With the arrival of two other males, Marco and Rodolpho there is the threat of Eddie’s household and initially both Marco and Rodolpho respect and honour this leadership, realising they are indebted to Eddie for his hospitality and confidentiality. It’s only once Eddie forfeits this confidentiality that he is publicly opposed by Marco and Rodolpho, though the shift in power from Eddie to the other characters is a gradual thing that centres on his obsession with Catherine. Eddie manipulates those around him to respect him and alow to dominate, but when his rule becomes unreasonable those around him find the power to stand up and put them in position of power. When Eddie starts physically harming Rodolpho, Marco out – performs him in a show of strength with the chair lifting confrontation, reminiscent of animal dominance even though it’s Eddie who is showing who chooses to stay acquiescent and could take control anytime he chooses which is what ends up happening.
Physical power is the main dominance – decinding factor amongst the male characters, although the female characters choose to use emotion as their main weapon of manipulation.
The physical manipulation between Eddie is teaching Rodolpho to box (again the chair lifting fiasco), and the final confrontation between Eddie and Marco where Eddie is impaled on his own knife. The male characters are more direct in their assertion of power, shown when Marco takes Eddie’s name and both refuse to submit. There is a fierce struggle for the top position of dominance which is only resolved with Eddie’s death. The women however use a less direct approach. Catherine’s role as alternate wife (and therefore dominant female) comes from her affection towards Eddie. She performs the duties of a wife better than Beatrice and therefore perhaps unknowingly manipulates Eddie into lavishing more love and affection on her than is healthy. When Beatrice confronts Catherine about the unsuitability of her role as wife to Eddie, rather than face a confrontation as it the case with Eddie and Marco, Catherine reassesses her role in relation to Eddie and realises there is truth in what Beatrice is sayingm though this is helped along with the unnecessary exertion of power from Eddie towards both her and Rodolpho when he kisses them both. Eventually Catherine realises what she really is to Eddie and does what she can to be more independent. The position of power has charged by this point and Eddie is clearly at a disadvantage. However he chooses to ignore this and carries on trying to control the others who realise they do not need to listen to him anymore. In one final attempt to manipulate Catherine, Eddie tries to exert his power over her emotions only succeeding in driving her further away.
When Eddie realises he’s losing his seat of power he attempts one last desperate endeavour to crawl his way back up the hierachical ladder. Eddie decides that in order to regain Catherine’s love and respect he must remove Rodolpho from the picture. To do this he must sacrifice his honour. When Eddie reports Marco and Rodolpho to the Immigration Department, it’s as though he is giving up all he once considered sacred in order to remain in the highest position in power. Eddie realises the consequences of his actions, but by this point is too umcompromising in his search for power that he does not seem to think things through clearly. It’s this lack of logical thinking on Eddie’s behalf that actually leads more to harm than good. Once he is uncovered as a traitor, he loses the respect of all those he sought to gain control over with Beatrice being the only possible exception. With this one action Eddie alone achieves all that he sought to prevent and removes all power over others from himself.
By the end of A View from the Bridge, the positions of power have changed quite dramatically. The character of Eddie who was once clearly dominant male has become disrespected by all, the very thing that he feared. If he had not sought such a totalitarian grasp over the emotions of those around him he would have earned more respect than by his method of trying to force his way back up the ranks. However, it ‘s unfair to say that he is the only one who manipulates others. All of the characters in the text struggle to shift the position of power to a more suitable arrangement and each in their own ways. A variety of techniques was used by each of the characters and a variety of results was achieved. A View from the Bridge is a search for power on all sides and allowed us an insight into what impelled the characters to do what they did to achieve that power. It shows us to what extent some will go to dominate, manipulate and influence and also the consequences that will be suffered in order to maintain that tight hold of power.