A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller -An analysis of Eddie Carbone’s character-
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller -An analysis of Eddie Carbone's character-
In "A View from the Bridge", Miller describes a situation in which a man is forced by his emotions to betray himself and the local society, to betray something he believed his whole life. The man in question is Eddie Carbone, a poor and hard-working longshoreman of Sicilian origin. His character is defined both by his society's values on the one hand and by his forceful and emotive nature on the other. The conflicts between these two aspects of Eddie's character ultimately result in his self-destruction.
Eddie lives in a Brooklyn slum with his wife, Beatrice, and his niece, Catherine, who he has brought up as his daughter since the death of his sister. Eddie has an unacknowledged and obsessive love of Catherine who is now an attractive young woman. This hidden love is the "driving force" behind Eddie throughout the play; mixed with jealousy it is the cause of his actions leading to self-destruction. Eddie's wife invites two Sicilian cousins, illegal immigrants, to stay at their home, a fact that must remain hidden from the Immigration authorities. The elder cousin, Marco, is a strong man and is married and Eddie initially gets along very well with him. The younger cousin, Marco's brother Rodolpho, is fair-haired, handsome, unmarried and not so strong. In Eddie's view, Rodolpho is effeminate. Catherine falls in love with Rodolpho and plans to marry him, a situation that eventually causes Eddie through despair and jealousy to denounce both brothers to the Immigration authorities. This "crime" which Eddie commits cannot be forgiven in Sicilian society and the consequence is inevitably Eddie's death at the hands of Marco.
At the beginning of the play, Eddie just seems to be a strict and an overprotective father who wants best for his daughter. He would not let Catherine go out ("Well you kept her a baby, your wouldn't let her go out...") or work because he was afraid that she might meet someone who was not "right" for her ("I broke my back payin' her stenography lessons so she could go out and meet a better class of people"). As the play develops, Eddie fatherly concern for Catherine turns out to be strong but deeply hidden love. Even ...
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At the beginning of the play, Eddie just seems to be a strict and an overprotective father who wants best for his daughter. He would not let Catherine go out ("Well you kept her a baby, your wouldn't let her go out...") or work because he was afraid that she might meet someone who was not "right" for her ("I broke my back payin' her stenography lessons so she could go out and meet a better class of people"). As the play develops, Eddie fatherly concern for Catherine turns out to be strong but deeply hidden love. Even though Eddie is strict on Catherine, they and appear to be very close; Catherine knows how Eddie feels even if he doesn't say anything "I can tell a block away when he's blue in his mind and just wants to talk to somebody quiet and nice.... I can tell when he's hungry or wants a beer before he even says anything. I know when his feet hurt him..."
Eddie and his wife, Beatrice, did not have a healthy relationship for almost three months: "It's almost three months you don't feel good." He does not want to talk to Beatrice about his worries, which imply he does not trust his wife, or he might not even be aware of his problem. Eddie seems to be feeling guilty for his wife unhappiness, because he has not been paying much attention to her; she asks "when am I gonna be a wife again". Eddie tries to blame the "submarines" for their (his) his unrest ("They bother me since they came") but that doesn't seem to be a real reason for their unhappiness because the unrest started before the submarines came. The proof for this is when Beatrice says: "It's almost three months you don't feel good; they're only here a couple of weeks..."
Eddie had a simple and hard life in which he worked in the New York docks and lived in a Brooklyn slum. The play described him moving from place to place looking for work when work was scarce and at times going hungry in order for his family to eat. Miller very much describes him as a character that will do what is "right" and what is "right" is, in Eddie's case, determined by the virtues and attitudes of the Sicilian and Italian environment into which he was born and raised. This environment gave him a conservative attitude towards life, family and in particular the role of men and women. Towards the beginning of the play, Eddie talks with Beatrice and Catherine about the fate of a boy in the neighbourhood who betrayed some relatives to the immigration authorities. Eddie clearly shows his attitudes towards "traitors" of this kind by saying: "You'll never see him no more, a guy do a thing like that?" Sicilian pride and the views of society are very important to Eddie. This is shown throughout the play but most forcefully in the final scene where Eddie demands Marco to apologise to him for "lying" in front of the neighbourhood.
Eddie is not, however, a simple character that is defined entirely by the society that has produced him. He is an emotional man who has a forceful character. Eddie does not acknowledge that his feelings for his niece fall outside the boundaries permitted by his society but rather uses the primitive prejudices of his society to justify his actions which are in fact the result of his feelings. This is shown by Miller in the way in which Eddie attacks Rodolpho. It is clear to the reader that Eddie attacks Rodolpho because he is jealous, but Eddie justifies his attacks, to both himself and to the other characters in the play by questioning Rodolpho's masculinity. This also demonstrates Eddie's lack of understanding of his own feelings. He is the picture of a frustrated and desperate man who is trapped by contradictions in his own character.
It is important to note, that while Eddie is described as a simple, uneducated man he is by no means stupid. In several scenes, Miller shows that Eddie can be witty and some of Eddie's phrases are very descriptive. For example, when Eddie talks to his wife he says "The last year or two I come in the house I don't know what's gonna hit me. It's a shootin' gallery and I'm the pigeon." Eddie's description of the way in which Rodolpho would not fight back also shows his imagination: ".... if you catch a teeny mouse and hold it in your hand, that mouse can give you the right kind of fight. He [Rodolpho] didn't give me the right kind of fight." Eddie, however, is far more confident in his strength than his wit, as is displayed where he tries to put down Rodolpho through a supposed lesson in boxing.
Eddie's character is a complicated combination of primitive Sicilian values, obstinate pride and strong emotions. With the added ingredient of jealousy, this proves to be an explosive and self-destructive combination, which causes Eddie to lose control and betray his principles.
In the last scene of the play, Eddie has totally lost control over himself; he was unable to think rationally, as if he has been blinded by jealousy and hate. He "terrorized" Beatrice (he told her "you walk out of that door to that wedding you ain't comin' back here") and was on the edge to hurt Catherine (Eddie was about to throw a table at her but Rodolpho came in), who once respected and loved him now hated him. She called him a "rat" and told him the he "belongs to the sewers". When Rodolpho apologised Eddie just ignored him, although Rodolpho was the one who stirred things up by wanting to marry Catherine. Eddie now wanted is an apology from Marco, so he could get his name back, who really did not have much to apologise for, as Eddie was the one who betrayed him. Eddie knew that Marco was stronger (Marco showed that to Eddie when he challenged Eddie to lift a chair with one hand) and that if it had come to a fight he would be the one to get hurt. In the end Eddie was killed because Marco was angry and wanted an apology as well.
Eddie, though perhaps to an extent unknowingly, wanted both Catherine and for himself to be true to his Sicilian attitudes and upbringing. This is what leads the narrator, Alfieri to state, "it is better to settle for half" than to be uncompromising like Eddie. Eddie was, in a strange way, true to himself and his contradictory character. He did what the combination of his emotions and attitudes made him do. The reader can either detest Eddie's hypocrisy or admire the way in which Eddie refused to "settle for half". The play is very simple but leaves a powerful impression on the reader. This powerful impression is created by the way, in which Eddie betrays himself.
