienced by Eddie Carbone in the end of the play; for e.g. if the Sicilian code had not made him take in his cousins he may not have done or if they had come at least they may not have stayed so long, also if the Sicilian code did not spell out what a man was supposed to do for his wife this may have caused less conflict between Eddie and Rodolfo as Eddie would have had less reasons for him not to be able to look after Catherine and may have been forced into submission, also if they had lived by American laws then he may not have accepted him in the first place therefore if the Sicilian codes had not been in place the whole episode may not have occurred, this shows that Sicilian codes were essential to the development of the play.
I had to get used of reading a play in which Alfieri was both chorus and a character. I found that Alfieri was a convenient mouthpiece for Miller’s views and that the interview between him as a lawyer, and Eddie was an effective way of showing the audience a particular conflict between law and justice. Alfeiri played a significant role by explaning Miller’s opinion because the story line could be perceived differently by each person that read the play. At the end of the play Alfieri as a chorus has a personal reaction to Eddie’s death which brings together his two roles, and for me, this was a convincing way dramatically to conclude “A View from the Bridge”.
