Beatrice meant a lot at first to Eddie but when he was starting to loose Catherine, Beatrice knew that Eddie is attracted to Catherine in a different way from just family love but loved her in a sexual way; I think Beatrice became jealous of Catherine because Eddie was playing more attention to Catherine and forgot all about her,
I think this challenged Eddies masculinity because he wasn’t performing in bed and controlling his marriage like a masculine man should do.
I think the most dramatic scenes in the play is when Eddies masculinity is challenged and the Sicilian way of life is being betrayed and to me the most dramatic scenes are the chair, the kiss and the finale because in the chair scene Marco challenges his masculinity, in the kiss scene Rodolfo has the girl he wants and in the finale Marco kills him which proves Marco is the stronger male, my conclusion for those scenes is that all of them challenge Eddies masculinity; which m makes me agree with this quote ‘ The most dramatic scenes is when Eddies masculinity is threaten.’
Eddie is the main character and he is a hard working man looking after his niece and wife, he is a long shore man with a Sicilian background man. His wife Beatrice, cousins from Sicily came to stay with them; there names are Rodolfo and Marco. Eddie is a very masculine male trying to achieve the American dream. Eddie loves his niece Catherine but hides his love because it is incest and I think he knows she wouldn’t love him in the way he loves her. Rodolfo and Catherine is a couple but Eddie hates Rodolfo because he is dating Catherine who he secretly loves, Eddie tries to pretend to Catherine that he hates Rodolfo because he is famine ,accuses him of being gay and saying he is not worthy to be a man because he can sing and dance which was very entertaining for Catherine. Eddie is physically attracted to Catherine because he says “With you’re that way you look like a Madonna,” and Madonna is an attractive lady so that quote tells me he takes more then a niece. Eddie goes through a lot of jealousy, anger and hatred in the book he loves his niece.
Marco was a refugee like Rodolfo but he was a very hard working man because he had to send money back to his wife in his country. Marco was trying to prove to Eddie that he is more masculine because in act one “his eyes and jaw, his neck stiff, raised the chair like an weapon over his head and transform what might appeal like a glare of warning into a smile of triumph,” which I personally think that worked because he had made Eddie Frightened of him. Marco had a lot of knowledge of the way of being a very masculine man. I also think that he starting to acknowledge that having a wife and family to look after is a struggle because in act one his says “when you have no wife you have dreams.”
Rodolfo who was very feminine was a big fright to Eddie because he had fallen in love with his niece Catherine which made him very jealous because Eddie had hidden love for his niece which he didn’t understand.
Rodolfo was accused of being gay by Eddie because he could sing, dance and play instruments but this made Catherine (Eddie niece) more attracted to Rodolfo, which hurt Eddie. Eddie always challenged Rodolfo to prove to Catherine that Rodolfo was worthless and not manly enough to look after her and a family but she still loved him and this kilt Eddie. I think Rodolfo didn’t hate Eddie because in act two he says”
Catherine loved Rodolfo and had a lot of respect for Eddie as if was a god because she would just stare at him doing his normal routine like smoking and drinking I think she was fascinated because he was so masculine.
Catherine was stuck in the middle of everything because both Eddie and Rodolfo loved her but Eddie loved her in a sexual way which he covered by acting as if he was a protecting parent and Rodolfo her lover always was challenged because of his feminist’s hobbies. She was a very bright girl and knew what she wanted to do in life
, I think Catherine wouldn’t have loved Eddie in a sexual way because she looked at him as a father figure.
By Stephan Bayen