A view from the bridge by Arthur miller: discuss the extent to which Eddie has incestuous thought towards Catherine in a view

A view from the bridge by Arthur Miller: discuss the extent to which Eddie has incestuous thought towards Catherine in a view from the bridge

The story a view from the bridge is all about incest, incest is when a family member has sexual thoughts about another family member in this case with Eddie thinking of Catherine in a sexual way. This theme manifests itself all the way through a View from the Bridge. A View from the Bridge is all about incest from the opening words of Eddie to Catherine to the death of Eddie on the day of Catherine and rodolpho’s wedding. Eddie and Catherine’s relation ship sets up the exploration of this theme in a View from the Bridge.

The main character of this book is Eddie , Eddie is an Italian American. He is a longshoreman at the docks from Brooklyn bridge, that is obviously still in debt with the Italian mafia, in this area the men stick with the other men and work together at the docks, the women also stick together and clean their house, make themselves new dresses and then cook for the men when they return home from the docks. While the men are at the docks they are all breaking the law, by breaking a crate of something they want and keeping the rest of the contents to the crate, but all the Italians stick to the code of conduct not an official law. nearly all of the Italian families

are keeping immigrants hidden, submarines. Eddie likes to keep the family respectful he also likes look after his family and treats his family very good. but he does not treat Beatrice’s family very good for instance when Beatrice’s fathers house burnt down Eddie made Beatrice’s father sleep on the floor and still complained that she took him in. Eddie tries as hard as he can to keep this code of conduct and to get his family to keep it but in the end he hates rodolpho so much he just cracks and tells the immigration.

Catherine lives with Eddie ...

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Catherine lives with Eddie and Beatrice because her mother died and left Eddie as her legal guardian he is also hr uncle. over time relationships between Eddie and Catherine, for instance in the opening words of the book Catherine says to Eddie "hi Eddie" he is pleased and therefore shy about it this is the first time Eddie is introduced together with Catherine and just from these few moments it shows you how much Eddie is in love with Catherine. it shows that even though he obviously knows her well and sea’s her alot he still gets shy about her saying hi to him which shows he has deep feelings for her deeper than family love.

Eddies relationship with Beatrice is a very straight forward till half through the play when the role starts to change but Eddie just cant see it. Up until rodolpho turns up Eddie has been the bread winner of the family and like his whole family lived to serve him and in charge of the family but when rodolpho turns up he is shown as the weaker party to his whole family which would probably make him feel insecure. Beatrice is really concerned that they hadn’t had sex in long time because Beatrice thinks Eddie is in love with Catherine. Eddie reacts metaphorically saying of course he Is not and that he is disgusted that she could think of something like that. These concerns have arisen because Beatrice can see that he is in love with Catherine and is disgusted by his thoughts.

Eddie’s reaction to any potential rivals is very strange for instance when Rodolpho and Marco turn up Eddie is sure Rodolpho is gay and thinks he is trying to marry Catherine for a citizenship in America. Eddie also tries to discredit Rodolpho to Alfieri by always saying “He is not right” and that he sings, cooks and makes dresses like a girl. He also says the same to Beatrice, but to Catherine he keeps saying that Rodolpho is marrying her for her passport. Eddie teaches Rodolpho to box as if to say “You stay with Catherine and I could kill you with my bare hands no problem”. When Marco shows his strength by lifting a chair backwards over his head and over Eddie’s head, Marco is metaphorically saying to Eddie “Stay away from Rodolpho or you will have me to deal with. But when Eddie throws Rodolpho to the ground and kisses him, he tries to make it look like Rodolpho is gay but just makes himself look gay.

Alfieri’s views are very clear to Eddie. He is telling Eddie it is very easy to see that he is having incestuous thoughts of Catherine and that he should stop interfering with Rodolpho and Catherine and just let it be.

It is easy to see that Eddie has strong incestuous thoughts for Catherine and all through the play, and it is showed at full power and emotion.