“Near the Navy Yard plenty can happen in a block and a half…”
I think he disapproves of this not because of the neighbourhood, or the fact she should still be at school, but because he thinks Catherine is a baby and that he should look after her. He refuses to see that she is perfectly capable of looking after herself.
Eddie tries to keep his status as ‘the man’ in his household. He is very hostile towards Rodolpho because he thinks he is homosexual. Marco knows Eddie feels this way about a member of his family. This creates aggression from Marco throughout the play and results in a number of conflicts between himself and Eddie in which Marco demonstrates his masculinity over Eddie; this makes Eddie feel threatened and insecure.
He also considers the following things manly, strength:
“Come on kid, put sump’m behind it, you can’t hurt me,”
Authority:
“Just get outta here and don’t lay a finger on her unless you wanna go out feet first.”
He also thinks protection is manly:
“This guy ain’t right Beatrice.”
However his avoidance of his personal feelings also fall into Eddie’s version of masculinity:
“I don’t know, B. I don’t want talk about it.”
Radolpho, the younger of the two cousins, does not live up to Eddies views of masculinity, and due to Radolpho not being able to conform to these views Eddie seems to blank out Radolpho to begin with. We notice this in the early stages of the cousin's arrival in the play. Eddie seems to only be talking to Marco when talking about both cousins. I can see this in the stage directions in the book:
" Eddie - he is coming more and more to address Marco only.”
We then go on to see that Eddie's ignorance towards Radolpho soon turns in to hatred as Catherine and Radolpho take a liking to each other. Eddie doesn't like this because he can not accept the fact that Catherine growing up from a little girl in to a young woman and is starting to attract the attention of other men.
Eddie feels that Rodolfo does not conform to his idea of masculinity because of the way he cooks, cleans, sings and makes dresses. Which at the time of the play would not be considered to be things done by a man.
And towards the end of Act 1 he kind of jokes about it in front of Catherine, Radolpho, Marco and Beatrice, kind of hinting it to everyone in a way:
" I mean like me - I can't cook, I can't sing, I can't make dresses, so I'm on the water front. But if I could cook, if I could cook, if I could make dresses, I wouldn't be out on the water front... ...I would be someplace else. I would be like in a dress store."
To also prove that he is gay Eddie kisses Radolpho in front of Catherine to see if will react the way Eddie hopes he will react:
" Eddie pins his arms, laughing, and suddenly kisses him... ...each waiting for the other's mood."
Marco, who is the elder of the two illegally immigrated cousins, does live up to Eddie's views of masculinity. He is everything that Eddie believes a man should be. The reason he immigrated into the country was to provide for is hungry family back in his home in Sicily. He wants his family to have food on the table just like Eddie does. Marco came to the country because he thought that if he worked and earned money he could send it back home to his wife and kids:
" If I stay there they will never grow up."
Eddie takes a liking to Marco straight away. We can see that he respects him because of what he is hoping to do for his family, he seems very interested in Marco and asks a lot of questions,
" So what're you wanna do, you gonna stay here in this country or you wanna go back? "
And
" Well, you're married, ain't you?"
It then becomes clear that Eddie is losing, or he thinks he is losing, his role of the ‘man’ in the household. Eddie has always believed that he is the dominant person in the family but now that he has met Marco he feels threatened. He feels that Marco is threatening all the respect and pride that Eddie has earned.
Eddie behaves peculiarly when he asks Rodolfo if he can box which leads to a boxing match between Eddie and Rodolfo, which is just supposed to be harmless but when Eddie actually hits Rodolfo then tension builds up, causing a moment of hostility and almost aggression between Eddie and Marco. Marco challenges Eddie to lift a chair by the bottom of the leg. Eddie fails. Marco succeeds and holds the chair above Eddie's head as if he was going to hit him with it. This moment of tension between them shows Marco's hostility towards Eddie and is a warning to Eddie for him to leave Rodolfo alone.
In the final scene at the end of the play we see that Eddie can not take any more and turns both cousins in to the immigration bureau. Marco fills up with rage and anger and shouts:
" He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!"
Eddie becomes offended and demands that he apologizes and demands that he gives his name back,
" He's gonna take that back or I'll kill him! You hear me?"
The play ends with Marco and Eddie in a fight. Eddie has a knife threatening to kill Marco. All Eddie wanted was for Marco to tell the people that what he said wasn't true because that was all that is all it comes down to in the end, pride and respect,
" You lied about me, Marco. Now say it. Come on now, say it!"
There is a link between the three traits, aggression, hostility and manliness. Eddie will get aggressive if people don't conform to his way of thinking, and this will also include hostility and not always to the intended people. Eddie himself struggles with expressing himself in any other way than violence because he is not very educated; this causes internal frustration and causes him to lash out with violence. In contrast with Eddy, Alfiari (the chorus like character, who is similar to that of Henry V's, who speeds up the play) who is educated and a man of the law, reserved and careful. In the final scene, the fight between Eddie and Marco involves hostility and aggression due to manliness, as Eddie wants his "respect" and he wants "his name back". Another quality of manliness: honour. However Eddie betrays Marco and Rodolpho by tipping off the Immigration Bureau:
'I want to report something. Illegal immigrants. Two of them.'
Today hostility is viewed upon as wrong, when "A View From the Bridge" was written, hostility made up part of the day-to-day running of people in this era. Today women are treated as equals and any discrimination is taken incredibly seriously, in the time the play written, women had very few rights and were constantly stereotyped and abused.
In this play women don't play any particular part, accept for objects of affection, arguing points and stereotypical "slaves". They are also victims of male aggression and hostility, Beatrice also believes that the female characters are also responsible for the tragedy that befalls the male characters:
"Whatever happened we all done it, and don't you forget it, Catherine." Women in this era, were forced into these roles, they had few rights and were treated poorly.
Another character in the play, Alfieri, plays a similar part to a chorus, similar to ones in Greek plays, narrating the play and commenting on events; he also plays a part in the play as a lawyer and a family friend. He is essential to the structure of the play as he opens and closes it and at other times moves the action quickly forward.
The language in this play is mostly colloquial. Beatrice and Eddie, who were both never educated very well, use colloquial probably the most. They use short, simple sentences:
" Yiz ever work on the piers of Italy?"
And:
" ...or take a trolley or sump'm?"
Catherine goes to school and is being educated is the most obvious to be the better language speaker but still uses the word " yiz ". Radolpho is not able to speak English very well due to the fact that he is speaking in his second language and struggles sometimes,
" ...the machine, the machine is necessary. "
His sentences are lively and witty and entertaining. Marco seems to be able to speak English better than his brother. His sentences are usually serious and quite intense:
" Too loud. The guests in that hotel are all Englishmen. They don't like too loud. "
Although we read the drama "A view from the bridge" it was initially intended to be performed on the stage this would have made the play more dramatic because the audience would feel like they are a part of it. The setting would cause problems because it is constantly changing so the stage set-up would have to be skilfully done so as little time was wasted as possible changing the set.
If we were to act a small part of the play in groups it would probably help us to understand why Arthur Miller had so many stage directions in the script. It is because every little detail needed to be shown to reveal the authenticity of the play and to give it a feeling of what it was actually like to be there.
As there are so many stage directions, it would be difficult to keep up with all the different stage directions.
The play is a tragedy. Miller was heavily influenced by this tradition of playwriting from Greek tragedy to the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen. His plays also make important social and political comments reflecting Miller’s belief in Communism.
